West's Encyclopedia of American Law | Baldwin, Henry

Henry Baldwin was a prominent Pennsylvania attorney and politician who later became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served for fourteen years.

Descended from an aristocratic British family dating back to the seventeenth century, Baldwin was born January 14, 1780, in New Haven, Connecticut. He grew up on a farm near New Haven and later moved to the city to attend Yale College. After graduating with honors in 1797, he studied law in Philadelphia with ALEXANDERJ. DALLAS, a noted attorney. Admitted to the bar a short time later, Baldwin originally planned to establish a practice in Ohio, but instead settled in Pittsburgh. He then established a successful law firm with two other young attorneys. By his mid-twenties, Baldwin had established a reputation as a legal scholar, in part because of his thorough and well-researched law briefs. He had also developed an extensive personal law library,

which...