Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (February 21, 1816 – January 31, 1895) was an influential American politician and lawyer from Massachusetts.

Early life

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard University in 1835 and became a lawyer. Beginning in 1840 he practiced in Concord and Boston, Massachusetts. That same year he married Caroline Downes Brooks (1820-1892), of Concord.

Political and legal career

In 1846 Hoar was elected to the Massachusetts Senate as an anti-slavery Whig. He was a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas inBoston from 1849 until 1855 and then an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1859 to 1869.

He was appointed 31^st Attorney General of the United States by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869 and served for a little over a year. The US Department of Justice was created during his term. During the same period, he was nominated by Grant to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court but was not confirmed by the United States Senate.

He was one of five members of a commission on Civil War claims against England. The commission's work led to the signing of the Treaty of Washington in 1871.

He was an Alabama Claims commissioner in 1871 and was elected as a Republican to the 43rd Congress (1873–75). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1874 and returned to practicing law. He chaired the 1875 U.S. Centennial celebration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, held in Concord and attended by many leading individuals of the day, including President Grant.

He served on the board of overseers of Harvard University from 1868 through 1882 and died in Concord in 1895. He is interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

Hoar family relations

His brother was influential U.S. Congressman and Senator for Massachusetts, George Frisbie Hoar. His father was influential lawyer and politician Samuel Hoar (1778 - 1856). Through his mother, Sarah Sherman, he was the grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman and Rebecca Minot Prescott. His children include Sherman Hoar (1860 - 1898) and Samuel Hoar (1845-1904).

• Hoar's first cousin Roger Sherman Baldwin was Governor of Connecticut and a US Senator.
• Another first cousin William Maxwell Evarts was US Secretary of State, US Attorney General immediately preceding Hoar, and a US Senator.

See also

• Baldwin, Hoar & Sherman family
• Unsuccessful nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States

Notes

References

• "HOAR, Ebenezer Rockwood, (1816 - 1895)"
• Butler, Benjamin Franklin. Letter of General Benj. F. Butler, to Hon. E. R. Hoar . [Lowell?, Mass.]: N.p., 1876.
• Cox, Jacob Dolson. How Judge Hoar Ceased to be Attorney General. Atlantic Monthly July 1895, p 162-173. (Available online: Making of America. Cornell University Library)
• Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood. Address at the laying of the corner stone of the Memorial Hall . Boston: Tolman & White, printers, 1870.
• Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood. Address in the old Concord Meeting House, April 19, 1894 . Boston: Beacon Press, T. Todd, printer, 1894.
• Hoar, George Frisbie. The charge against President Grant and Attorney General Hoar of packing the Supreme Court of the United States . Worcester, Mass.: Press of C. Hamilton, [1896?]
• Massachusetts. Bar. Tributes to the Bar and of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth to the memory of Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar. Cambridge, Mass.: J. Wilson and Son, University Press, 1895.
• Storey, Moorfield, and Edward W. Emerson. Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar: A Memoir. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1911.

External links

• Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography: The Hoar Family
• Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts: Office of Reporter of Decisions (1804–Present) 163 Mass. 597 (1895) Ebenezer R. Hoar Memorial
• Ebenezer Hoar Papers: University of Michigan
• Sherman Genealogy Including Families of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, England By Thomas Townsend Sherman
• Hoar-Baldwin-Foster-Sherman family of Massachusetts at Political Graveyard