An organization to which I belong, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (whose “chief business is to publish documents related to the early history of Massachusetts”) has just made freely available to the public all eighty-seven volumes of its publications. These can either be downloaded or consulted through its website (which is fully searchable).That Law in Colonial Massachusetts volume had an all-star line up. See after the jump:
There is much here to interest readers of the Legal History Blog, including:
Volume 2 (1913): Massachusetts Royal Commissions 1681-1774;
Volumes 29 and 30 (1933): Records of the Suffolk County Court 1671-1680;
Volume 62 (1984): Law in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1800; and
Volumes 74-78, 85 (2005-09, 2014): Portrait of a Patriot: The Major Political and Legal Papers of Josiah Quincy Junior
Part I: Conference Papers
Thomas Lechford and the Earliest Lawyering in Massachusetts, 1638–1641
Thomas G. Barnes
Lay Judges: Magistrates and Justices in Early Massachusetts
George L. Haskins
Nathaniel Byfield, 1653–1733
Barbara A. Black
John Clark, Esq., Justice of the Peace, 1667–1728
Russell K. Osgood
The Transformation of the Law of Poverty in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts
Douglas Lamar Jones
Criminal Practice in Provincial Massachusetts
David H. Flaherty
Legal Literature in Colonial Massachusetts
Morris L. Cohen
Law and Authority to the Eastward: Maine Courts, Magistrates, and Lawyers, 1690–1730
Neal W. Allen, Jr.
Massachusetts Lawyers on the Eve of the American Revolution: The State of the Profession
Charles R. McKirdy
Justinian in Braintree: John Adams, Civilian Learning, and Legal Elitism, 1758–1775
Daniel R. Coquillette
The American Revolution and the Emergence of Modern Doctrines of Federalism and Conflict of Laws
William E. Nelson
Part II: Articles on Sources
“Immortality brought to Light”: An Overview of Massachusetts Colonial Court Records
Robert J. Brink
Court Records as Sources for Historical Writing
William E. Nelson
A Guide to the Court Records of Early Massachusetts
Michael S. Hindus
A “magistracy fit and necessary”: A Guide to the Massachusetts Court System
Catherine S. Menand
Part III: Sources for Study
Sources for the Study of Law in Colonial Massachusetts at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts
Kathleen A. Major
Sources for the Study of Law in Colonial Massachusetts at the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts
Caroline Preston
Sources for the Study of Law in Colonial Massachusetts at the Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Edith G. Henderson
Sources for the Study of Law in Colonial Massachusetts at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts
John D. Cushing
