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Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 5. 4 0 Browse Search
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing) 2 0 Browse Search
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Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 5., Lawyers of Medford. (search)
Correction, the stocks and the schools. Beside the meeting-house was the whipping post; in the market-place was the stocks. The dealing out of justice was rough and substantial, though direct and effective. When we remember the fate of Thomas Lechford, who seems to have been the first lawyer in Massachusetts, it is with a feeling of trepidation that we seek for his successors for many years after. I am kept, wrote Lechford, from the sacrament, and all places of preferment in the CommonLechford, from the sacrament, and all places of preferment in the Commonwealth, and forced to get my living by writing petty things, which scarce finds me bread, and therefore I sometimes look to planting corn, but have not yet here an house of my own to put my head in or any stock going. It was not until the last quarter of the eighteenth century that law as a profession offered any inducement to men of learning and ability and that the dominant prejudice was overcome. About 1768 there were about twenty-five lawyers in Massachusetts; they were clustered at the