May 27

May 27 Vermont's First Chief Justice...and First Senator - Moses Robinson

Yesterday, I wrote about Thomas Chittenden who was the Chief Executive of Vermont for the first twenty years of its existence.

This is not quite true, as Moses Robinson served as President for one year of Vermont’s independence. Chittenden served the other nineteen.

Robinson is better known as the first Chief Justice of Vermont’s Supreme Court, though he had many other important contributions to that State’s Founding.

Moses Robinson

As a young man, Moses Robinson moved to Vermont.

At the time, Vermont was still claimed by both New York and New Hampshire. Moses’ father, Samuel (a founder of Bennington), went to England in an effort to settle this dispute but unfortunately passed away during the trip.

Moses became the patriarch of his family and, despite being a farmer and land speculator, would become one of Vermont’s most important lawmakers.

Chief Justice

As the Revolutionary War broke out, Robinson and his three brothers joined the Green Mountain Boys.

Shortly thereafter, Vermont, hoping to become its own State, famously declared its independence and spent fourteen years as an independent nation.

Moses, despite no experience as a lawyer, was chosen as the short-lived country's first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court...a position he held through 1785.