# William Cushing *American jurist; original associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1789–1810)* William Cushing (March 1, 1732 – September 13, 1810) was an American lawyer and one of the five original associate justices of the United States Supreme Court.[^1] The [[United States Senate]] confirmed him on September 26, 1789, and he sat on the Court until he died.[^1] Before his federal service he was Massachusetts Chief Justice from 1777 to 1789. During that period, in 1783, the court ruled that slavery could not be reconciled with the new state constitution.[^2] Cushing served on the Supreme Court for 20 years and 11 months, longer than any other inaugural member of the Court.[^1] In January 1796 President George Washington nominated him to be the Court's Chief Justice. The Senate confirmed the nomination, and Cushing declined the appointment.[^1] He was the last American judge to wear a full wig with his court dress.[^1] ## Early life and education Cushing's birthplace was Scituate, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, and his birth date was March 1, 1732.[^3] The Cushing family had settled Hingham in 1638.[^3] His father, John Cushing (1695–1778), was a provincial magistrate who was made an associate justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, the province's high court, in 1747. His grandfather, also named John Cushing (1662–1737/38), had likewise been a superior court judge and had sat on the governor's council.[^3] His mother, Mary Cotton Cushing, was a daughter of Josiah Cotton (1679/80–1756), and the family descended from the 17th-century Puritan theologian Rev. John Cotton.[^3] Josiah Cotton and Richard Fitzgerald, a teacher at a local Latin school, directed Cushing's early schooling.[^3] Cushing completed Harvard College in 1751 and was admitted to the Boston bar in 1755.[^3] He practised briefly in Scituate and then relocated to Pownalborough, which is today Dresden, Maine, and was then within Massachusetts. There he became the first practising attorney in the province's eastern district, as Maine was then called.[^3] He became a barrister in 1762, the first in Maine to hold that standing.[^3] He continued in practice until 1772. In that year the province's [[governor]], Thomas Hutchinson, named him to the Superior Court seat that his father had resigned.[^3] ## Career Soon after Cushing joined the Massachusetts bench, it was revealed that the court's judges were to be paid from crown funds in London rather than through an appropriation by the provincial assembly.[^2] Cushing stated no opinion in the resulting controversy. He refused the crown payment, preferring a provincial appropriation.[^2] The American Revolutionary War began in April 1775. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress held de facto control of the province outside besieged Boston, and it moved to reorganize the courts so that they no longer bore the marks of British sovereignty.[^2] In November 1775 it in effect dissolved the Superior Court and reconstituted it, keeping Cushing alone among the court's justices.[^2] The chief justiceship went first to John Adams, who never sat and resigned in 1776.[^2] In 1777 the provincial congress made Cushing the court's first sitting Chief Justice, and he remained Massachusetts Chief Justice until 1789.[^2] In 1780 he was among the charter members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[^2] ### Massachusetts chief justice In 1783 Cushing presided over a series of cases involving Quock Walker, an enslaved man whose freedom suit relied on the wording of the new state constitution.[^4] In *Commonwealth v. Jennison*, Cushing charged the jury on the doctrine of slavery. He acknowledged that the doctrine "has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly".[^4] The court's 1783 ruling held slavery irreconcilable with the state constitution, and slavery was ended in Massachusetts.[^2] ## Later life and death Cushing died in 1810 in Scituate, the town where he was born.[^5] He was buried there in a small cemetery that is also a state park.[^5] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *William Cushing*, lead section (revision 1374920753, retrieved 2026-10-26) — establishes his dates, his place among the original associate justices, his Senate confirmation date, the length of his tenure, the 1796 nomination as Chief Justice and its declination, and his wig. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cushing [^2]: Wikipedia contributors, *William Cushing*, "Career" section (revision 1374920753, retrieved 2026-10-26) — establishes the judicial-pay controversy, the 1775 reorganization of the court, the Adams appointment, Cushing's 1777–1789 chief justiceship, the 1780 Academy membership and the 1783 ruling on slavery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cushing [^3]: Wikipedia contributors, *William Cushing*, "Early life and education" section (revision 1374920753, retrieved 2026-10-26) — establishes his birth, family, schooling, bar admissions, Maine practice and 1772 appointment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cushing [^4]: Wikipedia contributors, *William Cushing*, "Massachusetts chief justice" subsection (revision 1374920753, retrieved 2026-10-26) — establishes the Quock Walker cases and the text of the jury charge in *Commonwealth v. Jennison*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cushing [^5]: Wikipedia contributors, *William Cushing*, "Later life and death" section (revision 1374920753, retrieved 2026-10-26) — establishes his death in Scituate in 1810 and his burial place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cushing