Cranch, Judge William

From GWUEncyc

Faculty

The following was written in 1957:

A recent inquiry led to University records showing that an appointment to a government job by President John Adams brought together in Washington three students whose personal lives must have touched the development of literature in the United States. The inquiry was from Mr. Jay Leyda of Amherst College, now engaged in research at the Folger Shakespeare Library on the Dickinson papers.

The appointee was the father of thirteen children, the Hon. William Cranch of Boston, who was named Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. In a University safe, a huge volume of handwritten minutes shows that on February 3, 1826, the Board of Trustees of Columbian College (now The George Washington University) turned to Federal officialdom to elect Judge Cranch the first Professor of Law of the College. He and William Thomas Carroll, who was elected "the Second Professor” was "requested to prepare a system for the operation of that department (Law), and report the same to this Board." Although the University Law School, now the oldest in the District of Columbia, was not organized until mid-century, Judge Cranch and Mr. Carroll continued in their capacity for a year or two.

On September 10, 1828, the judge's youngest son, Christopher, was enrolled. He received the Bachelor of Arts in 1831. Christopher Cranch has been described as a painter, critic, poet, and Unitarian minister. He received the Doctor of Divinity at Harvard University and preached in numerous cities. He gained some note by illustrating with comic drawings a volume of Emerson's Essays, and Emerson published several of Cranch's poems in the Dial. Christopher Cranch's monumental achievement was a translation of Virgil's Aeneid, but he also was known for writing Jenny Lind's "Farewell to America." He spent much of his later life in Rome, Florence, Paris, and New York, as a landscape painter. Perhaps it is pertinent to note also that he had dark, curly hair, delicately beautiful features, and a fine baritone voice; and that he played several instruments.

Christopher Cranch had a sister, Abbie Adams, who was married in 1837 to William Greenleaf Eliot, grandfather of the contemporary poet, T. S. Eliot.

William Greenleaf Eliot received the Bachelor of Arts from Columbian College in 1829. As founder and Chancellor of Washington University in Louis, he became known as a great educational leader. He was an early president of the public school board of St. Louis. Like Christopher Cranch, he proceeded from Columbian College to Harvard divinity school and served as a Unitarian minister. He established the first Unitarian Society west of the Mississippi River.

His brother, Thomas Dawes Eliot, figured more prominently in University records as a student leader. He received the Bachelor of Arts in 1825 and the Master of Arts in 1829. Thomas Dawes Eliot was a member of the Enosinian Society, college forensic group, and spoke at the University's first Commencement. This occasion "in Dr. Laurie's church" was attended by President Monroe, General Lafayette, the Vice President, a number of Cabinet officers and Members of Congress, and "a collection of female worth, of youth and beauty, which would reflect honor on any assembly."

Before this audience, young Thomas Dawes Eliot presented what a newspaper reporter called "a chaste composition." It was the salutatory address in Latin and an English oration on "the causes of the paucity of splendid productions of American genius in poetry, sculpture, and painting."

Eliot was listed as a member of the Enosinian committee which planned a program of Fourth of July orations. He was doubtless present when the groups waited on General Lafayette, December 13, 1824, and were permitted to enroll both the General and his son as honorary Enosinians.

Thomas Dawes Eliot is said to have read law with his uncle, William Cranch, in Washington, and to have continued law studies in New Bedford. He later became a Member of Congress and was a close friend of Edward Dickinson. The two shared lodgings in May 1854, when one of the founding meetings of the Republican Party was held in their rooms. Although Eliot became active in the new party and Dickinson held to the Whigs, the friendship continued. Thomas Dawes Eliot was from time to time mentioned in the correspondence between Edward and his daughter, Emily. This was the same Emily whose poetry later became the major claim to posterity of the then prominent Dickinson men.

There is no question that Judge Cranch's Federal appointment brought his children to Washington where Christopher shared with Thomas and William Eliot a curriculum requiring study of Homer's Iliad, calculus, astronomy, Stewart's Philosophy of Mind, Paley's Evidences, Butler's Analogy, and Vattel's Law of Nations. Students then were required to attend divine services. Merit books were kept by the faculty as regards their conduct. The Board of Trustees stated that ten dollars a year would "be quite enough as ought, in any case, to be allowed for pocket money." Those attending the College came from 21 of the 24, states and the District of Columbia and 2 of the 7 professors had "visited Europe.”

See also: Eliot, Thomas Dawes

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: GW University Historical Photographs Collection
Author or Source: GWU Federalist Magazine, September 1957, by Margaret Davis
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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