1803-1878
Augustus Cincinnatus Hand served in 1855. Born in Shoreham, Vt., Sep. 4, 1803, attended Litchfield Law School. Served as Essex County surrogate (1831-1839). State senator 1845-1848. State supreme court justice, 1848-1855. Delegate, National Democratic Convention, 1868. Father of Samuel Hand (1833-1886), who served on New York Court of Appeals 1878, and grandfather of Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961). Representative to Congress (Democrat), 1839-1841. Died, Elizabethtown, N.Y., Mar. 8, 1878. Internment at Riverside Cemetery. Portrait in Essex County Court (see The Record-Post, Ausable Forks, N.Y., Aug. 15, 1946.) Judge Hand was primarily responsible for introducing the provision in the New York constitution of 1846 for the election, rather than the appointment of judges. The Hand family papers are in the Cornell University library, Division of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections; http://bioguide.congress.gov; see also, Samuel Hand, in main biographical section of this book.
This biography appears in The Judges of the New York Court of Appeals: A Biographical History, ed. Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007). It has not been updated since publication.