1806-1881
William W. Campbell served in 1865. Born in Cherry Valley, Otsego County, Jun. 10, 1806. Union College graduate, 1827. Studied under Chancellor James Kent. Representative in Congress (American Party), 1845-1847; justice, superior court of New York City, 1849-1855; state supreme court justice, sixth judicial district, 1857-1865. He was the first judge who held, under the statute enlarging the legal rights of married women, that a man could convey real estate directly to his wife without the intervention of a trustee. Author of several historical and biographical works: “Annals of Tryon County, or the Border Warfare of New York” (1831, republished in 1849 and 1880), “Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton” (1849), “Memoirs of Mrs. Grant, Missionary to Persia” (1840), and “Sketches of Robin Hood and Captain Kidd” (1853). Died in Cherry Valley, Sep. 7, 1881; interment in Cherry Valley Cemetery. Biography in 1 McAdam, History of the Bench and Bar of New York, New York History Co. (1897), p. 278.
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.