Judge Edmund Goff Trowbridge

Historical Character – sat on the judicial Council during the Boston Massacre.

• Judge Edmund Goff Trowbridge
  • Born: 1709, Newton, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts
    Died:Apr. 2, 1793, Massachusetts
  • Judge appointed by Shirley as Attorney General in 1749
  • Quotes: President Adams, in a sketch of the life of Jonatlian Sewall, has this incidental
  • notice of Judge Trowbridge : “He commanded the practice in Middlesex,
  • Worcester and several other counties, and he had power to crush, by his frown
  • or his nod, any young lawyer in his county.” Chancellor Kent represents him
  • as “the oracle of the common law.” Mr. Knapp remarks, that “Trowbridge had
  • been distinguished not only as a profound lawyer and an able advocate, but as
  • a zealous law officer of the government, but when he saw the people rise in
  • hostility, liis courage forsook him, and he fled from the confusion around him,
  • and tried to shut his eyes to what was going on, or to keep the din of anns from
  • disturbing his lucubrations, and that he, who had once instructed Parsons, and
  • possessed a mind so discriminating and profound, could hardly, in the latter part
  • of his life, comprehend his own legal decisions made in the strength of
  • intellectual power.”
  • Born in Newton
  • Resigned in 1772
  • Presided over Boston Massacre
  • Appointed Justice of Superior Court in 1767
  • Loyalist
  • Adopted Mother: Mary Goffe
  • Adopted Father: Col. Edmund Goffe
  • Graduated from Harvard in 1728: Law
  • Consorted with Hutchinson and Bernard
  • Seen as Kind and maintained personal relationships
  • Retired to Byfield in 1772
  • Master Horseman and Fencer
  • Trowbridge.—Deacon William Trowbridge (281) was a second cousin of Chief Justice Edmund Trowbridge, not nephew.