John Bouvier
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox scientist John Bouvier (1787Template:SndNovemberTemplate:Nbsp18, 1851) was a French-American jurist and legal lexicographer known for his legal writings, particularly his Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union (1839). It is believed to be the first legal dictionary to be based on American law, and is still in publication.<ref name="Buhalo">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It has been frequently revised and republished, and was retitled Bouvier's Law Dictionary in 1897. Bouvier also published The Institutes of American Law (1851) and an edition of Matthew Bacon's Abridgment of the Law.<ref name="ALSR"/> Women's rights and suffrage advocates Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton cited Bouvier for contributing to passage in Pennsylvania of the Married Woman's Property Act of 1848; suffragist Alice Paul cited him also for his commitment to expanding women's property rights.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Life
John Bouvier was born in 1787 in Codognan, France, in the department du Gard, to Jean Bouvier (1760–1803) and Marie Benezet (1760–1823). They were members of the Quakers.<ref name="OAC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> John Bouvier was educated in Nimes.<ref name="Ripley">Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1802, Jean and Marie Bouvier, John Bouvier, and his brother Daniel emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia.<ref name="Ripley"/> Bouvier's father died within a year of yellow fever,<ref name="Simpson"/> and his mother later returned to France.<ref name="OAC"/> John Bouvier was apprenticed to age 21 to a Philadelphia Quaker, Benjamin Johnson,<ref name="OAC"/> a printer and bookseller who had known the family while traveling in France.<ref name="Simpson"/>
In 1808, John Bouvier began a printing business on Cypress Alley<ref name="Simpson"/> in west Philadelphia.<ref name="Review"/> In 1810, he married Elizabeth Widdifield (1789–1870), by whom he had one daughter, astronomical writer and cookbook author Hannah Mary Bouvier Peterson (1811–1870).<ref name="Ripley"/> Bouvier became a citizen of the United States in 1812.<ref name="Review"/>
By 1814, Bouvier was living in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where on Wednesday, November 9, 1814, he published the first issue of The American Telegraph. In the weekly newspaper, he resolved to "discountenance factions and factious men" while following an editor's duty of "exposure and support of the truth". In 1818, Bouvier moved to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where he joined with another periodical to publish The Genius of Liberty and American Telegraph. He continued to be involved in its publication until July 18, 1820.<ref name="Review"/>
Legal career
While active as a printer and publisher, Bouvier began to study law,<ref name="Review"/> under the tutelage of Andrew Stewart.<ref name="Simpson">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Buhalo"/> He was admitted to the bar in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1818.<ref name="ALSR"/><ref name="Ripley"/> In 1822, he was admitted to serve as an attorney in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.<ref name="ALSR"/> In 1823, he moved back to Philadelphia.<ref name="Review"/> Bouvier was appointed Recorder of the City of Philadelphia in 1836, by Governor Joseph Ritner,<ref name="Review"/> and became an associate justice of the court of criminal sessions of Philadelphia in 1838.<ref name="ALSR">Template:Cite journal</ref>
He was best known, however, for his legal writings.<ref name="Robinson">Template:Cite book</ref> Having himself experienced the difficulty of studying treatises based on British laws that no longer applied to the United States, Bouvier wrote his own American law dictionary, Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union (1839).<ref name="ALSR"/><ref name="Ripley"/> He hoped that being "written entirely anew, and calculated to remedy those defects, [it] would be useful to the profession".<ref name="Buhalo"/> It is believed to be the first legal dictionary to be based on American law.<ref name="Buhalo"/> It was well received by bibliographer Samuel Austin Allibone<ref name="Review">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and by other jurists including Chancellor James Kent of the New York Supreme Court and Justice Joseph Story of the United States Supreme Court.<ref name="ALSR"/> Bouvier himself revised and published new editions in 1843 and 1848. After his death, it continued to be updated and published, and was retitled Bouvier's Law Dictionary by Francis Rawle in 1897.<ref name="ALSR"/> Bouvier also published an edition of Matthew Bacon's Abridgment of the Law (10 volumes, 1842–1846), and a compendium of American law entitled The Institutes of American Law (4 volumes, 1851)<ref name="Ripley"/> that outlined legal principles such as bailment, contracts, and property.<ref name="Buhalo"/>
Bouvier died on November 18, 1851, a week after being "stricken with apoplexy" while working at his office.<ref name="Simpson"/> He is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.<ref name="Buhalo"/>