Finding aid for the Calvin Pease Papers

Biography of Calvin Pease

Calvin Pease (1776-1839), although perhaps not as well known as his brother Seth Pease, one of the surveyors with the Moses Cleaveland expedition, nonetheless pursued a career worthy of interest on its own merits. In one respect, Calvin Pease's life is the more significant of the two for historians of northeast Ohio, for unlike Seth Pease, who eventually returned to Connecticut, Calvin Pease remained in the Western Reserve from the time of his arrival in 1800 until his death in 1839. In the course of these forty years, he became a well-known figure in Ohio's first courtrooms as both a lawyer and judge, eventually sitting on the bench of the Ohio state supreme court.

Calvin Pease was born in Suffield, Connecticut, on September 9, 1776. There is some question as to whether or not he attended college, but it is known that he studied law with Gideon Granger, who was to become postmaster-general of the United States under President Jefferson. Pease's association with Granger, who, incidentally, married Pease's sister, was to last throughout a lifetime. In 1798 Pease was admitted to the Connecticut bar and began practice in New Hartford. In 1800 he migrated west to the Western Reserve and settled in Warren, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar and in the same year was appointed the first clerk of the court of quarter sessions, which position he held until 1803. Now twenty-six years of age, he was elected president-judge of the court of common pleas of the third circuit by the legislature. He continued in this capacity for seven years, resigning in 1810 to resume the practice of law. Pease served as an agent in numerous financial transactions contemporaneously with his various other pursuits throughout his adult life, and collected taxes between 1801 and 1819, primarily in Trumbull County.

In 1812 he began a term in the Ohio legislature as a state senator. Also beginning at this time, he served for three years as the official agent for the postmaster-general, Granger, and oversaw the operations of the postal service in the northeastern Ohio region. In 1816, Pease was elevated to the bench of the Ohio Supreme Court, where he sat for two seven-year terms. At one point, he and another justice, George Tod, had impeachment proceedings unsuccessfully brought against them in the state senate. The charges resulted from the Supreme Court's reversal of a lower court decision, on the grounds that laws enacted by the legislature were invalid when in conflict with the state constitution.

Pease retired from the judiciary in 1830 to again resume private practice. He was elected to the state legislature from Trumbull County in the following year, serving one term and then declining re-election. He was a delegate to the canal convention which met at Warren, Ohio, in November 1833 for the purpose of considering the construction of a canal to connect the already extant Ohio and Pennsylvania Canals, and was appointed to the convention's secretary. Pease continued the private practice of law until his death at Warren on September 17, 1839.

During his forty years in the Western Reserve, Pease had a number of occupations, some of which he pursued simultaneously, and some of which he abandoned after a certain number of years only to resume at a later time. His personal accounts, in which purchases of large quantities of tea, silk, and brandy are recorded, present a picture of needs more than amply satisfied, especially as seen against the rather grim background of widespread scarcity in the Western Reserve in its early years. Though reputed in his lifetime as a great wit and practical joker, his own sense of the dignity and importance of his station was also impressed upon contemporary observers, and it is evident that he lived in a manner commensurate with this sense.

View the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Seth Pease (brother of Calvin Pease)

Scope and Content

The Calvin Pease Papers, 1798-1841, consist of correspondence; personal papers including land records, tax records, bank notes and accounts; business papers including bills, receipts, agreements, and deeds; field notes and land records; and legal documents from the courts.

This collection will be useful to researchers studying the early history of the Western Reserve, Trumbull County, Ohio, and Warren, Ohio.

Those interested in legal cases involving Simon Perkins, Gideon Granger, and the heirs of Samuel Mather, Jr. will find these papers useful. Those interested in the legal cases involving Quintus F. Atkins, J. R. Giddings, Ashael Adams, Elisha Whiting, and the Oliver Phelps estate will find this collection useful. Also of interest are the records of the Granger holdings in the Western Reserve, a list of the early stockholders of the Western Reserve Bank, and the record of the proceedings of the Ohio-Pennsylvania canal convention.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 827 Calvin Pease Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Gift of Thomas and Charles P. Kennedy in 1927, and others.

Processing Information

Processed by Diane L. Ewart in 1976.

Detailed Description of The Collection