Cushing, William

Cushing, William (1732-1810) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court: William Cushing was born on March 1, 1732, in Scituate, Massachusetts, the son and grandson of superior court judges.. After graduating from Harvard in 1751 and studying law, Cushing became attorney-general of Massachusetts and was appointed judge of probate of Lincoln County, Maine in 1768. In 1772, Cushing was appointed judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, and chief justice of the same court in 1777. During the Revolutionary War, he served as a patriot officer. In 1780, he was made the first chief justice of Massachusetts under the state constitution. The same year, he was one of the founders of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1786, President Washington nominated Judge Cushing to be Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, but Cushing declined. At the 1788 Massachusetts convention to ratify the US Constitution, Cushing was vice-president. The next year, he accepted an appointment as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. On September 13, 1810, Cushing died, in Scituate, Massachusetts, the town of his birth.