Call Number:

0740

Repository:

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Extent:

19.2 linear feet (; 50 boxes)

Language:

English

Date:

1733-1876 (inclusive)

Creator:

Yeates, Jasper, 1745-1817.

Abstract:

Jasper Yeates (1745-1817) was a leading lawyer in Lancaster County and associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; the collection contains his notes on trials, evidence, arguments, depositions, and judicial opinions rendered in numerous legal cases. Making up a large portion of the papers is his personal correspondence with noted men such as Edward Burd, Thomas Hartley, Richard Peters, William Tilghman, and others, which deals with political events, public questions, and congressional and administrative affairs. There is also Yeates's personal correspondence with his wife Sarah Yeates. The collection also contains papers of John Yeates that relate chiefly to commerce and shipping between the Middle Atlantic colonies and Barbados, Antigua, and other islands in the West Indies. Other items include Redmond Conyngham letters and essays, Peter Grubb estate papers and accounts, Jasper Yeates Cunningham family papers, the work Chronology of the History of the World, and Yeates family genealogical notes.

Jasper Yeates, the son of John Yeates (1705-1765) and Elizabeth Sidebotham (1704-1763; also spelled Sidebottom), was born on April 17, 1745 in Philadelphia. His grandfather, Jasper Yeates (1670-1720), a native of Yorkshire, came to Pennsylvania in the late seventeenth century and became a successful merchant as well as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania (1691-1711). The elder Jasper Yeates's third son, John, married Elizabeth Sidebotham in 1730, and went on to become a prominent merchant in Barbados and Pennsylvania throughout the 1740s and 1750s. After experiencing financial difficulties he was commissioned comptroller of customs at Poconoke, Maryland, a position he held until his death.

Jasper Yeates earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Philadelphia in 1761, and shortly thereafter he went on to study law. After his admission to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1765, Yeates started his law practice in Lancaster where he became the most prominent lawyer of the county. In 1767 he married Sarah Burd, the daughter of Colonel James Burd and Sarah Shippen, and together they had at least four children, John, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Catherine. Yeates led a distinguished legal career until his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1791, but he also performed many public functions. He was the chairman of the Lancaster Committee of Correspondence in 1775, which communicated with the second Continental Congress. He also served as captain in the Lancaster militia under Colonel Matthias Slough and played a vital role with the organization and equipping of the militia. His militia duties were interrupted the following year, however, when the Continental Congress appointed Yeates to a Commission of Indian Affairs to negotiate a treaty with the Lenape (Delaware) Indians at Fort Pitt. The Commission's efforts resulted in the Treaty of Fort Pitt in 1778, which gave American soldiers the right to travel through Delaware territory, among other things. He wrote a letter to Benjamin Franklin accepting the post on July 6, 1776. In 1787, Yeates, Chief Justice Thomas McKean, and James Wilson served as delegates to the Pennsylvania State Convention which ratified the U. S. Constitution. Following ratification, Yeates became a Federalist, and on August 8, 1794, George Washington appointed him to a commission to negotiate with the participants of the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. The commission produced a treaty titled "Treaty between Com’n & Committee of Insurgents, Sept. 2, 1794," which guaranteed the rebels a pardon.

The only negative mark on Jasper Yeates's legal career was his impeachment by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1803, along with Chief Justice Edward Shippen and Thomas Smith, for charging a man named Thomas Passmore with contempt of court. Yeates and his colleagues were acquitted by the Senate in 1805, however, and Yeates continued to serve until his death in 1817. During his tenure, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined British statutes would remain Pennsylvania law. This work culminated in the publishing of the Digest of Select British Statutes (1807). A collection of his notes on the Supreme Court was published posthumously as Reports of Cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania: with some select cases at Nisi Prius, and in the Circuit Courts (4 volumes, 1817-1818).

The Jasper Yeates papers (1733-1876; bulk 1733-1816) contain information on the business affairs of Yeates and his father John Yeates, as well as their correspondence, which further illuminates their professional careers and family matters. Jasper Yeates's legal papers form the bulk of this collection. His tenure as a lawyer in Lancaster and associate justice of the Supreme Court offers a look into the legal history of Pennsylvania. The collection is divided into three series: Series 1, Business and Financial, which spans from 1740 to 1876, Series 2, Correspondence, spanning from 1733 to 1876, and Series 3, Legal and Miscellaneous, spanning from 1737 to 1831. Despite the divisions of the collections, the subject matter of the series often overlaps, as people and events that appear in Series 1 often appear in Series 2 and 3. Papers in each series are arranged mostly in chronological order.

Series 1 primarily consists of bills, invoices, and receipts concerning Jasper Yeates's clients while he was a lawyer in Lancaster and provides a look into his own personal expenses. This series also contains John Yeates's invoices, bills, and receipts when he was a merchant in Barbados and Pennsylvania. The end of the first series includes minimal material on the business affairs of Jasper Yeates's daughter Catherine Yeates.

Series 2 has a small number of John Yeates's letters from other merchants in the Caribbean which provides a look at commerce with the West Indies. The highlight of this series, however, is its insight into Jasper Yeates's life during the Revolutionary War and the early Republic. It contains correspondence with his wife as well as prominent Pennsylvanians such as Edward Burd, Sarah Yeates's brother and future associate justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as well as James Hamilton, one of the founders of Lancaster. Also included is a rough draft of the Lancaster Committee’s letter to the Pennsylvania Continental Congress, and correspondence concerning the Lancaster militia and the Commission of Indian Affairs. The correspondence and speeches of Yeates's son-in-law Redmond Conyngham and his grandson, Jasper Yeates Conyngham, round out the collection. Other items of interest include the Yeates geneaology, meteorological observations, and a book titled Chronology of the History of the World, from the creation to 1750. Series 3 contains John Yeates papers as a lawyer in Lancaster and an Associate Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Yeates's Supreme Court papers contain his notes on the arguments, evidence, in legal cases as well as the opinions of his colleagues. The end of the collection contains Redmond Conyngham's legal papers and undated materials.

Series I. Business and Financial (1740-1876); 1.8 linear feet

Series 2. Correspondence (1733-1876); 2 linear feet

Series 3. Legal and Miscellaneous (1737-1831); 15.4 linear feet.