Henry Toulmin (1766 - 1823)

Born 4 Jul 1766 in Taunton, Somerset, England

Ancestors

Husband of Ann (Tremlett) Toulmin — married 11 Sep 1787 in Totnes, Devon. England

Husband of Martha (Johnson) Toulmin — married about 1812 in United States

Descendants

Died 11 Nov 1823 at age 57 in Fort Stoddert, Mobile, Alabama, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Bob Tremlett [send private message]

Biography

Judge Harry Toulmin served for Mississippi Territory in the War of 1812
Service started:
Unit(s):
Service ended:

Harry Toulmin was born on April 7, 1766, at Taunton, England, to Joshua Toulmin, a Unitarian minister, and Jane Toulmin, who kept a bookstore.

Toulmin decided to move to the United States after a mob burned, scientist and clergyman Joseph Priestley's house in 1791 and a burning effigy of radical philosopher Thomas Paine was tossed onto his family's doorstep.

Arriving in Virginia in 1793 with his family, Toulmin secured letters of recommendation from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson before traveling to the recently admitted state of Kentucky. In February 1794, Toulmin was elected president of Transylvania Seminary in Lexington (present-day Transylvania University). Toulmin resigned in April 1796 and was soon appointed Kentucky's secretary of state.

Toulmin, along with attorney James Blair, produced the three-volume Review of the Criminal Law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky (1804-1806), his first steps as a legal scholar.

After Jefferson was elected president, he appointed Toulmin judge of the Mississippi Territory in 1804, in recognition of his political support. By the summer of 1805, Toulmin had brought his family to Fort Stoddert, an American military post in the Mississippi Territory just north of the border between the United States and Spanish West Florida.

In 1806, he published the Clerk's Magazine and American Conveyancer's Assistant, which 286 forms patterned on those used in England and in several states. Toulmin believed that Americans needed legal guides because property changed hands so rapidly in the United States that many citizens ended up in lawsuits to determine ownership. In 1807, Toulmin published a compilation of the Mississippi Territory's laws. Toulmin's activities also included operating a mail route and presiding over public functions.

Many white settlers viewed their Spanish neighbors with open hostility, and adventurers sought to stir up American resentment against the Spanish. One such adventurer, former Vice President Aaron Burr, was arrested for allegedly fomenting a revolution along the western frontier of the United States on a warrant issued by Toulmin; he was confined briefly at Ft. Stoddert in 1807. Another was Reuben Kemper, an agent for the Baton Rouge "Convention," a group that had overthrown Spanish rule in the Florida parishes of the future state of Louisiana. Toulmin, acting on behalf of the federal government, which feared hostilities with Spain, had Kemper arrested in 1810 for mounting an unsuccessful expedition against Mobile, which was in Spanish hands at the time. In the aftermath, a Baldwin County grand jury charged Toulmin with supporting Spain, but he was cleared of these charges in May 1812 by a congressional investigation. He continued to play an active role in territorial affairs, reporting to federal officials in Washington on events of the Creek War. - ^[1]

Works by Harry Toulmin

• The Western Country in 1793: Reports on Kentucky and Virginia (1793)

A Review of the Criminal Law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky (with James Blair, 1804-1806)

• The Clerk's Magazine and American Conveyancer's Assistant: Being a Collection Adopted to the United States, of the Most Approved Precedents of Affidavits, Agreements and Covenants [etc.] (1806)
• A Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama: Containing the Statutes and Resolutions in Force at the End of the General Assembly in January, 1823: To Which Is Added an Appendix (1823)

Additional Resources

• Davis, William C. The Rogue Republic: How Would-be Patriots Waged the Shortest Revolution in American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
• McMillan, Malcolm Cook. Constitutional Development in Alabama, 1798 1901: A Study in Politics, the Negro, and Sectionalism. Spartanburg, S.C. : Reprint Co., 1978 [c1955].
• Pruitt, Paul M., Jr. Taming Alabama: Lawyers and Reformers, 1804-1929. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010.
• Toulmin, Harry. The Western Country in 1793: Reports on Kentucky and Virginia. Edited by Marion Tinling and Goodfrey Davis. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1948.
• The Search for the Lost Ghost Town of Judge Harry Toulmin
• - See more at: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3108#sthash.edt27cxR.dpuf

Will

Will of Harry Toulmin. Washington Co., AL, WB B, pp. 4-9, written 18 Sep 1823, proved 16 Feb 1824. Digital image at Ancestry.com - https://tinyurl.com/4ppywaf6

wife Martha Toulmin
brother John B. Toulmin
my children
my little boy Harry being young
grandson Henry Toulmin Gaines (under age)
He mentions lands in Kentucky.
He wants his wife to do anything she can for grandson H. T. Gaines (“though not related to him”) “for his Father being in the Military Line is of course unsettled”
my son Theophilus
either of my daughters
The property which will fall to my family on the death of my wife and in which she has only a life estate I give and bequeath to my Brother John as trustee as aforesaid.
my daughter Hannah L Wilkinson now Chamberlain - a tract of 200 acres in Browns Bottom near Frankfort. The land formerly belonged in name to General James Wilkinson But I bought it at Public sale for the taxes due on it from General Wilkinson … He [Harry Toulmin] apparently gave 1/3 of the land to Mr. Humphrey Marshall my attorney for his services.
son Theophilus - 200 acres of Green River land in Kentucky in consideration of a present made to me by the Revd Theophilus Lindsy on account of his being called after him.
the children of Ebeneza Tipping who lives in the North of England as I am told - 200 acres of the same land as a compensation for about one hundred near Frankport (sic) which their father held in his life time in possession…
my beloved son deceased Joshua Toulmin - his cattle will of course fall in equal shares to my sons & daughters whether his whole or half sister & brothers & H T Gaines such is the law.
Daniel Gerrard in Kentucky
Wit: Geo. W. Myers, Wm A. Armstrong, Samuel Fresbie

Sources

1. ↑ http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3108#sthash.edt27cxR.dpuf

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Toulmin_(Unitarian_minister)
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38534171/harry-toulmin