Draft:Nathaniel Ropes

Nathaniel Ropes (c. 1726 – March 18, 1774) was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1772 to 1774. He was appointed by Governor Thomas Hutchinson.

Ropes graduated Harvard University in 1745 with a degree in law and started out as a lawyer. He was a representative of Salem in the colonial legislature in 1760 and 1761, and served on the Governor’s Council from 1762 to 1768. He was also a judge on the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and a judge of probate until 1772, when he was appointed as a justice on the Superior Court of Judicature. Ropes was soon brought into controversy over how judges were paid at the time. Although he was acquainted with patriots such as John Adams, an issue remained where he still held loyalist views. Just before or during the Revolutionary War a mob is said to have raged outside of the house to protest his loyalist ties. In one of the traditional narratives, this event takes place in March 1774 when Ropes was on his deathbed with smallpox. The mob was supposedly a contributing factor as he died the following day.

"FEB. 5, 1766 to Jan 15, 1772. NATHANIEL ROPES. 6TH JUDGE. Nathaniel Ropes, the only child of Nathaniel and Abigail (Pickman) Ropes, and the fourth in lineal descent from George Ropes, a merchant who immigrated to this country prior to 1637, was born at Salem, May 20th, 1726. He was fitted for Harvard where he graduated in 1745, and at once commenced the study of the law.

Sept. 12, 1755 he was married to Priscilla, daughter of Rev. John Sparhawk, who had been settled as the minister of the First Church in Salem, but had died in April previous. His children, by this marriage, were three sons and three daughters. In 1761, Mr. Ropes was appointed a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, for Essex County, and on the death of Judge Choate, in 1766, he succeeded to the Chief Justiceship, which he held till 1772, when he was promoted to the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature, in place of Judge Oliver, who was made Chief Justice.

In 1760, and again the next year, he was chosen representative to the General Court and from 1762 to 1768 inclusive he was one of the Executive Council, but retired the following year from a conviction that he could not be useful there. An active member of the First Church in Salem, he was chosen June 3d, 1772, the ruling elder in the place of John Nutting who withdrew to the new society, afterwards I called the North Church.

Mr. Ropes's commission as Judge of Probate seems to have been renewed the year after it was first issued,-the first date on the council records being Feb. 5, 1766, and it again appears recorded Feb. 4, 1767. This office he held till his appointment to the Superior Court.

When Judge Ropes was appointed to the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature the country had entered upon troublous times and the great revolution was near at hand. Two years before, Captain Preston had been tried before that tribunal for his participation in the "Boston Massacre," and the court for some time had been beset declared against the legality of "writs of by young and patriotic lawyers, who having assistance," and other alleged usurpations were pertinaciously pressing for similar decisions from the bench.

In the midst of these excitements the Legislature passed a resolve to the effect that any judge who, while holding office during pleasure, should accept support from the Crown independent of the grants of the General Court, would thereby show himself opposed to the constitution and favorable to an arbitrary government.

In the trying position to which he was called Judge Ropes stood boldly up as a "law and order" man, or in more unequivocal phrase, as a tory-though not so persistently and defiantly as Chief Justice Oliver-but on the question of receiving pay from the Crown or the Legislature being put by the latter to the judges, Ropes succumbed to public clamor and replied that he received no part of his allowance from the King.

Notwithstanding this disclaimer, the political sentiments and the official position of the judge, made him an object of hatred to the populace who sought opportunities to exhibit their malevolence, and they finally vented their wrath in an outrageous manner.

The small pox had been making fearful senior, soon married Mary, daughter of ravages in Salem and vicinity during the William Browne, of Salem-of a most winter of 1773-4, and Judge Ropes be- distinguished and excellent family—and came a victim. While lying on his bed stepped at once into public life, filling prostrated with this terrible disease, dis- many political and judicial offices with orderly crowds assembled about his house, great credit till his appointment to the and, breaking his windows and otherwise bench of the Superior Court of Judicature, defacing the premises, threatened to drag where he enjoyed the distinction of being him forth and assassinate him. On the the 18th of March, 1774 he expired, his death being hastened if not caused by the excitement of the last few days. Before his last illness he resigned his office.

He has descendants now living. He resided and died in the house that stands on the north side of Essex street opposite the head of Cambridge street. His remains lie intered in the Broad street buryingground."

The Nathaniel Ropes Mansion in Central Salem is named for him.