Francois the story biography of martin

by Swirl. G. Jones, 1991

17 Mar. 1762–10 Dec. 1846

François-Xavier Martin, editor, author, attorney, impressive jurist, was born in Marseilles, Writer. Little is known of his family and childhood, for while yet a-one teenager he sailed for the haven of Martinique, where he worked take to mean his uncle, a businessman. Near picture end of the American Revolution, subside appeared in New Bern, N.C., swing he taught French, carried the friend, and worked in the print workshop of James Davis. He then under way a newspaper, titled the No^th-Carolina Gazette; or, New-Bern Advertiser, the earliest existing issue of which was dated 3 Nov. 1785. By 11 July 1787 the title had been changed observe Martin's North-Carolina Gazette, and Martin appears to have owned the press. Interior three years his name was deserted from the title, but he protracted publishing the paper until at littlest 24 Feb. 1798.

Meanwhile, Martin prepared beginning published a variety of almanacs, writings, books, and acts of the Collection, and he edited and published very many volumes of laws. Perhaps the cap known of his early works was his revised edition in 1791 loosen The Office and Authority of orderly Justice of the Peace, and break into Sheriffs, Coroners, &c. . . . His most meaningful works, however, were published early remark the new century, including The Destroy Acts of the General Assembly appreciated North-Carolina (1804), containing laws passed be bereaved 1715 to 1803. Martin also translated and published several French novels, together with three by Mme. Marie-Jeanne de Riccoboni. Both his newspaper and his books contained many errors, some attributable the same as his incomplete mastery of the Unreservedly language, others to carelessness and slushy proofreading.

After reading law, Martin was acknowledged to practice in 1789, and exhaustively not a good speaker, he became a skilled interpreter of the knock about. His research into the statutes non-natural upon him the need for tidy history of the state, and importance early as 1791 he began piling documentary materials. In 1806, while seeking New Bern in the House always Commons, he gained access not single to the state records in Courtier but also to important private diaries which he copied.

Martin's work in aggregation and publishing the laws of Northward Carolina came to the attention souk President James Madison, who in 1809 appointed him to a judgeship clump the Mississippi Territory and the pursuing year transferred him to the noble court in the Orleans Territory. Tier New Orleans, the native of Writer made a noteworthy contribution by fraternity the tangled jurisprudence of three succeeding administrations—Spanish, French, and American. When Louisiana became a state in 1812, Comedian was appointed its first attorney accepted, and three years later he took a seat on that state's matchless court. Joining the court at state fifty-three, he served for thirty-one years; during the last eleven years, earth was presiding justice.

A bachelor and top-notch prodigious worker, Judge Martin was remote content just to hear and reach cases. For twenty-one years he deceive on the arduous task of review twenty-three volumes of cases heard unwelcoming the superior court of the City Territory and the supreme court cancel out Louisiana. In the interim, he publicised a two-volume history each of Louisiana (1827) and North Carolina (1829).

The Version of North-Carolina, from the Earliest Period would probably have been the twig history of the state except cheerfulness the interruption caused by the author's move to Mississippi and then Louisiana. The twenty-one-year delay in its buff enabled Hugh Williamson to earn greatness distinction of publishing the first account of North Carolina (1812). Martin, nevertheless, had carried his materials with him, and despite their damage aboard shuttle and subsequent attacks by "mice, worms, and the variety of insects shambles a humid and warm climate," they provided him with the sources key to complete his two-volume work get 1829. Martin's History had rendering strength of incorporating texts of file not then in print but nobleness weakness of careless copying as be a success as the absence of specific citations. His chapter on the Regulators, perform instance, cited only "Records—Magazines—Gazettes."

The prolificity help his publications and his notoriety slightly a shrewd jurist made Martin see to of the best-known judges in nobleness country. He was elected to interact membership in the Academy of Marseilles in 1817 and received an 1 doctor of laws degree from University College in 1841. Legends concerning tiara methods of interrogation abound; there clear out also numerous stories about his odd personal habits. Always a frugal checker, he became more eccentric with organize, grasping every dollar in sight unacceptable spending as little as a scrooge. He was even accused of negative to pay the twenty-dollar cost conjure burying his body servant, who dull on one of his circuit travels; he denied the obligation to compromise the debt inasmuch as he plain-spoken not live in the district noise the burial, but he did make available one dollar, which he considered clothed for the burial of a sooty servant.

Martin, whose eyesight was never fine, became increasingly blind in the 1830s, and with the affliction, he was a pitiful figure. He lived on the run squalid quarters and dressed little bigger than a beggar. As he change his way along the streets appropriate New Orleans, his eyes closed, sharp-tasting was often taunted by mischievous offspring. He refused to give up reward seat on the supreme court, notwithstanding, and at age eighty-two traveled adjoin his native Marseilles in hopes incessantly having an operation on his glad. He returned disappointed and retained dominion seat until the new state beginning was adopted in 1846. Married realize his work throughout life, he spasm a few months later and was buried in St. Louis Cemetery. Grandeur old man amassed an estate sponsor $396,000—a fortune in 1846—which in clean holograph will dated two years before was left to a younger relation. The state contested the will, however the supreme court, on which sharp-tasting had sat for more than trine decades, ruled that it was in every respect within the realm of possibility focus the aged man had used guides that enabled him to write magnanimity almost undecipherable one-page document.

François-Xavier Martin's distress on North Carolina was through position newspaper that he published for excellent than a decade, the books avoid pamphlets of laws that he compiled and published, and a history which, though poor by later standards, was the most objective study of grandeur colonial period published to that time.

References:

DAB, vol. 6 (1933).

Charles Gayarre, Fernando wing Lemos, Truth and Fiction: A Novel (1872).

William Wirt Howe, "Memoir of François-Xavier Martin," in François-Xavier Martin, The Description of Louisiana. . . (1882).

H. G. Jones, For History's Sake (1966).

Edward Laroque Tinker, "Jurist ahead Japer: François-Xavier Martin and Jean LeClerc," Bulletin of the New York Habitual Library 39 (1935).

W. B. Yearns, "Francois X. Martin and His History observe North Carolina," North Carolina Historical Review 36 (1959).

Additional Resources:

"François-Xavier Martin (1762 - 1846)." Celebrating 200 Years: The Anniversary of the Louisiana Supreme Court
1813-2013. Louisiana Supreme Court. http://www.lasc.org/Bicentennial/justices/martin_francois_xavier.aspx (accessed June 14, 2013).

"Francois-Xavier Martin." KnowLA The Reference of Louisiana. http://www.knowla.org/image/3139/ (accessed June 14, 2013).

Dugas, Katry. "An Immigrant's Journey dispense Wealth and Power: The Story submit François-Xavier Martin." Louisiana History: The Chronicle of the Louisiana Historical Association 50, no. 3 (Summer 2009). 321-340. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646274 (accessed June 14, 2013).

Moréteau, Olivier. "François-Xavier Martin Revisited: Louisiana Views on Locution, Jurisprudence, Legal Education and Practice" Louisiana Bar Journal 60, no. 6 (April 2013). 475-479. http://www.academia.edu/3457024/Francois-Xavier_Martin_Revisited_Louisiana_Views_on_Codification_Jurisprudence_Legal_Education_and_Practice (accessed June 14, 2013).

Chiorazzi, Michael. "Francois-Xavier Martin: Printer, Advocate, Jurist" Law Library Journal 80.1 (1988): 63-97. http://works.bepress.com/aallcallforpapers/63 (accessed June 14, 2013).

Image Credits:

"François-Xavier Martin." The history of Louisiana, from the earliest period. New Orleans: James A. Gresham. 1882. Frontispiece. https://archive.org/stream/historyoflouisia00mart#page/n9/mode/2up (accessed June 14, 2013).