Viewing Thomas Jackson -- St. Paul's First Justice of the Peace. (2012)

Thomas Jackson -- St. Paul's First Justice of the Peace. (2012)

Thomas Jackson (1811-1857) arrived in St. Paul in 1842; the next year he was appointed the city's first justice of the peace, and the year following became the first postmaster. A successful merchant, he was a fount of facts and opinions that impressed frontiersmen.

Justice Jackson's greatest contribution to American jurisprudence was his decision to conduct a "quasi marriage by proxy." Regrettably his ruling has been overlooked by scholars of courtship ritual and domestic relations law in the nineteenth century. Two accounts of this historic proceeding appear in this article.

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