Binney, John, Rev.

Biography

John Binney was the grandson of Pennsylvania lawyer Horace Binney (1780-1875). Born in Philadelphia to Dr. Barnabas Binney and his wife Mary Woodrow Binney, Horace was educated at Harvard, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1800, embarking upon a career in which he ultimately became the ackowledged leader of the Pennsylvania bar. In 1809 Binney began what became a six volume Report of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which covered cases up through 1814. Binney spent one term in the US Congress, beginning in 1833, but refused a second attempt and returned to law. Athough he semi-retired from practice in 1837, he emerged in 1844 to argue his most famous case before the US Supreme Court, Vidal et. al VS. Philadelphia, which he won against Daniel Webster. Horace Binney was married to the former Elizabeth Cox of Trenton. John Binney had a son named after his famous great-grandfather. Horace Binney commissioned a portrait of himself from the artist Gilbert Stuart, which is now in the NGA (1944.3.1). [Compiled from sources and references recorded on CMS]

Bibliography

1995

Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 219 [on Stuart's portrait of Horace Binney (1780-1875)]

Related Content