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James Kane Livingston


Gender:
Male
Born:
May 1798
Died:
1876
Home Town:
Schenectady, NY
Later Residences:
Rochester, NY
Newark, NJ
Marriage(s):
Charlotte Landon Livingston (November 20, 1820)
Biographical Notes:
James Kane Livingston was the son of Gilbert Robert and Martha (Kane) Livingston. Livingston and his wife had two children. He practiced law briefly in Rochester, NY before retiring from practice in 1852.

James was the cousin of fellow Litchfield Law School students Henry and Walter Livingston -- sons of Henry Walter and Mary Masters (Allen) Livingston, whose family founded Allentown, PA. The cousins lived on the "Manor" or "The Hill" in Livingston, New York -- a station referred to as the closest thing to "aristocracy in the US."

His cousins both had ill-fated engagements to Litchfield Female Academy students that were broken off because their fiancées didn't meet the Livingston family's standards of wealth and social status. When James became engaged to Charlotte, it ...
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Additional Notes:
George Younglove Cutler wrote in his “Journal” about some surprisingly licentious behavior at Charlotte and James' wedding:
“Walter S. Franklin, Esq., says there was kissing done at Charlotte Landon’s wedding -- singular for so stiff & prudish a place as L...Miss Mary Ann thought she was near being swallowed at the kissing bout which has been held in L... They say Helen was all but kissed to death at the Landon’s.”

Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833: Being the History of Miss Sarah Pierce and her Litchfield School (1903) p.203; 207.

Education
Years at LLS:
1818
Other Education:
Graduated from Union College in 1817.

Profession / Service
Profession:
Lawyer; Political Office; Other
Admitted To Bar:
Albany, NY in 1820
Local Posts:
Sheriff (Monroe County, NY) 1828-1831

Related Objects and Documents
In the Ledger:
help The Citation of Attendance provides primary source documentation of the student’s attendance at the Litchfield Female Academy and/or the Litchfield Law School. If a citation is absent, the student is thought to have attended but currently lacks primary source confirmation.

Records for the schools were sporadic, especially in the formative years of both institutions. If instructors kept comprehensive records for the Litchfield Female Academy or the Litchfield Law School, they do not survive. Researchers and staff have identified students through letters, diaries, family histories and genealogies, and town histories as well as catalogues of students printed in various years. Art and needlework have provided further identification of Female Academy Students, and Litchfield County Bar records document a number of Law School students. The history of both schools and the identification of the students who attended them owe credit to the early 20th century research and documentation efforts of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Samuel Fisher, and the late 20th century research and documentation efforts of Lynne Templeton Brickley and the Litchfield Historical Society staff.
CITATION OF ATTENDANCE:
Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849.

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