. The life and times of Thomas Smith, 1745-1809, a Pennsylvania member of the Continental congress . ndjudicial functions in the new Constitution prevented theGovernor being a member as before, and as admiraltymatters were now national, the Judge of that court wasnot included. So the Constitution provided that the HighCourt should consist of members of the Supreme Court,President Judges of the five judicial districts and threepersons of known legal abilities. The new court met, asthe law provided, in Philadelphia, on November i, 1791,for that years session. Heretofore the executive of theState
. The life and times of Thomas Smith, 1745-1809, a Pennsylvania member of the Continental congress . ndjudicial functions in the new Constitution prevented theGovernor being a member as before, and as admiraltymatters were now national, the Judge of that court wasnot included. So the Constitution provided that the HighCourt should consist of members of the Supreme Court,President Judges of the five judicial districts and threepersons of known legal abilities. The new court met, asthe law provided, in Philadelphia, on November i, 1791,for that years session. Heretofore the executive of theState had been the presiding officer, although, in fact, ChiefJustice McKean had presided at all but four sessions eversince 1785. It was now desired to emphasize the appealcharacter of this court as more distinctly above the Su-preme Court, and in order to do so a distinguished personof known legal abilities was elevated to the Presidencyof it, namely, the well-known ex-Chief Justice of ante-bellum days, Benjamin Chew. This first session of thecourt saw present only President Chew, Chief Justice Mc-. The Court of Errors and Appeals of Pennsvlvania in i7qiexcept Judge Jacob Rush A JUDGE IN THE REORGANIZED JUDICIARY 223 Kean, Justices Shippen and Bradford, and one PresidentJudge, James Biddle of Philadelphia. Judge Smith wasnot present at this session, nor at that beginning March 30,1792, but when the court opened July 9 of that year at theState House, Judge Smith was present in the largest court,probably, that had ever assembled in the commonwealth!There were President Chew, Chief Justice McKean, Jus-tices Shippen and Bradford and President Judges Biddle,Rush, Smith and Addison. There is every probability thatthis court sat in the Supreme Court room—the west lowerroom of the State House, where they sat in 1787, and aswe know they sat in this building in January of this year,there is little doubt that it was in this same room, the onein which Judge Smith had experienced so
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