Benjamin Vaughan Abbott

Benjamin Vaughan Abbott (June 4, 1830 – February 17, 1890) was an American lawyer and author noted for his efforts in drawing up the New York penal code. He was the son of Jacob Abbott.

Biography

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from New York University in 1850, and Harvard Law School in 1851. He was admitted to the bar the following year, and became a partner in the firm Abbott Bros. with his brother Anthony Abbott. He was the secretary of the New York Code Commission, which drew up the state's penal code in 1864. He also served on a commission created to revise the statutes of the United States from 1870-1872. He died in Brooklyn in 1890.

He is the author of several books, including the following novels:

• Come Cut Corners: The Experiences of a Conservative Family in Fanatical Times, 1855 (with Austin Abbott), and
• Matthew Caraby (with brother, under the pseudonym Beanauly).

His non-fiction works include:

• Abbott's Reports of Practice Cases in the Courts of the State of New York, 1855 (with Austin Abbott),
• Reports of cases in Admiralty, United States District Court for Southern New York, 1847-1850, 1857,
• A Collection of Forms of Practice and Pleading in Action, 1858,
• Digest of New York Statutes and Reports, 5 volumes, 1860,
• A Collector of Forms of Practice and Pleading in Actions, 1864,
• The Clerk's and Conveyancer's Assistant, 1866,
• Digest of the Reports of the United States Courts and Acts of Congress, 4 volumes, 1867,
• General Digest of the Law of Corporations, 1869,
• Digest of Reports of Indiana to the Year 1871,
• Reports of Decisions Rendered in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, 1863-1871, 2 volumes, 1870-1871,
• United States Digest, 14 volumes, 1879,
• Dictionary of Terms and Phrases used in American or English Jurisprudence, 1879,
• General Digest of English and American Cases on the Law of Corporations, 1868-1878, 1879,
• National Digest, 4 volumes, 1884, containing court decisions of the year 1884, with a later supplement published in 1889,
• 1884: The Patent Laws of All Nations, 2 volumes, 1886, and
• Decisions on the Law of Patents for Inventions, English Cases, 1662-1843, 3 volumes, 1887.

References

• Who Was Who in America: Historical Volume, 1607-1896, Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1967.

External links

• Works by or about Benjamin Vaughan Abbott at Internet Archive
• Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889