Page:History of the Supreme court of the United States (IA historyofsupreme00myeriala).pdf/395



On the same day that the appointment of Taney as Chief Justice, was confirmed by the Senate, March 15, 1836, that of Philip P. Barbour, as Associate Justice to succeed Justice Duvall, was also confirmed. Barbour by views and interests was associated with the landed class. His father, Thomas Barbour, had inherited considerable wealth, and had been a member of the old House of Burgesses of Virginia. On the maternal side, Philip P. Barbour was related to Judge Edmund Pendleton, whose operations as President of the Loyal Company have been referred to in Chapter I and elsewhere. Thomas Barbour, it is related, met with reverses, but seems to have recouped himself by securing a landed estate in Kentucky.

We have hitherto described how Charles Willing of Philadelphia obtained 32,000 acres of land in Kentucky, in 1784, on certain treasury warrants. It appears that Thomas Barbour by means of voiding that entry on the ground of its being illegal, secured legal title to a large portion of that area and that his possession was officially acknowledged. Then had come Humphrey Marshall, Federalist United States Senator from Kentucky, and a cousin of Chief Justice Marshall, with interconnected claims of his own. He asserted that, previous to Willing’s entry, he had acquired title to 12,313 acres of the land claimed by Willing. He freely admitted that his claim rested upon an entry made by an intermediary, one Isaac Holbert. Also he averred that he had subsequently acquired