John Catron
| John Catron | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
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In office March 8, 1837 – May 30, 1865 |
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| Appointed by | Andrew Jackson |
| Preceded by | Seat established |
| Succeeded by | Seat abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 7, 1786 Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | May 30, 1865 (aged 79) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
John Catron (January 7, 1786 – May 30, 1865) was an American jurist who served as a US Supreme Court justice from 1837 to 1865.
Little is known of Catron's early life, other than that all of his grandparents emigrated from Germany to Virginia, as part of the extensive emigration of Germans and Swiss from Hesse and the Palatinate due to wars, and economic and religious insecurity in the area. His father, Peter (Catron) Kettering, had immigrated as a child with his parents from Mittelbrun in the German Palatinate and settled in Montgomery County (later Wyeth County). His mother was Maria Elizabetha Houck, whose parents had settled in Virginia after emigrating from the Palatinate by way of Pennsylvania. His only sibling, Mary, later married Thomas Swift and moved to Missouri and, ultimately, Oregon. John Catron was a second cousin to Thomas Benton Catron, who later became one of the first senators to represent the state of New Mexico. Catron's father had served in Captain William Doack's militia company from Montgomery County during the Revolutionary War.
The family relocated to Kentucky in the first years of the 19th century. Catron served in the War of 1812 under Andrew Jackson. He read law and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1815. He married Mathilda Childress, sister of George C Childress who was one of the political leaders of the Texas Republic and chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. John and Mathilda Catron had no children.
Catron was in private practice at Sparta in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee from 1815 to 1818, while simultaneously serving as a prosecuting attorney of that city. He established a land law practice in Nashville in 1818, in which he continued until 1824.
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