Isaac Blackford was born on November 6th, 1786, in Bound Brook, New Jersey. He was the only child of Joseph and Mary Blackford. Joseph, a merchant and revolutionary war soldier, died in 1800 when Isaac was 14. His mother remarried Thomas Coon in 1801. Isaac's half-sister Charlotte was born in 1802.
Blackford attended Princeton and graduated in 1806. He studied law under his mentor and future father-in-law, Colonel George McDonald, for a year before accepting a position at a large firm in the area. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1810. Isaac married Caroline McDonald in 1820 and had a son, George Blackford. Caroline McDonald died shortly after George's birth in 1821. George Blackford died in 1846 due to medical complications in Kentucky. Isaac never remarried.
He left the Supreme Court in 1853. Two years later, he took a job as a justice in the Court of Claims in Washington, DC. He died on December 31st, 1859, due to complications from pneumonia. Blackford was transported back to Indianapolis with the help of his friend, an Indianapolis lawyer and land speculator, Calvin Fletcher. On January 12th, his body was placed on display in the Capitol and then buried in Greenlawn Cemetery on Friday, January 13th, in an iron coffin. His remains were moved to Crown Hill Cemetery in 1868, a few years after that cemetery opened.
]]>When Indiana became a state in 1816, it looked very different than today. The State capital was Corydon. The Miami, Potawatomi, and Delaware tribes controlled much of the state. There were fewer than 64,000 white colonizers in the state. Those who lived there lived a rugged life. A map from 1816-1817 illustrates the three circuit court districts that covered the counties of Southern Indiana. The Supreme Court was initially located in Corydon, the state capital. Supreme Court Justices were appointed to two-year terms by Governor Jennings appointing James Scott, John Johnson, and Jesse Holman as the first Supreme Court Justices. When John Johnson died during the first court recess in 1817, Jennings appointed Isaac Blackford to Johnson's position.
Blackford had just been elected to the State Legislature. He was surprised that Jennings wanted to nominate him as he was only thirty-one years old. Accepting the position, he served until 1851. He authored writing opinions on court cases as part of his "Blackford Reports," which became an officially published and widely respected collection of Indiana legal precedents. In 1851, the Constitutional Convention changed the role of Supreme Court Justices making the positions elected rather than appointed. Blackford did not get reelected or make it through the nomination process.
After losing the nomination, Blackford rebuilt his client base at sixty-seven years of age. Ultimately, he returned to judicial work as a judge on the Court of Claims in Washington, DC, in 1855.
]]>