Charles C. Nott

Charles Cooper Nott, Sr. (1827 – March 6, 1916) was a Chief Justice of the United States Court of Claims.

Biography

He was born in 1827 in Schenectady, New York, to Professor Joel B. Nott, a chemist and mineralogist. He was a grandson of Eliphalet Nott, a longtime President of Union College. Charles Cooper Nott graduated from Union College in 1848, was admitted to the bar and moved to New York in 1850, where he practised law until enlisting to fight at the beginning of the American Civil War. He was appointed a Captain in the Fremont Hussars, was in the 5th Iowa Cavalry, and the 131st and the 176th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiments, achieving the rank of Colonel. He was subsequently captured at the fall of Brashear City, and held as a prisoner of war in Texas for thirteen months.

Abraham Lincoln appointed Nott to the Court of Claims in February, 1865, two months before the President died. He was the reporter of decisions of forty-eight volumes of the Court of Claims Reports. He wrote the unanimous opinion in Mrs. Lockwood's Case, 9 Ct. Cl. 346 (1874), denying Belva Ann Lockwood admission to the bar of the Court of Claims. She appealed to the United States Supreme Court and lost there as well. In 1896 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Claims by President Grover Cleveland, succeeding William A. Richardson. In turn, Charles Bowen Howry took his associate judgeship.

Nott retired in 1905. He died on March 6, 1916, at 151 East Sixty-first Street, New York City. His son, Charles Cooper Nott, Jr., was a Judge of the Special Sessions Court.

References

• A treatise on the mechanics' lien laws of the state of New York (W. C. Little & co., 1856) LCCN 34-8900
• The coming contraband: a reason against the Emancipation Proclamation, not given by Mr. Justice Curtis, to whom it is addressed, by an officer in the field. (G.P. Putnam, 1862) LCCN 57-53571 Charles C. Nott at the Internet Archive
• Sketches of the war (C.T. Evans, 1863; A.D.F. Randolph, 1865) LCCN 02-17786 Charles C. Nott at the Internet Archive
• Sketches in prison camps (A. D. F. Randolph, 1865) LCCN 02-1191 Charles C. Nott at the Internet Archive
• The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church (Anson D. F. Randolph, 1866) OCLC 43736585 LCCN 02-18762 (New York, E. S. Gorham, 1902) Charles C. Nott at the Internet Archive [1][2][3]
• The Mystery of Pinckney Draught, New York (The Century Co., 1908) LCCN 08-33815 Charles C. Nott at the Internet Archive

External links

• Works by Charles C. Nott at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Charles C. Nott at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• A Sketch of the Life and Public Services of William Adams Richardson (1898)
• Life in a Texas Prison Pen