Very Early Legal-related Letter of Future Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story: “Actions of Bastardy are peculiarly unpleasant.”: Joseph Story was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from 1812 to 1845.

Autograph Letter Signed, Salem, Mass., August 10, 1802 to Judge Holten. “You were pleased to say on the last court that you would interest yourself in the case of Pendar so far as to effect a compromise if possible. Actions of Bastardy are peculiarly unpleasant & I cheerfully complied with an offer so kind & so judicious. Mr. Pendar, however, has never come near me, and the Town of Marblehead have directed me to obtain a warrant against Pendar. In the meantime I have deferred the business to give you notice of the necessity that compels me. Will you do me the favor to wrote a line informing me whether Pendar is willing to do anything. The Town of Marblehead will be reasonable, but is determined to pursue it if a compromise fails.”

Story was a native of Marblehead and the town apparently chose him as their lawyer, even though he was only 23 years old and just out of Harvard Law School, to fight a case where someone named Pendar was accused of fathering a bastard child which the town would have been obliged to support. The judge to whom he writes would be Samuel Holten, a Continental Congressman and Signer of the Articles of Confederation who was now Judge of Essex County which includes Salem and Marblehead. Young as he was, Story would be elected to the U.S. Congress in 1808 and was seated on the Supreme Court in 1812. An extremely early legal related letter of Story.