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Terms of service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: April 1839 - March 1849, March 1849 -August 1851, August 1857 - March 1862, June 1873 - December 1880
Judge William Barclay Napton was born March 23, 1808, in Princeton, New Jersey.[i] He graduated from Princeton College in 1826, with high honors.[ii] After his graduation, Napton received an invitation to work as a tutor in Charlottesville, Virginia.[iii] For the next six years, Napton worked as a tutor and conducted a preparatory school for the University of Virginia, all while studying law at the university.[iv]
In 1832, he left Virginia and moved to Howard County, Missouri, where he settled in Fayette, which at the time was an important political center in the state.[v] His first position there was as editor of the Boonslick Gazette.[vi] Napton filled that post until he was elected secretary of the state senate in 1834.[vii] Two years later, Governor Lilburn Boggs appointed Napton attorney general.[viii] He held that position until his appointment to the Supreme Court of Missouri in April 1839, which filled the vacancy left by Judge John Cummins Edwards.[ix]
Judge Napton’s term ended March 1, 1849, due to an amendment ratified January 11, 1849, which cleared the bench and limited judges’ judicial service to 12 years.[x] He was reappointed to the Supreme Court of Missouri, after March 1, 1849, and served until 1851, when another constitutional amendment made judicial positions elective.[xi] Judge Napton’s term concluded with the general election in August 1851.[xii]
Napton then returned to private practice until he later was elected to the Court.[xiii] He was elected during the 1857 general election and served until March 1862.[xiv] In 1862, the bench was cleared again due to a constitutional amendment passed during the state convention in 1861, during the Civil War, that required a mandatory loyalty oath.[xv]
In 1863, Napton moved to St. Louis and opened a law office.[xvi] He returned again to the bench, when appointed by Governor Silas Woodson to the Supreme Court of Missouri June 24, 1873, to fill the vacancy caused by Judge Ephriam Ewing’s sudden death.[xvii] Napton was elected to finish Judge Ewing’s term in 1873.[xviii] He completed the term, was elected in 1874, and served on the bench until December 31, 1880.[xix]
Napton died January 8, 1883.[xx]
[i] “William B. Napton,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76 (St. Louis, MO: Gilbert Book Co., 1883), i.
[ii]Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, i.
[iii] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, i.
[iv] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, ii.
[v] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, ii.
[vi] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii.
[vii] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii.
[viii] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii.
[ix] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii.
[x] Missouri Historical Review, No. 35, 1940-1941, 336. See also William Francis English, Pioneer Lawyer and Jurist in Missouri (Columbia, MO: The University of Missouri Studies, 1947), 85.
[xi] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii.
[xii] “William B. Napton,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii.
[xiii] “William B. Napton,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii-iv.
[xiv] “William B. Napton,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iii. See also Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. XXXI (St. Louis, MO: George Knapp & CO., 1862), 472.
[xv] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri (St. Louis, MO: George Knapp & Co., 1862), preface. L.C. Krauthoff, “The Supreme Court of Missouri,” Horace W. Fuller, ed. The Green Bag (Boston, MA: The Boston Book Company, 1891), 170. See also Kenneth H. Winn, ed. Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historical Rights & Wrongs (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2016), 91.
[xvi] “William B. Napton,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iv.
[xvii] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, iv.
[xviii] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. LIII (St. Louis, MO: W.J. Gilbert, 1873), preface. “Appointments,” Columbia Statesman, Columbia, Missouri, July 4, 1873, page 2, column 6. Information courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia Newspaper Database, accessed July 2017, available from http://shsmo.org/newspaper/.
[xix] “William B. Napton,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, v. See also Walter Bickford Davis and Daniel Steele Durrie, An Illustrated History of Missouri, Comprising it’s Early Record and Civil, Political, and Military History from the First Exploration to the Present Time, (St. Louis, MO: A.J. Hall & Co.), 1876), 557.
[xx] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Vol. 76, v.
Biographical information authored by Mr. Matt Orf, 2017, University of Missouri-Columbia.