Theron Metcalf was a New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 jurist

Jurist

A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...

 and a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Biography

Metcalf graduated from Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in 1805. In 1839 he was appointed reporter of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and he sat on the bench of that court from 24 February 1848 until 1865. Brown gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1844, and Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 the same in 1848. His annotations were considered valuable for their philosophical investigation and discriminating analysis. Metcalf gave to Brown a set of fifty volumes of ordination sermons that he had collected.

He delivered the 4th of July oration at Dedham

Dedham, Massachusetts

Dedham is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,729 at the 2010 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest by Westwood and on the southeast by...

 in 1810, and an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society

Phi Beta Kappa Society

The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society. Its mission is to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences"; and induct "the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William and...

of Brown in 1832.

Writings

His publications include:

• A Digest of the Cases decided in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1816 to 1823, including the Five last Volumes of Tyng's and the first of Octavius Pickering's Reports (Boston, 1825)
• Reports from 1840 till 1849 (13 vols., 1840–51)
• the first volume of Digest of Decisions of Courts of Common Law and Admiralty in the United States (1840)
• a Supplement to the Revised Statutes of Massachusetts till 1844, with Luther S. Cushing (1844)
• articles to The American Jurist on the “Law of Contracts.”

He edited:

• Asahel Stearns and Lemuel Shaw, The General Laws of Massachusetts till 1822 (2 vols., 1823)
• George Maule and William Selwyn's Reports
• Russell on Crimes
• Starkie on Evidence
• Yelverton's Reports