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American judge (1769–1855)

William Cranch (July 17, 1769 – September 1, 1855) was a United States circuit judge and chief judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. A staunch Federalist and nephew of President John Adams, Cranch moved his legal practice from Massachusetts to the new national capital, where he became one of three city land commissioners for Washington, D. C., and during his judicial service also was the 2nd Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and a Professor of law at Columbian College (which later became George Washington University).

Cranch was born on July 17, 1769, in Weymouth, Massachusetts to Mary (Smith), the sister of Abigail Adams and her husband Richard Cranch, who had emigrated from Devonshire when he was twenty years old. His father, although educated as a watchmaker, became the town's postmaster and an ardent patriot during the American Revolutionary War. The elder Cranch then studied law and won election to the Massachusetts legislature (serving in both houses), then served many years as a judge of the court of common pleas, as well as wrote a religious book and received two honorary degrees from Harvard. William Cranch's maternal grandfather was Rev. William Smith of Weymouth. Cranch was born at his maternal grandparents' home, about 12 miles south of Boston, since his mother retreated there from a smallpox outbreak in Boston. He was their only son, and both parents would die within a day of each other, on October 16, 1811. Cranch received his first schooling from his mother, who also instructed him in Latin and Algebra. Then he prepared for Harvard College under the guidance of his uncle, Rev. William Shaw of Haverill, Massachusetts. Cranch attended Harvard University with his cousin, John Quincy Adams, whose later published diary mentions him. Cranch graduated in 1787, then read law with Thomas Dawes, a relative by marriage and judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Following Congress's decision to move the capital to a new federal city in 1790, the 25 year old Cranch moved to the area ceded by Maryland and Virginia that would eventually become Washington, D. C. Greenleaf had considerable property in the new capital city, and also speculated in Georgia land, but his $800,000 profit proved only on paper because a subsequent Georgia legislature voided the sale because the previous legislature had been bribed. Cranch later considered the experience, "learning the tricks of the world and the deceitfulness of accounts", perhaps in part because Greenleaf did not pay him money, but instead let Cranch use a 2,200 acre estate across the Eastern Branch of the Potomac River, where Cranch showed friends "the labor of my hands my beautiful orchard, my peas, my melons, my grapes, my wheat and rye, my cabbage and lettuce" as well as various varieties of apples, pears, peaches, cherries and grapes, complaining only that only a single small rain shower had fallen in 57 days. Before President John Adams moved to the new capital city, Greenleaf paid the new city's commissioners $120,00 and also spent more than $140,000 on a map, buildings and bridges, but found he had done so on the worthless promises of his partners Morris and Nicholson. Moreover, a man Greanleaf thought owed him money, William Duncanson, sued him and whipped Cranch for his legal actions on Greenleaf's behalf (but Cranch heeded Abigail's advice to trust in the law and "holy religion" rather than retaliate in a duel, as had Greenleaf). Greenleaf would go bankrupt and spent time in debtor's prison, as would another of Cranch's speculator clients, Robert Morris, but Cranch himself avoided debtor's prison for debts he had incurred on Morris' behalf when friends saved his property at the sheriff's sale (Cranch also took in boarders to meet expenses and eventually repaid all his creditors). Nonetheless, the pecuniary troubles nearly caused Cranch to move back to Massachusetts, but he reconsidered after one of John Adams' final acts as President. On February 27, 1801 Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, which among other things established the court system and Cranch became one of the city's first judges, leaving his role as commissioner.

President John Adams nominated his nephew on February 28, 1801, to the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. The Judiciary Act of 1801 authorized the new seat, the United States Senate affirmed the appointment on March 3, 1801 (President Adams' last day in office), and Cranch received his commission the same day.

While a federal judge, Cranch became the 2nd Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1802 to 1815. Judge Cranch also edited his own volume of reports on civil and criminal cases from the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, in 1805, Cranch became a member of the first Board of Trustees for Public Schools and served on that board for 7 years. Moreover, on February 3, 1826, the Columbian College (now George Washington University) board of trustees selected Cranch and William Thomas Carroll, Esq., as that institution's first law professors. On June 13 of the same year, President John Quincy Adams attended Professor Cranch's first law lecture, in the court room of the City Hall. In 1827, Judge Cranch would deliver a memoir of the life, character and writings of John Adams before the Columbian, and in 1829 Harvard College would confer an honorary Doctor of Laws decree upon Cranch.

Cranch married Nancy Greenleaf, the sister of Boston born real estate investor James Greenleaf, who helped develop the new federal city with Philadelphian Robert Morris, but had severe financial problems which led to a stint in debtors' prison, his wife's establishing a separate residence in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Greenleaf spending his final years in a small house in the federal city near his sister and her husband. Nancy Cranch bore 13 children. Of the four Cranch sons who survived to adulthood, three became painters: Christopher Pearse Cranch, Edward P. Cranch, and John Cranch. Their daughter Abigail Adams Cranch married William Greenleaf Eliot, and their son Henry Ware Eliot was the father of poet T. S. Eliot. Judge Cranch did not remarry after his wife's death; James Greenleaf died the day after his sister, September 17, 1843, although Greenleaf Point would be named in his honor. Judge Cranch owned four slaves in 1800. He owned an enslaved women of between 50 and 60 years old and two girls between 10 and 15 years old in 1830, and one enslaved woman between 10 and 24 years old in 1840.

Judge Cranch's judicial service terminated on September 1, 1855, when he died in Washington, D. C.
Cranch was elected an Associated Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1809. Cranch was elected as a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1813. During the 1820s, Cranch was a member of the prestigious society, Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, who counted among their members presidents Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, and many prominent men of the day, including military officers and officials of government service, and leaders of medical and other professions.