Jonathan Sewell
(1766-1839)
BIRTH
June 6, 1766
PLACE
Cambridge, Massachusetts, British America
NAME
Jonathan Sewell Jr
DEATH
November 11, 1839
PLACE
Quebec City, Province of Lower Canada
FAMILY
FATHER
Jonathan Sewall
(1729-1796)
CHILDREN
Esther Quincy Sewall
(1738-1810)
HOMES
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
CHRISTIAN
ANGLICAN
MEMBERSHIPS
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY MEMBER, BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY QUEBEC BRANCH PRESIDENT, LITERARY AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF QUEBEC FOUNDER, MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY CORRESPONDING MEMBER
AWARDS
Jonathan Sewell was a lawyer and judge born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1766. His Loyalist family left during the American Revolution, and he later settled in Quebec. Appointed chief justice of Lower Canada in 1808, he developed court procedures and served on the Executive and Legislative Councils. He also advocated a federation of Britain’s North American provinces. He died in 1839 and should be distinguished from his father, Jonathan Sewall.
EARLY LIFE
Jonathan Sewell was born on Jun 6, 1766 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, British America. The surviving biographical summary provides only limited evidence about childhood, schooling, and the daily circumstances of the household, so those details are not reconstructed here without documentation. What can be stated securely is that this person belonged to the interconnected family world from which HistoryGPS traces participants, relatives, and later descendants of the Revolutionary generation.
The available biographical record identifies Jonathan Sewell with work or public activity as a lawyer, judge, spy. Those roles provide the clearest documented basis for including this person in the database and should be read in the political, military, professional, or household context of the period. Jonathan Sewell died on Nov 11, 1839 in Quebec City, Province of Lower Canada. Additional claims about employment, public service, or accomplishments have been omitted where the consulted source did not support them.
CAREER
DEATH
Appointed chief justice of Lower Canada in 1808, he developed court procedures and served on the Executive and Legislative Councils. The available biographical record identifies Jonathan Sewell with work or public activity as a lawyer, judge, spy. Additional claims about employment, public service, or accomplishments have been omitted where the consulted source did not support them. Sewell resigned from the Executive Council in 1830 after the assembly requested that judges to be excluded from serving on the council. He resigned from his position of chief justice in 1838 for ill health. Sewell was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1830. Jonathan Sewell Jr. died on November 11, 1839, in Quebec City. His residence, at 87 Saint-Louis Street, Quebec City, was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1969. The available biographical account does not describe a continuous final medical course. It gives no dependable sequence of treatment and last symptoms from which to reconstruct a more detailed bedside narrative.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
Jonathan Sewell (1766–1839), chief justice of Lower Canada, not his father Jonathan Sewall, the Massachusetts Loyalist. Five dedicated biographies were not identified. These editorial selections include biographies where available, with personal writings, biographical reference and related studies clearly labelled.
1. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume VII: 1836–1850 — Francess G. Halpenny (editor). [Biographical reference] Find on Amazon
2. The Constitutional History of Canada — Samuel James Watson. [Related political and biographical history] Find on Amazon
3. A History of the Late Province of Lower Canada, Parliamentary and Political — Robert Christie. [Related colonial and biographical history] Find on Amazon
4. The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in Rural Lower Canada — Allan Greer. [Related political and social history] Find on Amazon
5. The History of Canada — William Kingsford. [Related colonial and biographical history; series counted as one work] Find on Amazon
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