John Bartow Prevost (March 6, 1766 – March 5, 1825) was an American attorney, judge, politician, businessman and diplomat. He became the first judge of the Superior Court of the Territory of Orleans from 1804 to 1808, and was U.S. political agent for Peru from 1818 until his death.
John B. Prevost married Frances Anna Smith, daughter of Rev. Samuel Smith, of Princeton College on February 5, 1799. They had four children: Theodosia Ann Prevost (1801–1864), James Marcus Prevost (1803–1829), Stanhope Prevost (1804–1868) and Frances Prevost Breckinridge (1806–1870).[2]
Public service
Prevost was Recorder of New York City from 1801 to 1804, when President Thomas Jefferson appointed him as one of the first three judges of the Superior Court of the Territory of Orleans.[1] Arriving in New Orleans on October 29, 1804, Prevost opened the Superior Court with a charge to the grand jury on Monday, November 5, 1804.[1] Prevost served alone on that bench from November 5, 1804, for about two years, due to the death and refusal to take office of his fellow judges. In 1808, Prevost resigned from the bench and was replaced by Joshua Lewis of Kentucky. Prevost remained in New Orleans and practiced law for several years.
Prevost moved his family to Peru, where he worked until his death on March 5, 1825, although his formal nomination as Chargé d'affaires was withdrawn before the Senate could approve it.[3] His son Stanhope Prevost became a prominent merchant in Lima with Edward McCall (American consul at Lima 1843–1851), married a Peruvian woman and had children, becoming like his father the American consul in Lima (1851–1853) and dying there in 1868. His son Henry S. Prevost (J.B. Prevost's grandson) then liquidated the firm.[4]
References
^ abcCelebration of the Centenary of the Supreme Court of Louisiana (March 1, 1913), in John Wymond, Henry Plauché Dart, eds., The Louisiana Historical Quarterly (1922), p. 113.