FIELD, STEPIIEN JOHNSON, b. Haddam, Conn., 1816; brother of David Dudley. At the age of 13 he made a voyage to the cast in company with a brother-in-law, who was a missionary, and he spent three years in Smyrna and Athens, studying Greek and other languages. Returning to this country, he graduated at Williams college, in 1837, with the highest honors. Ile then studied law in the office of his brother in New York, and, after his admission to the bar, became his partner until 1848, when he went abroad and passed a year in Europe. On his return, in 1849, he joined in the emigration then just beginning to California, settled at a place where now stands the city of Marysville, and Was elected the first alcalde,holding the office until the organization of the judiciary under the constitution of the state. Under Mexican law an alcalde had a very limited jurisdiction; but after the American occupation the jurisdiction exercised by him in the anomalous condition of society in California at that time was practically unlimited. In 1850, lie was elected' to the legislature, and was placed on the judiciary committee. He drew up a bill defining the powers of the courts of justice and judicial officers of the state, which was passed, and most of its provisions are still retained in the code. lie secured also the passage of a law giving effect to the usages and regulations adopted by the miners for the protection and working of the mines. The principle embodied in this law WILS adopted in other mining regions of the
country, and finally by the congress of the 'United States. In 1857, he was elected judge of the supreme court of California, and in 1859 he succeeded David S. Terry as chief-justice. When Mr. Field came to the bench, the titles to lands in the state were unsettled, and it is principally by decisions in which he delivered the opinions of the court that the law of real property in California has been placed on a permanent basis. He was appointed in 1863, by president Lincoln, an associate justice of the supreme court of the United States, which position he still holds. The opinions of the court in the celebrated test-oath cases, written by him, and his dissenting opinion in the legal tender cases, attracted general attention. In 1869, he was appointed professor of law in the university of California; in 1873, as one of a commission to examine the codes of the state, he prepared amendments which were adopted by the legislature. He was a member of the famous electoral commission of 1876 which decided the presi dency in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes; and voted with the minority in favor of Samuel J. Tilden. His recent opinions in the Virginia jury cases, and the cases arising under the election laws of congress, have been the subject of much discussion throughout the country.