John Laurance

The first substantial study of English-born New York lawyer John Laurance (1760-1810), this publication details his life and his role in the American nation's creation. It describes the middling Cornish émigré’s against-all-odds passage to Federalist America’s governing inner circle. Laurance spent five wartime years as General Washington’s “courtroom Baron von Steuben” and was battlefield father of the United States Army Judge Advocate Corps. Never defeated for electoral office, Colonel Laurance spoke as New York City's post-war pro-mercantile voice in the Confederation Congress, state legislature, and both houses of the fledgling federal Congress. This long overdue illustrated biography restores an important missing piece to the founding narrative of the United States and casts fresh light on the rise and fall of America’s first political Party, the Federalists.