John Norton Pomeroy

John Norton Pomeroy (April 12, 1828 – February 15, 1885) was an American lawyer, writer, and law professor. “Perhaps the most important text book writer of the last third of the nineteenth century,” Pomeroy is one of the foremost contributors to American jurisprudence on topics ranging from equity to municipal law.

Early life John Norton Pomeroy was born on April 12, 1828, in Rochester, New York. Enos Pomeroy, his father, was a pioneer settler in Rochester as well as one of the first lawyers to practice in western New York. After graduating from college, he served as an instructor of Rochester Academy. After three years, he was promoted to lead their campus at Lebanon, Ohio. He next began to study law by apprenticing in Cincinnati in the law office of Senator Thomas Corwin. He married Ann Rebecca Carter, one of his former pupils, in 1855.

Pomeroy moved to New York City in 1861 to try to start his own law practice. He was not successful, instead resorting to working as a school teacher again. For four years served as the principal of a boys' school called the academy in Kingston, New York.

In 1871, he resigned from his position and returned to Rochester due to ill health.

Another influential work he published at this time was a series of articles entitled, The True Method of Interpreting the Civil Code. He was buried in Mountain View Cemetery across the bay in Oakland, California.

Publications An Introduction to Municipal Law (1865) An Introduction to the Constitutional Law of the United States (1868; ninth edition, 1886) Remedies and Remedial Rights According to the Reformed American Procedure (1876) A Treatise on Riparian Rights (1884) A Treatise on the Law of Water Rights (1887, 1893) A Treatise on Equity Jurisprudence (third edition, four volumes, 1905)