Sunday, January 22, 2017

Peter Johnston, Jr.: 1831 Advertisement for Law School

[Peter Johnston, Jr., "LAW SCHOOL" advertisement, Richmond Enquirer, Volume XXVIII, Issue 18 (July 12, 1831), front page.]

LAW SCHOOL. --- The Subscriber, disengaged from those public duties in which he has been occupied for a long series of years, may now command his own time, and is disposed to employ himself usefully, if he can. He therefore proposes to conduct a


LAW SCHOOL,

in this town, and to commence a course of instruction on the first of September next. His plan will be, to deliver occasional lectures, on important law topics, and principles: to examine his students frequently: and, as often as in his power, to converse with them unreservedly on the subjects of their studies. When they shall have attained to such improvement as shall have qualified them for public discussion, it is his purpose to institute a fictitious court, in which the forms of proceeding and trial, as practised in the Superior courts of this State, will be regularly observed.

As he intends to devote his time and attention principally to this school, his fee from each pupil, for one year's instruction, will be one hundred dollars: a sum which, he believes, is below what has been generally demanded by other instructors, for similar services. By such as shall desire to attend his school, board on reasonable terms, can be obtained in Abingdon, or its immediate vicinity, with respectable families.

                                                                          PETER JOHNSTON.

Abingdon, Va. July 12                                                  18 --- w4w

[$100 in 1831 = about $2650 in early 2017.
At this juncture, it's unclear whether Peter's plans went into effect on September 1, 1831. At 68 years old (born January 6, 1763), he died at Panecillo on December 8, 1831, after a short illness.
Peter had married Ann Nancy Bernard (1775-1865) in Richmond on December 13, 1828 (his second wife). Elizabeth Ann Bernard (1778-1862), Ann's sister, was a consort of John Allan (1779-1834), with whom she had "natural" twin sons. Allan, a wealthy, Scottish-born merchant based in Richmond, was also Edgar Allan Poe's (1809-1849) estranged foster father. Small world.]

[Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy, Sally Young and Susan Davis for their ongoing research collaboration.] 

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