Excerpt from A Treatise Law of Evidence, Vol. 1 Simon greenleaf was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 5, 1783, but during his childhood the family removed to the District now Maine. He began the study of law at New Gloucester, with Ezekiel Whitman, afterwards Chief Justice. In 1806 he began the practice of law in Standish, removing in 1818 to Portland. He acquired a high standing in the profession; and in 1820, when Maine was set off and admitted as a State and a Supreme Court was established, Mr. Greenleaf was appointed its reporter, - a position then and long thereafter, in some of the older States, of such distinction that it often served as a stepping stone to the Bench. In 1833 he was appointed Royall professor of law in the Law School of Harvard University; and in 1846 he became Dane professor of law, in the same school, in succession to Mr. Justice Story, long his colleague, to whom he dedicated the present work. In 1848 he resigned, and became professor emeritus. He died on October 6, 1853. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.