Benjamin Rumsey (October 6, 1734 – March 7, 1808) was an American jurist from Joppa, Maryland. He served as a delegate for Maryland in the Continental Congress in 1776 and 1777. For over twenty-five years, beginning in 1778, he was the chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals.
Benjamin was born at Bohemia Manor in Cecil County, Maryland. After attending Princeton, he read law and was admitted to the bar. He settled in Joppa before 1768 and lived there the rest of his life.
Rumsey was first elected to Maryland's lower house in 1771 as a member for Cecil County. After Harford County was formed in 1773, he represented it. He also represented it in the revolutionary conventions held between 1774 and 1776. Maryland sent him to the Continental Congress for three sessions in 1776 and 1777.
When a new state superior court (the Maryland Court of Appeals) was created in 1778, Rumsey was appointed as its first chief justice. He held that post until his retirement in 1806. He died at home in Joppa in 1808 and is buried in the Old St. John's Church Cemetery there.
Famous quotes containing the word benjamin:
“The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)