The 2019-2020 term of the United States Supreme Court has been one of the most controversial and memorable in the history of the Court. These developments shine the light of the public’s interest on the Supreme Court, but almost no one knows that there was once a Lycoming County resident on the nation’s highest tribunal — Robert C. Grier.

Many distinguished attorneys have called Lycoming County home over the past 200 or so years, but perhaps none has been so distinguished as Grier, who served as a U. S. Supreme Court Justice from 1846 to 1870.

He was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, on March 5, 1784. His father, Isaac, was a Presbyterian minister, and it was in that capacity that he brought his newly born son Robert to Lycoming County.

Isaac, in addition to preaching to several Presbyterian congregations in the soon-to-be-formed Lycoming County, also taught school and also cultivated a farm. The farm stood in the area of what is now the southwest corner of Memorial Avenue and Grier Street.

Robert was carefully grounded in a classical education by his father, before entering, at the age of 17, Dickinson College in Carlisle. He graduated with high honors in 1812 and took a job as a tutor. After a year, he accepted a job at a newly established academy in Northumberland, started by his father. He assisted his father there, and when his father died in 1815, he succeeded him as principal of the school.

Shortly thereafter, Grier took up his study of the law and, in 1817, was admitted to the bar, practicing in the Bloomsburg-Danville area, as well as some cases in Williamsport.

While in Williamsport, he met his wife, the former Isabella Rose, her father, John Rose, was a wealthy landowner and a man of some influence. Later, both Isabella and Rose streets would be named for her and her father.

After developing a thriving practice, the governor appointed him President Judge of Allegheny County.

As an active member of the Democratic Party, he caught the eye of President James K. Polk, who appreciated Grier’s talent as a jurist, so much that he appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1846.

It was the time of the highly charged issue of slavery, and while on the High Court, Grier participated in one of the most controversial court cases in American history, the Dred Scott case. Grier was the only northern Supreme Court Justice to vote to have Scott returned to his master. Grier was greatly influenced by the arguments of Chief Justice Roger Taney, who said that a ruling freeing Scott would help to precipitate civil war.

In addition to the Dred Scott case, Grier voted on such other historic cases as Luther vs. Borden, Ex parte Milligan, and Cooley vs. Board of Wardens.

When Chief Justice Taney died in 1864, it was said that Abraham Lincoln briefly considered Grier as Taney’s replacement. Still, Grier’s vote on the Dred Scott case made that politically untenable.

During the late 1860s, Grier’s health and his mind started to fail. It was said that he stayed beyond his ability to function. A committee of court colleagues came to him in early 1870, urging him to step down. He finally did and died several months later on September 27, 1870, in Philadelphia.