{{Short description|American judge (1814–1883)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}} '''Washington Adams''' (1814 – May 14, 1883)<ref name="Mo Bio">{{Cite web|url=https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=180215 |title=Judge Washington Adams|website=www.courts.mo.gov|access-date=November 29, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Bazoo">"[https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90061066/1883-05-15/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1883 Death of Judge Adams]", ''The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo'' (May 15, 1883), p. 3.</ref> was a justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri from 1871 to 1874.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=299 |title=Former Judges of the Supreme Court|website=www.courts.mo.gov}}</ref>

==Early life, education, and career== Born in Christian County, Kentucky, to parents who had emigrated there from their native Virginia, the family moved to Howard County, Missouri, in 1816, when Adams was two years old.<ref name="Bazoo"/> He attended the local schools, but was "more indebted to himself than to teachers for his education, which, in addition to English, embraced the usual course in Latin and Greek".<ref name="Bazoo"/> He then read law for four years in the office of Peyton R. Hayden, a distinguished lawyer at Boonville, gaining admission to the bar in 1835, and establishing a successful law practice in Boonville.<ref name="Mo Bio"/><ref name="Bazoo"/>

==Judicial service and constitutional convention participation== On December 27, 1871, he was appointed by Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown to fill the seat on the supreme bench vacated by the resignation of Judge Warren Currier, and afterwards, at the election in November, 1872, Adams was elected to fill the balance of the term. He served until his resignation in October, 1874. He was also a member of the state constitutional convention of 1875,<ref name="Bazoo"/> where he chaired the convention's Judiciary Committee and "played a pivotal role in the construction and framework of the State constitution".<ref name="Mo Bio"/> This included extending the term of service for judges of the state supreme court, and establishing a three-judge appellate court in St. Louis.<ref name="Mo Bio"/>

==Personal life and death== Adams was a member of the Episcopal church. He was married in Boonville in 1840 to Eliza, daughter of William Brown, of Cynthiana, Kentucky. They had three children.<ref name="Bazoo"/> Adams died suddenly at his residence, in Boonville, of heart disease at age 68 or 69.<ref name="Bazoo"/>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{s-start}} {{s-off}} {{succession box |title=Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court |before=Warren Currier |after=Edward Augustus Lewis |years=1871–1874}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Washington}} Category:1814 births Category:1883 deaths Category:People from Christian County, Kentucky Category:U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law Category:Judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri