“G is for Grimké, John Faucheraud (1752-1819)

“G is for Grimké, John Faucheraud (1752-1819). Legislator, jurist. Grimké was born in Charleston and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1775 he organized an artillery unit for service in the Revolutionary War. In 1780 he was captured and imprisoned by the British but escaped to join General Nathanael Greene's army. In 1782 Grimké began the first of five terms in the General Assembly, including a term as Speaker of the House. In 1783 he was appointed an associate justice of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions. He published The South Carolina Justice of the Peace in 1784 as a guide for the officers of the state’s new judiciary. During his thirty-six years on the bench, John Faucheraud Grimké helped establish fundamental principles of South Carolina jurisprudence by advocating professionalization of legal study, uniformity of law, and judicial independence.