Daniel Horsmanden

Daniel Horsmanden (June 4, 1691 – 28 September 1778) was a chief justice of the supreme court in the Province of New York and member of the governor's executive council.

Horsmanden was born in Goudhurst, Kent, England to a family of clergy and landed gentry. He was grandson to Sir Warham St. Leger who had sold Leeds Castle to finance his cousin Sir Walter Raleigh's ill-fated expedition to Guiana. Horsmanden read law, but lost his inheritance to financial speculation in the South Sea bubble which necessitated his voyage to the colonies to seek new opportunities. His cousin William Byrd, a large land owner in Virginia and a member of the Council of Virginia and the Royal Society of London smoothed his introduction into English colonial society.

Horsmanden's legal talent resulted in his eventual call to the New York City Council on 23 May 1733. He was appointed Recorder of New York City in September 1736, and 3rd Justice of the Supreme Court in January 1737. He was dismissed from both offices in September 1747, due to political enmities. In July 1750, he was restored to the Supreme Court, and was appointed Chief Justice in March 1763. He was on the governor's executive council from 1733 to 1747 and from 1755 to 1776. He was one of the original trustees of King's College (now Columbia University).

He was involved in the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger. He was one of the judges who tried the supposed conspirators in the New York Slave Insurrection of 1741. In 1766, he was one of the judges in the Prendergast case where he convicted and sentenced to death the supposed leader of the Dutchess land rebels. In 1773, he was appointed a commissioner to inquire into the Gaspee Affair, which was the burning of the king's ship "Gaspee" by a party of Sons of Liberty in the preceding year.

In 1776, along with Oliver De Lancey and about one thousand other residents of the city and county of New York, he signed an address to Lord Howe.

He died in Flatbush, New York, and is buried in Trinity church yard.