Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 29 January 2005

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This eminent jurist and statesman was born in Morris County, N. J., March 11, 1785. His father, Fergus McLean, was a poor man with a large family, and, four years after the birth of John, he removed to the West, settling first at Morganstown, Va., afterward near Nicholasville, Ky., and finally, in 1799, found a permanent home in what is now Warren County, Ohio. He opened and cleared a farm near Ridgeville, upon which he resided until his death, forty years afterward. His distinguished son afterward owned and resided upon this farm. The town of Ridgeville was laid out by Fergus McLean in the year 1814.

John received a good English education, notwithstanding the straitened circumstances of his father; he also studied the ancient languages, one of his teachers being Rev. Matthew G. Wallace, a Presbyterian clergyman. Desiring to study law, at the age of eighteen he went to Cincinnati and pursued his studies under the direction of Arthur St. Clair, Jr., a son of the Revolutionary General of that name, and a prominent lawyer, whose law office was at Cincinnati, but practiced at Lebanon and other places in the Miami Circuit. Young McLean, while pursuing his legal studies, supported himself by writing in the office of the Clerk of Court at Cincinnati. He also at times wrote in the county offices at Lebanon. Some of the early records in the court house at Warren County are in his handwriting. In his younger days, he wrote an excellent hand, and he is said to have, been noted for his rapid work as a recording copyist

In the spring of 1807, he was married to Miss Rebecca Edwards, and about the same time commenced the publication of the Western Star, the first newspaper at Lebanon. In the autumn of 1807, he was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice at Lebanon, editing his paper at the same time. About three years later, he disposed of his paper to his brother Nathaniel. He was successful at the bar, and such were his character and ability that, at the age of twenty-seven, he was elected a Representative in Congress from the district which included Cincinnati, although Warren County had for the preceding ten years furnished Ohio with its sole member of the Lower House of Congress. In 1812, the State was for the first time divided into Congressional districts. McLean was elected to represent the First District, composed of the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Preble. In 1814, he was re-elected unanimously, receiving not only every vote cast for Representative, but, what is re-

Judge McLean was first elected to Congress as a Democrat, in favor of the war with England, and a supporter of Madison's administration. He held a position in the cabinet of J. Q. Adams during the Presidential election of 1828, and took no active part in the contest between Adams and Jackson, but both the War and Navy Departments were tendered him by Jackson and declined. His opinions from the Supreme Bench gave him great popularity with the anti-slavery people of the United States, especially in the Dred Scott case, in which he dissented from the opinion of the court as given by Chief Justice Taney, and expressed the opinion that in this country slavery was sustained only by local law. His name was prominently identified with the party opposed to the extension of slavery, and was before the Free-Soil convention at Buffalo for the nomination for President At the National Republican Convention of 1856, he received 196 votes for the same office to 359 for Fremont.
When Lincoln was nominated in 1860, McLean also received a number of votes.
When a young lawyer, John McLean was inclined toward skepticism in religion, but in 1811 he was converted under the preaching, at a private house in Lebanon, of Rev. John Collins, a pioneer Methodist preacher, and from that time until his death he was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He edited the lives of two Methodist preachers—Philip Gatch and John Collins. In the last years of his life, his home was at Cincinnati, where he died April 4, 1861. He was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery.