Gideon Cornell

Gideon Cornell (1710–1766) was a farmer, trader and judge who became the first Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, serving from 1747 to 1749.

Upon his father's death in 1728, Cornell inherited a large amount of land in Rhode Island and Jamaica and a substantial sum of money.

[4] From 1740 to 1746 he was elected as an "assistant" to the governor (according to Austin, or from 1739 to 1745, 1764 according to another source),[5] and in 1746 he was also on a committee to run the boundary line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

[11] Cornell was also involved in other legal entanglements, including a land dispute over mortgaged property in Newport, when in 1763 he filed a trespass and ejectment suit.

The opposing party, Thomas Shearman, appealed the case to the Rhode Island Supreme Court and then eventually to the "King in Council" in Great Britain in 1767.

[12] Cornell died in Kingston, Jamaica in 1766 where he had gone to receive a large sum of money awarded to him by the British government.