Isaac Caldwell (1795 – January 12, 1836)The Rodney Telegraph (January 22, 1836), p. 2. was a justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi from 1825 to 1826.Franklin Lafayette Riley, School History of Mississippi: For Use in Public and Private Schools (1915), p. 380-82.
Born in Clinton, Mississippi, Caldwell became well-known as an attorney.Sue Thompson, "Old-Style Battles Once Fought On State Soil", Clarion-Ledger (August 8, 1971), p. 52. In 1829, Caldwell fought a duel with state legislator John R. Peyton over the latter's vote preventing Caldwell's hometown from being named capital of Mississippi; neither participant was injured. In 1831–1832 he was aligned with the Nullification movement of John C. Calhoun, along with George Poindexter, John A. Quitman, George Winchester, Cotesworth Pinckney Smith, and William L. Sharkey.
Caldwell was the law partner of Senator George Poindexter, and following Poindexter's defeat in his 1836 bid for reelection, Caldwell ended up engaging in a duel with one of Poindexter's political opponents, Colonel Samuel Gwin.Jay Guy Cisco, Historic Sumner County, Tennessee: With Genealogies of the Bledsoe, Gage and Douglass Families (1909), p. 252. The parties fought with pistols,"Jerry Mitchell, "History of high court justices in Miss. reveals tradition of impropriety", Clarion-Ledger (May 5, 2003), p. 1, 6. and "[b]oth parties fell. Caldwell expired in two hours. Gwin was shot through the lungs and survived about a year".
His widow died in 1842.
Henry S. Foote alleged that his wife, who died a couple years later, initially believed a suicide, was murdered by her second husband. Her second husband, a Dr. Kearney, allegedly fled to Mexico to escape prosecution. In 1843 Thomas Kearney was listed as an "administrator de bon nonis" for the estate of Isaac Caldwell.
The Caldwells were buried in a small family cemetery near what is today Interstate 20.
See also List of justices of the Supreme Court of Mississippi List of duels in the United States
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