WITHERELL, James, statesman, born in Marts-field, Massachusetts, 16 June, 1759; died in Detroit, Michigan, 9 January, 1838. He served in the Revolutionary army as a member of the 11th Massachusetts regiment from the beginning of the war till 1783, when he was mustered out of service, after participating in the principal battles in New York and New Jersey, and being severely wounded at White Plains. He then studied medicine in" his native state, was licensed to practise in 1788, and removed to Vermont, where he adopted the profession of law. He served in the legislature in 1798-1803, was a judge of Rutland county for the next two years, state councillor in 1803-'7, and a member of congress from October, 1807, till May, 1808, when he resigned to become United States judge for the territory of Michigan. He resigned that post in 1828, and was appointed secretary of the territory by President John Quincy Adams. He was active in the management of the municipal and educational affairs of Detroit, and left a valuable collection of papers on the history of that city and the state of Michigan.--His son, Benjamin Franklin Hawkins, jurist, born in Fair Haven, Vermont, 4 August, 1797; died in Detroit, Michigan, 26 June, 1867, was educated in a private school in Troy, New York, accompanied his father to Michigan, and studied law. He was admitted to the bar of Detroit in 1819, was prosecuting attorney and probate judge of Wayne county, and in 1843 district judge of the criminal court of Wayne, Washtenaw, and Jackson counties. He became historiographer of Detroit in 1855, and from 1857 until his death was circuit judge of Wayne county. He was appointed a regent of the Static university in 1848, served several terms in the legislature, was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1850, and president of the Michigan historical society for many years.