Around 1879-1883, John Hill Martin compiled "The Philadelphia Bar, Collected, Corrected, and Arranged by John Hill Martin, Attorney at Law," a list of lawyers admitted to the bar in Philadelphia between 1682 and 1883. The volume has partial lists of sources that Martin consulted (pp. 2, 4), a list of abbreviations (p. 5a), and a preface, in which Martin discussed other lists of Philadelphia lawyers that he consulted (pp. 3-4a). The list, which is organized alphabetically by surname, appears on recto pages numbered 6-138, with additional entries and/or biographical details written on most verso pages. Each name is accompanied by the date of admission to the bar, and some entries have additional biographical information. A list of lawyers admitted to the Berks County bar, with their dates of admission (2 pages), and a list of Philadelphia attorneys copied from the New Trade Directory of 1800 (2 pages) are pasted into the book's final pages.
John Hill Martin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 13, 1823, the son of William Martin (1797-1862) and Sarah Ann Smith (1801-1876). He had eight siblings who survived to maturity: William, Jr. (b. 1824), Ellen Crosby, Mary Welsh (1832-1851), Luther (b. 1834), Georgiana, Mortimer Richard Talbot (b. 1838), Sarah Ann, and Ernest Dudley (1843-1868). His grandmother in Ridley, Pennsylvania, raised him until he was 13, when he joined his parents in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1838, Martin entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, but he resigned his place in 1841. He studied law with George L. Ashmead in Philadelphia, was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in November 1844, and practiced law for many years. He was legal editor of the Philadelphia Intelligencer and wrote several historical works about cities and regions in Pennsylvania. In 1861, he became captain of an independent artillery company in Philadelphia, though he did not serve in the field. John Hill Martin died on April 7, 1906.
