Jurist Jonathan Belcher was born in Boston. He was the second son of Jonathan Belcher and Mary Partridge,

Belcher entered Harvard College, where in 1728 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Divinity Studies. In 1730 he entered the Middle Temple, London, to read law, and in 1734 was called to the English bar.

In the meantime he had been admitted as a fellow-commoner to Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1733 he received another master’s degree, this time in mathematics. He later received a third master’s degree from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

In 1754, Belcher was sent to Nova Scotia to become the first Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Prior to Belcher’s arrival Nova Scotia had no formally trained law officers. This meant that he was not only interpreting the law there, he was oftentimes writing it.

Belcher also served on the Nova Scotia Council. On July 28, 1755, he published a document which concluded that deportation of the Acadians was both authorized and required under the law. This is the decision that got him in hot water.

From 1761 to 1763, he was also Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, spending the last three years of that period as Acting Governor when Henry Ellis did not fulfill his duties. He negotiated the peace that led to the Burying the Hatchet ceremony in Nova Scotia.

Jonathan Belcher died in office in 1776, and is buried in the Old Burying Ground in Halifax.

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