Hampton L. Carson with Edwin Sydney Stuart and Floyd Williams Tomkins. Photograph, c.1907

Hampton L. Carson was born in Philadelphia on February 21, 1852. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1871, and from its Law School in 1874. He was the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1903 to 1907, president of the state bar association, vice president of the American Bar Association, editor of the Legal Gazette, a legal scholar, historian, author, public speaker, and collector. One of Mr. Carson’s principal collections was materials dealing with the legal structure of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in colonial and early statehood days.