Oscar L. Shafter
American judge
Oscar Lovell Shafter (October 19, 1812 – January 22, 1873) was an American attorney and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California from January 2, 1864, to December 11, 1867 with a legacy of expanding the California dairy industry.
Originally from Vermont he moved to California in 1854 and practiced law in San Francisco.
In 1857, he and his brother James McMillan Shafter won a legal battle after which their client sold them the contested property of Point Reyes. They bought almost the entire peninsula for less than $85,000 and developed it as the leading dairy region in the entire West.
Early life and education
Shafter was born in Athens, Vermont to Mary and William R. Shafter. His father was an attorney, judge and member of the Vermont Legislature. His grandfather, James Shafter, fought in the American Revolution, was one of the founders of the town of Athens in Vermont in 1779, and served in the Vermont Legislature for 20 years. Shafter attended Wilbraham Wesleyan Academy in Massachusetts, and in 1834 graduated from Wesleyan University. After graduation, he returned to Vermont and commenced reading law. He entered Harvard Law School and in 1836 graduated with a LL.B. He returned to Wilmington, Vermont, and entered into private practice for the next 18 years.
“Oscar L. Shafter” enters the record as american judge. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Oscar, Shafter and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34370697. VIAF identifies the subject as 41737226. The Library of Congress control number is nr96011583. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1812, 1873, 1864 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oscar L. Shafter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.