Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (February 21, 1816 – January 31, 1895) was an American politician, lawyer, and jurist from Massachusetts. He served as U.S. Attorney General from 1869 to 1870, and was the first head of the newly created Department of Justice. Hoar assisted President Ulysses S. Grant in appointing two United States Supreme Court justices and was himself nominated to the Court. His nomination was rejected by the United States Senate, in part for his positions on patronage reform. In 1871, Hoar was appointed by Grant to the United States high commission that negotiated the Treaty of Washington between the U.S. and the United Kingdom, helping to settle the Alabama Claims. Early life and legal career Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on February 21, 1816, to Samuel and Sarah Hoar (née Sherman). Hoar came from a long line of Puritan ancestry. His family had emigrated to America in 1640, initially settling in Braintree, Massachusetts. Hoar was sent to a religious private female teacher at the early age of two. By the age of three, Hoar was able to read the Bible fluently as an adult. By four, Hoar was fully literate, having surpassed his older sister in reading and writing. As Hoar grew up he was known for quick thinking and witty sayings. In 1831, Hoar entered Harvard University at the age of fifteen. Upon graduation in 1835, he moved West and served as an instructor at a school for girls in Pittsburgh. After teaching, he traveled to Kentucky and heard the famous politician Henry Clay speak, then returned to Concord to study law at his father's office. In 1837, Hoar returned to Harvard where he studied law for eighteen months and for six months in the law office of Emory Washburn. On September 30, 1839, he passed the bar and had received a LL.B. degree from Harvard, where upon he practiced law in 1840 in Concord and Boston. Massachusetts politics In the 1840s, Hoar began his political career as an anti-slavery member of the Whig Party. Hoar stated that he was a Conscience Whig rather than a Cotton Whig, who represented the Massachusetts textile interests and the Southern cotton industry. In 1846, Hoar was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. In 1848, Hoar worked with his father to form the Free Soil Party of Massachusetts. The new party opposed the extension of slavery in the Western territories.