ISAAC WILBOUR was born in Little Compton, Rhode Island. He was elected to the Rhode Island General Assembly at the age of eighteen, served as Speaker of the Assembly four years later, and went on to become a state Senator and then Lieutenant Governor. With no gubernatorial election in 1806, Wilbour as Lieutenant Governor acted as governor. In 1807 he joined the U.S. House of Representatives, but declined appointment to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate two years later due to his wife’s ill health. Although Wilbour had no formal legal education, he was appointed Associate Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court in 1818. In 1819 he became Chief Justice, a position that he held until 1827. For the remaining decade before his death, he devoted himself to religious activities.