Overseer — Law Dictionary

Black's Law Dictionary

Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910

A superintendent or supervisor; a publlc officer whose duties involve general superintendence of routine affairs.

— Overseers of highways. The name given, in some of the states, to a board of officers of a city, township, or county, whose special function is the construction and repair of the public roads or highways:

— Overseers of the poor. Persons appointed or elected to take care of the poor with moneys furnished to them by the public authority. lands, by the owner of the less valuable estate to the owner of the more valuable, to equalize the exchange.

A Dictionary of Law

Henry Campbell Black · 1891

A superintendent or supervisor; a publie officer whose duties involve general superintendence of routine affairs.;

Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence

Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879

The style or title of several classes of public officers whose duties involve continuous general superintendence of routine affairs. Overseersof high-ways, or Toads. In several of the states, the general charge of construction and repair of highways is devolved upon a distinct board of officers, termed the overseers. In other states, a board of about the same powers and duties is known as commissioners of highways. The term overseer of a public road, in Tenn. Code, § 1223, requiring signs to be put up by such overseer at railroad crossings, does not include a turnpike company. Louisville, &c. Turnpike Co. v. State, 3 He.isk. 129. Overseers of the poor, in England, are public officers originally created by the 43 Eliz. ch. 2, to provide for the poor of every parish, and are sometimes two, three, or four, according to the extent of parishes. Church-wardens, by this statute, are called overseers of the poor, and they join with ness of their own, usually leave the care of the poor to the overseers only, though anciently they were the sole overseers of the poor. {Dalt. ch. 27; Wood Inst. 9.3.) Jacob, In the United States, overseers of the poor are public officers and liable to indictment, at common law, for any neglect of their duties or abuse of their powers; as for cruel treatment of paupers under their charge State v. Hawkins, 77 JV. C. 494.