Peck was born on August 7, 1799, in
Blenheim, New York. David and Christiana Minturn Peck were his parents. He began to study law in 1819. In 1824 he was admitted to practice in Superior Court at
Albany, New York. The following year he was admitted to the bar in
Syracuse, New York. He moved to
Elyton, Alabama where he practiced law. A few years later moved to
Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Peck served from 1839 to 1841 as chancellor of the Middle Division Chancery Court. Peck was an opponent of secession but did not actively aid the cause of the Union during the Civil War. He was a candidate for representative to the Alabama Constitutional Convention of 1865 but was defeated. In 1867, he moved to
Sycamore, Illinois then to
Rockford, Illinois and then back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was elected chairman of the Military Reconstruction Convention of 1867. Later that year, Peck, a member of the Republican Party, was chosen as chief justice of the
Alabama Supreme Court, where he served until retiring in 1874. He died at his home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on February 13, 1888. He married Lucy Lamb Randall and had seven children. ==References==