Peter Tinsley
Peter Tinsley (1750s – July 21, 1810), was Clerk of the High Court of Chancery in Richmond, Virginia, during and after George Wythe's tenure as chancery court judge. Although the date of his birth is unknown, he was the son of Thomas and Agnes Tinsley, who were married in 1754. Peter had at least four siblings, the most famous of which was Colonel Thomas Tinsley (1755-1822), who "serve[d] . . . eight consecutive one-year terms as a Hanover County delegate to Virginia's General Assembly." Thomas was the owner of Totomoi, an historic plantation in Hanover County, Virginia, north of Richmond.[1]
It was Thomas Tinsley who recommended a fourteen-year-old Henry Clay for a job in Peter's office, in or around 1793, bringing Clay within reach of Wythe's influence.[2] Although Wythe had apparently set aside teaching and dedicated himself to his work as a jurist, Wythe made an exception for Clay and "took the young man under his wing" when he recognized Clay's potential.[3] So, through his brother Thomas, Peter Tinsley forms a significant link in the chain of Clay's career.
Thomas was an army officer. When he was "transferred to the southern frontier" he left without paying "a debt to a freedwoman in Wythe's household." Wythe intervened, writing to "his friend," President Jefferson (who, to say the least, could encourage Thomas to resolve the matter) Wythe needn't have bothered the President with the matter; Peter Tinsley stepped up to his brother's defense and paid the debt, and motivated to Wythe write to to Jefferson to clear Thomas's reputation.
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Clerk of the High Court of Chancery
According to his obituary, Tinsley was Clerk of the Court for the High Court of Chancery beginning while Wythe was the sole Chancellor (sometime after 1788), and continued as clerk after the re-division of the court in 1802, until his death in 1810. As Wythe's clerk for more than a decade, Peter Tinsley had a unique perspective into the Chancellor's life and work. Tinsley's "form book" from this time, survives. In this manuscript, Tinsley compiled various sample documents for the court's use, sparing them from having to reinvent the wheel each time it needed to issue a document. Without the clerk and his book of forms, the court could not follow proper procedure, or maintain efficient function.
Virginia's High Court of Chancery also made use of pre-printed forms|, which the clerk could issue for routine tasks by simply filling in the blanks.
Obituary, The Virginia Patriot (Richmond, VA), 24 July 1810
Page 3
On Saturday last departed this life, after a short and severe illness, PETER TINSLEY, Esq. of this city; long the Clerk of the High Court of Chancery; and since its division, the Clerk of the Court of Chancery sitting in this district.
In his profession this gentleman had no superior, nor will it be easy to find his equal. But it is not as a professional man that his loss is most deeply felt and most deplored. In the walks of private life, he was among the most worthy, and most amiable of men. By those who knew him best he was most esteemed, and most beloved. The affliction of his friends is sincere, that of his family unutterable.
It is not common place panegyric to say that Mr. Tinsley was endowed with a fine understanding, with principles most pure and honorable, and with a heart susceptible of the warmest and sincerest friendship, as well as the most tender affection—every social, every domestic virtue was his. As a friend and a neighbor he will be long remembered with sincere regret, and as a husband, by an inconsolable wife whose poignant grief time may assuage but can never efface.—To his children, who are too young to feel their loss, its full extent it is irreparable.
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- Links to outside sources.
