User:Gwsweeney/George Wythe
George Wythe SANDBOX | |
Chancellor of the Commonwealth of Virginia | |
In office | |
December 24, 1788 – June 8, 1806 | |
Preceded by | Inaugural holder |
Succeeded by | Creed Taylor |
Judge, High Court of Chancery of Virginia | |
In office | |
14 January, 1778 – June 8, 1806 | |
Preceded by | Inaugural holder |
Delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Virginia | |
In office | |
August 11, 1775 – June 13, 1776 | |
Succeeded by | Mann Page |
Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses | |
In office | |
1754 – 1775 | |
Preceded by | Armistead Burwell |
Mayor of the City of Williamsburg, Virginia | |
In office | |
1769 – 1700 | |
Preceded by | James Cocke |
Succeeded by | John Blair, Jr. |
Personal details | |
Born | 1726 |
Elizabeth City Co., Virginia | |
Died | June 8, 1806 (aged 80) |
Richmond, Virginia, U.S. | |
Resting place | St. John's Church Richmond, Virginia |
Residence(s) | Chesterville Plantation, Elizabeth City Co., Virginia Prince George Co., Virginia Spotsylvania Co., Virginia Williamsburg, Virginia Richmond, Virginia |
Profession | Lawyer Professor of Law and Police (1779–1789) Chancery Court Judge (1778–1806) |
Spouse(s) | Ann Lewis (1747-1748) Elizabeth Taliaferro (1755–1789) |
Relatives | Thomas Wythe (father) Margaret Walker Wythe (mother) Thomas Wythe (elder brother) Anne Wythe Sweeney (elder sister) |
Known for | Signer of the United States Declaration of Independence |
Signature |
George Wythe (/dʒɔː(ɹ)dʒ wɪð/;[1] 1726 – June 8, 1806) was born in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, at his family home, Chesterville.[2] As a second son in a family of moderate means, he chose law as his profession and qualified to practice in 1746. From that modest beginning, Wythe launched a successful career augmented by a variety of public service positions, including a brief stint as Virginia’s youngest Attorney General. When revolution erupted, Wythe participated as a delegate to the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and briefly represented the Commonwealth at the Constitutional Convention. In addition to his contributions on the national stage, Wythe’s fellow Virginians selected him to help rewrite Virginia’s code of laws, to preside over Virginia’s Constitutional ratifying Convention, and, in 1778, to serve on the newly created High Court of Chancery.
Wythe originally began his teaching career in the traditional 18th century manner of mentoring apprentices to his legal practice. Historians believe Wythe started instructing apprentices in his Williamsburg home before 1762 when Thomas Jefferson began to read law, but no records verify or identify earlier students. Subsequent Wythe apprentices included James Madison (president of William & Mary College) and St. George Tucker (Wythe’s successor as professor of law and police).
In 1779, William & Mary’s Board of Visitors reorganized the college and created the chair of Professor of Law and Police — the first of its kind in America and only the second in the English-speaking world. The Board appointed George Wythe to fill the new chair, making Wythe both William & Mary’s first law professor and the first law professor in the country.
Wythe lectured twice a week and assigned readings from major legal treatises such as William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England and Matthew Bacon’s New Abridgment of the Law. He also introduced the use of mock trials and mock legislatures to American legal education in an effort to prepare his students for roles as “citizen lawyers”. Wythe’s students included John Marshall and Bushrod Washington as well as three future Virginia Supreme Court Justices and numerous future Congressmen and Senators. In 1789, the Virginia High Court of Chancery, on which Wythe had served since its inception in 1778, relocated to Richmond. This change and Wythe’s growing unhappiness with the direction of academic life at the College caused Wythe to resign his position as professor. He moved to Richmond where he continued his judicial career until his death in 1806.
Contents
Early life
George Wythe, the second son of Thomas Wythe, III,[3] and Margaret Walker Wythe, was born in 1726, most likely in the first half of the year.[4]Wythe's father owned the family plantation, Chesterville, in Elizabeth City County (now Hampton), Virginia, where he was also a local justice, sheriff, and served as a member in the Virginia House of Burgesses.
George Wythe was born in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, at his family home, Chesterville.[5] As a second son in a family of moderate means, he chose law as his profession and qualified to practice in 1746.
Born
Grandparents, parents
Chesterville
Apprentice to Stephen Dewey (south of Richmond, across the James River, south of Petersburg)
Examiners spring, 1746, license to practice signed by Peyton Randolph, Lawrence Burford, William Nimmo, and Stephen Dewey
Legal and political careers
1st job
Partner with Zachary Lewis, Spotsyvlania County, Virginia. Bel-Air plantation.
John Lewis
Oath of justice Elizabeth City county court, June 2, 1747 Hemphill CB 74
Ann Lewis (married December 26, 1747)
Practiced Augusta, Caroline, Orange, and Spotsylvania Counties
Ann dies August 8, 1748
"later wrote he drowned his sorrows in the inns of Spotsylvania County" http://books.google.com/books?id=Lq1rd1ecFCYC&pg=PA103
October 1748
- Main article: House of Burgesses
Clerk of the committee on Privileges and Elections of the House of Burgesses of Viriginia
Clerk of the committee on Propositions and Grievances of the House of Burgesses of Virginia
Qualified to practice York and Warwick (now Newport News) and perhaps other Counties
1748-1752 clerk of
committee on Privileges and Elections of the House of Burgesses of Viriginia
committee on Propositions and Grievances of the House of Burgesses of Virginia
1750, Wythe was first elected as one of Williamsburg's aldermen (18 years)
re-elected 1752
August 1754-1756? Member of the House of Burgesses for Williamsburg (2 years) succeeded Armistead Burwell
committee on Courts of Justice
By early 1754, qualifies to practice before the General Court (Court of Appeals) Dill 17:
January 1754 appointed Attorney General of Virginia (succeeded Peyton Randolph, succeeded by Peyton Randolph, December?)
Hemphill says before May 1755, signed law license p. 77
"man of integrity" Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia 162-163
1755 older brother Thomas Wythe dies intestate, Wythe's inherits Chesterville
1758-1761 House of Burgesses for the College of William & Mary
1759 committee of Correspondence
1761-1767 House of Burgesses for Elizabeth City County
1766 John Robinson estate scandal
March 1768-1775??? Clerk of the House of Burgesses of Virginia (succeeded John Randolph, big quote in Js of the HoB 1766-69, p. 141) Speaker of the House of Burgesses
1774 committee of Safety
succeeds James Cocke elected Nov. 30 1768 Va Gazette Mayor of Williamsburg 1768-1769 succeeded by John Blair, Jr.
Legal clients: George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Carter
Mentoring
Jefferson, St. George Tucker, James Madison, James Innes?
Wythe the revolutionary
1774 Clerk of First Virginia Convention in Williamsburg Instructions for the deputies appointed to meet in General Congress? Va Gazette August 11 1774
1774 urges Jeff to publish A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Delegate to Third Virginia Convention
August 11, 1775 elected deputy to General Congress
Mr. + Mrs. Wythe in Philadelphia September 5th. Dill 29, n. VA Gazette Pinkney Aug.31 Sept.14 Sept 21 Va Gazette Dixon Sept 2 Va Gazette Purdie Aug 25 Sept 1.
Second Continental Congress comes to order Sept. 13
1777 Speaker of the House of Delegates of Virginia
Wythe the teacher
- Main article: Wythe the Teacher
Judicial career
- Main article: Wythe's Judicial Career
Death
- Main article: Death of George Wythe
Further reading
- Blackburn, Joyce. George Wythe of Williamsburg. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
- Brown, Imogene E. American Aristides: A Biography of George Wythe. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, c1981.
- Clarkin, William. Serene Patriot: A Life of George Wythe. Albany, NY: Alan Publications, 1970.
- Dill, Alonzo Thomas. George Wythe: Teacher of Liberty. Williamsburg, VA: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1979.
- Hemphill, William Edwin. "George Wythe, the Colonial Briton: A Biographical Study of the Pre-Revolutionary Era in Virginia". PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1937.
- Hemphill, William Edwin. "George Wythe: America’s First Law Professor and the Teacher of Jefferson, Marshall and Clay." Masters thesis, Emory University, 1933.
- Holt, Wythe. "George Wythe: Early Modern Judge," Alabama Law Review 58 (2007), 1009-1039.
- Kirtland, Robert Bevier. George Wythe: Lawyer, Revolutionary, Judge. New York: Garland, 1986.
- Loker, Aleck. George Wythe: Venerable Statesman, Jurist and Educator. Williamsburg, VA: Solitude Press, 2007.
- Shewmake, Oscar L. The Honourable George Wythe: Teacher, Lawyer, Jurist, Statesman: An Address Delivered Before the Wythe Law Club of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, Dec. 18, 1921. Richmond, VA, 1950.
References
- ↑ "Wythe" is pronounced "with".
- ↑ The exact date of Wythe's birth is unknown. Historians generally choose 1726, but Wythe could have been born in early 1727.
- ↑ Alonzo Thomas Dill, George Wythe: Teacher of Liberty, (Williamsburg, VA: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1979), 3.
- ↑ The exact date of Wythe's birth is unknown, but Hemphill cites the American Law Journal, 3 (1810), 97, that Wythe died in the "eighty-first year of his age" in June 1806. "George Wythe the Colonial Briton: A Biographical Study of the Pre-Revolutionary Era in Virginia," PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1937, 31.
- ↑ The exact date of Wythe's birth is unknown. Historians generally choose 1726, but Wythe could have been born in early 1727.
External links
George Wythe on Wikipedia.