George Wythe
George Wythe (/wɪθ/; 1726 – June 8, 1806)[1][2] was an American academic, scholar and judge who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The first of the seven signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence from Virginia, Wythe served as one of Virginia's representatives to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention and served on a committee that established the convention's rules and procedures. He left the convention before signing the United States Constitution to tend to his dying wife. He was elected to the Virginia Ratifying Convention and helped ensure that his home state ratified the Constitution.[3] Wythe taught and was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay and other men who became American leaders.
George Wythe
Born into a wealthy Virginia planter family, Wythe established a legal career in Williamsburg, Virginia, after studying under his uncle. He became a member of the House of Burgesses in 1754 and helped oversee defense expenditures during the French and Indian War. He opposed the Stamp Act of 1765 and other British taxes imposed on the Thirteen Colonies. He was also a delegate to Virginia's 1776 constitutional convention and helped design the Seal of Virginia. Wythe served as a judge for much of his life, first as a justice of the peace and then on the Virginia Court of Chancery. He was also a prominent law professor at the College of William & Mary and took on several notable apprentices. He remained particularly close to Jefferson and left Jefferson his substantial book collection in his will. Wythe became increasingly troubled by slavery and emancipated all of his slaves at the end of the American Revolution.[4][5] Wythe died in 1806, apparently from poisoning, and his grand-nephew George Sweeny was tried and acquitted for Wythe's murder.
In 1790 Wythe received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the College of William & Mary.[115]
In his will, Wythe left his large book collection to Thomas Jefferson. This was part of the collection which Jefferson later sold to create the Library of Congress. Jefferson praised Wythe as "my ancient master, my earliest and best friend, and to him I am indebted for first impressions which have [been] the most salutary on the course of my life."[116] However, Jefferson later refused an offer of Wythe's lecture notes and other legal papers, believing they should go instead to what became the Library of Virginia.[117] Last reported either in the possession of Spencer Roane (who burned many papers before his death) or his ally Thomas Ritchie (publisher of the Richmond Enquirer), they were reported lost by the 1830s.[118][119] Jefferson's grandson George Wythe Randolph, who became the secretary of war of the Confederate States of America, was named after Wythe.
Places associated with Wythe remain preserved today, and over the centuries other places have been named in his honor: