Edmund Pendleton
|
|
Edmund Pendleton (1721-1803) was a Virginia politician, lawyer and judge, active in the American Revolutionary War. He was born in Caroline County on September 9, 1721 and was licensed to practice law in 1741. He raised and helped school his fatherless nephew John Taylor of Caroline, who went on to be a U.S. Senator. From 1752-1776 he was a member of the House of Burgesses, serving as President of the last two. Pendleton was on the Virginia Committee of Correspondence in 1773 and was a delegate to Continental Congress from Virginia in 1774.
Pendleton served as President of the Virginia Committee of Safety and as President of the Virginia Convention which authorized the Virginia signing of the Declaration of Independence. After the Declaration, he became the first Speaker of the Virginia's new House of Delegates. He along with Thomas Jefferson and George Wythe revised Virginia's law code. He was appointed Judge of the High Court of Chancery in 1777. When Virginia appointed a Supreme Court of Appeals in 1778, Pendleton was appointed its first President where he served until his death. He served as President of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1788. Pendleton died October 23, 1803.
Thomas Jefferson said of Pendleton: "Taken in all he was the ablest man in debate I ever met".
External link
- Pendleton's Congressional Biography (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000200)
Further Reading
- David J. Mays;"Edmund Pendleton, 1721-1803: A Biography"; 1952, Harvard University Press; 1984 reprint: Library of Virginia, ISBN 088490119X; (paperback: ISBN 0884901203).
- David Mays (editor); "The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton" (2 volumes); 1967, Charlottesville, Virginia, The University Press of Virginia.