Archibald Roane

Archibald Roane, portrait c. 1803, Tennessee State Museum

Archibald Roane (1759 or 1760 – January 18, 1819) was the second Governor of Tennessee, serving from 1801 to 1803.

Biography

Roane was born in 1759 or 1760 in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, then a part of Lancaster County. He was the son of Andrew and Margaret Walker Roane. Andrew Roane, who was born in Ireland, was one of four sons of Archibald Gilbert Roane, a Scotsman who had been awarded land in Ireland in return for his British military service. All of the sons of Archibald Gilbert Roane emigrated to America. After Andrew and Margaret Roane both died when young Archibald Roane was about eight years old, he was raised by an uncle, John Roane, a Presbyterian minister, who provided him with a good education.

During the Revolutionary War, Archibald Roane served in the Continental Army as a member of the Lancaster County Militia (5th Company, 9th Battalion, Pennsylvania Volunteers). serving under George Washington. He was present at the surrender of General Cornwallis in 1781.

In the 1780s he settled for a time in vicinity of Lexington, Rockbridge County, Virginia, where he studied and later taught at Liberty Hall Academy, a predecessor institution to Washington and Lee University. In Virginia, he married Ann (or Anne) Campbell, whom he had met there. The couple were to have six or eight children.

In 1788 Roane moved to Jonesborough, Tennessee, then still a part of North Carolina, where he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law.

In 1790, when the Southwest Territory was formed, territorial governor William Blount appointed Roane to the position of Attorney and Solicitor for Greene County and later Territorial Attorney General for the Washington District. In 1796 he was Jefferson County's delegate to the constitutional convention that wrote the original Tennessee Constitution that took effect that same year when Tennessee became a U.S. state. Later in 1796 he became one of the three judges of the Superior Court of Law and Equity, the highest court established under the new state constitution.

In 1801, Governor John Sevier had reached the limit of three consecutive terms allowed as governor under the Tennessee Constitution of 1796, and Roane won election as Sevier's successor.

The Great Seal of Tennessee was adopted during the Roane Administration in 1801. Also during this term, Tennessee was divided into three Congressional districts.

While in office, any chance that Roane had to have a good relationship with former Governor Sevier was shattered when he cast a tie-breaking vote for Sevier's opponent, Andrew Jackson, in an election for a militia generalship. Sevier defeated Roane for re-election two years later, and wound up serving three more terms before again reaching the state constitution's term limits.

After losing the 1803 gubernatorial election, Roane returned to the practice of law. In 1811 he was elected to a circuit judgeship and in 1815 he became a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals, which had been formed in 1809 as an appellate court in place of the Superior Court of Law and Equity. He served on that court until his death on January 18, 1819. He was a promoter of institutions of higher learning until his death, serving as a trustee of Blount College, Greeneville College, Washington College, and East Tennessee College.

He is buried near Campbell's Station, today part of Farragut, Tennessee.

Legacy

Roane County, Tennessee, is named in his honor. (Roane County, West Virginia, is named for a cousin, Spencer Roane.) A nephew, John Selden Roane, was governor of Arkansas.

External links

• Portrait of Archibald Roane, Tennessee State Museum