George Wythe

George Wythe
Born	1726 Elizabeth City County, Virginia
Died	June 8, 1806(1806-06-08) (aged 80) Virginia
Known for	signer of the United States Declaration of Independence
Signature

George Wythe (1726 – June 8, 1806) was an American lawyer, a judge, a prominent law professor and "Virginia's foremost classical scholar." He was a teacher and mentor of Thomas Jefferson. Wythe's signature is positioned at the head of the list of seven Virginia signatories on the United States Declaration of Independence. Wythe served as a representative of Virginia and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention—though he left the Convention early and did not sign the final version of the Constitution.

Wythe is believed to have been murdered in June 1806 by arsenic poisoning by his grandnephew George Wythe Sweeney. He was likely targeting Lydia Broadnax, Wythe's housekeeper, and Michael Brown, a 16-year-old mixed-race boy who lived in the household, to whom Wythe had made bequests in his will. Brown died a week before Wythe but Broadnax survived. As blacks were prevented by law from testifying at trials against whites, Broadnax and other servants could not tell about having seen Sweeney's suspicious actions, and he was acquitted.

Some historians have suggested that Broadnax was Wythe's concubine, or common-law wife, and Brown their son, but Philip D. Morgan disagrees and suggests Brown was not related to either Broadnax or Wythe.

Early life and education

Wythe was born in 1726 in Hampton, Virginia. His mother, a learned woman, had taught him at home, and started Wythe on extensive study. After the early deaths of both his parents, Wythe lost his way for a while, but had the benefit of a patrimony from his father.

Career

At about age 30, Wythe started "reading the law" with John Lewis, and was admitted to the bar. He made law and learning his life.

In turn, Wythe later had numerous students assist in his law office, including Thomas Jefferson, his law clerk for five years; Henry Clay, and John Breckinridge. Of these men, Wythe was closest to Thomas Jefferson, whom he first met as his student at William and Mary College. In their friendship, together the two men read all sorts of other material, from English literary works, to political philosophy, to the ancient classics.

Wythe served as mayor of Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1768 to 1769. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1775, voting in favor of the resolution for independence and signing the Declaration of Independence. He helped form the new government of Virginia, and was elected Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1777. As part of a committee, he designed the Seal of Virginia, inscribed with the motto "Sic Semper Tyrannis", which is still in use today.

In 1779 he was appointed to the newly created Chair of Law at William and Mary, becoming the first law professor in the United States. During his decade there, Wythe taught many students, including the future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, and future Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Marshall.

In 1787, George Washington appointed Wythe, along with Alexander Hamilton and Charles Pinckney, to draw up rules and procedures for the Constitutional Convention. In 1789 Wythe was appointed a Judge of the Chancery Court of Virginia.

Marriage and family

Wythe married Elizabeth Taliaferro. They had 1 child. Her father, Richard Taliaferro, built the Wythe home in Williamsburg, Virginia.

After her death, he married again and was widowed again. He had no children with his second wife.

Move to Richmond

After the death of his second wife in 1787, Wythe moved to Richmond from Williamsburg in 1791. He took with him his housemaid and cook Lydia Broadnax (1740-after 1806), whom he had freed on 15 September 1787, a month after the death of his second wife. She was about 45 at the time. A young mixed-race son Michael Brown, born free in 1790, lived with her in Wythe's household in Richmond. Wythe took an interest in Brown's education. He had freed another adult slave, Benjamin, on 29 January 1797, as well as others after that. Benjamin worked as Wythe's servant in Richmond and was named in his will.

By 1805, Wythes' grandnephew George Wythe Sweeney had come to live with him, but the judge found the young man had trouble with alcohol and gambling, even at age 17. He stole some of his uncle's books for sales and tried to cash a forged check to get funds.

In John Trumbull's The Declaration of Independence, Wythe is in profile farthest to the viewer's left. Trumbull's painting was used for the back of the U.S. $2 bill, but Wythe's image was cut out of that depiction.

Manumission of slaves

A planter and slaveholder, Wythe became an abolitionist after the Revolutionary War. After his second wife's death, he divested himself of most of his slaves. He freed his housemaid Lydia Broadnax, as well as Benjamin, a house servant, and other slaves. He also provided them with support for their transitions to freedom. During the first two decades after the war, so many Virginians freed slaves that the percentage of free blacks in the state rose from less than 1 percent to nearly 10 percent by 1810. As noted, Broadnax accompanied Wythe and continued to work for him, but by 1797 Broadnax owned her own home in Richmond and took in boarders. The historian Philip D. Morgan suggests Brown may have been the son of another woman, whom, Broadnax took in.

Wythe provided a settlement in his will for Broadnax and Michael Brown, by then 16 years old. Broadnax had worked for decades as his cook. Wythe also provided in his will money for the boy Brown's education. He had taken interest in Michael, taught him Greek and shared his library with him.

The Jefferson biographer Fawn M. Brodie and others have suggested that Broadnax was Wythe's concubine and Brown was their son. In her book of 1973, she was the first to write seriously that Thomas Jefferson likely had a relationship with Sally Hemings, 25 years before much historiography was reevaluated, and a DNA study showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a Hemings descendant. The historian Philip D. Morgan believes that the fact that Wythe fathered no children with his two wives, and his and Broadnax's ages at the time of Brown's birth, suggest that he was not the son of either person. He also noted in his 1999 essay on interracial relations in the Chesapeake Bay area, that there had been no gossip about them at the time.

Murder and trial

On May 25, Wythe, Broadnax and Brown all became violently ill. Two days later, Wythe's other heir, his 18-year-old grand-nephew, George Wythe Sweeney, tried to cash a $100 check drawn on his great-uncle's account. Although gravely ill, Wythe contended that Sweeney had tried to murder him, but doctors at first diagnosed the three with cholera. Broadnax said she had seen Sweeney put a powder in their morning coffee.

Sweeney was charged with poisoning Wythe, Broadnax and Brown with arsenic. The judge at age 80 lingered long enough to change his will and eliminate his bequest to Sweeney. Brown died on June 1, 1806, and Wythe on June 8, but Broadnax survived the poisoning. The Virginia race laws prohibited her as a black from testifying at the trial.

At trial in Virginia, Sweeney was acquitted of murder. Historians believe this was primarily because of a law forbidding testimony by black witnesses, whether free or enslaved. Sweeney was tried for forgery of the check and convicted. With his conviction overruled on appeal, Sweeney was said to have gone to Tennessee. There he reportedly stole a horse, was convicted and served a term in a penitentiary. Afterward he was lost to history.

In his will, Wythe left his extraordinary book collection to Thomas Jefferson. This became part of Jefferson's own sale to create the Library of Congress. He described 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."^{[citation needed]}

George Wythe gravestone at St. John's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia

Wythe's funeral was the largest in state history until that time. Richmond businesses closed for the day, and thousands lined the funeral route. The service was conducted at the state capitol. Wythe was buried at St. John's Church in Richmond, where Patrick Henry had given his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech.

Legacy and honors

Will of George Wythe, 1806, leaving books to Thomas Jefferson

• Wythe's home in Williamsburg, Virginia stands next to Bruton Parish Church, of which Wythe was a vestryman. It was acquired by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1938. Today it serves as a museum, the Wythe House.
• Several places in Virginia were named for him: Wythe County, Virginia, its county seat Wytheville; high schools in Wytheville and Richmond; an elementary school in Hampton; a section of US-301 named Wythe Street in Petersburg; and the Olde Wythe Neighborhood in Hampton.
• The Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
• George Wythe College of Cedar City, Utah was named for him.
• George Wythe Randolph, the Secretary of War of the Confederate States of America was named after him.

Thomas Jefferson's notes on biography of Wythe, 1820

See also

• George Wythe House
• Founding Fathers of the United States
• U.S. Constitution, nationalist organizer in Convention.

External links

• Philosophy and Biography on Wythe, George Wythe College website
• Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, "Biography of George Wythe", 1856, at Colonial Hall Website
• George Wythe at Find a Grave

Political offices
Preceded by James Cocke	Mayor of Williamsburg, Virginia 1768-1769	Succeeded by James Blair, Jr.