Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/239

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VIRGIXIA BIOGRAPHY

he emigrated to Kentucky and then studied at the Transylvania Seminary, where he be- came a fine scholar. He afterward studied law and practiced with great success. In 1808 he became secr^stary of state under Governor Charles Scott, and in 18 12 was a member of the legislature. He was elected United States senator from Kentucky, and served from May, 1813, till 1815. From 181 7 till 1820 he was state senator. In 1820 he was a presidential elector, and in 1822 was appointed circuit judge in the Lexing- ton district. Accordingly he settled in Lex- ington, where he also became professor of law in Transylvania University. Later he returned to the practice of his profession, ii: 1833 removed to Mississippi, and in 1835 tc Texas, where he was engaged collecting historical material at the time of his death.

Tyler, Samuel, born in James City coun- ty, \'irginia. about 1776. nephew of John Tyler, judge of United States district court (181 1 ). He attended William and Mary College, passed the ordinary period of class- ical study, and entered on the study of the law with an application that in a very short time placed him among the foremost law- yers at the bar. He was elected to the leg- islature in 1798, and supported the resolu- tions of 1798-99, which announced the ac- cepted creed in Virginia until the war of 1861. On December 23, 1801, he qualified as a member of the council, and was shortly after sent by James Monroe, the governor, to Washington, to watch the course of the election between Jefferson and Burr. At this time he wrote that Pennsylvania had her courier at hand, and stood ready to send twenty-two thousand troops to Washington should the attempt to set aside the lawful

President prevail. He advised that in case ot extremities, a confederacy should be form- ed between that state and all south of the Potomac. On December 21, 1803, he quali- fied as chancellor of the Williamsburg dis- trict, an office just vacated by Mann Page. It was said of him that "he combined the en- ergies of an active and masculine mind, with an accurate knowledge of things," which especially became the high office filled by him. He died at Williamsburg, March 28, 1812.

Bacon, Edmund, born in New Kent coun- ty, Virginia, in January. 1776; died in Edge- field, South Carolina, February 2, 1826. While quite young he was chosen by the citizens of Augusta. Georgia, where he was at school, to welcome Washington, then on on official tour through the South as Presi- dent. "This delicate and honorable task," says a contemporary historian. Judge O'Xeall, **he accomplished in an address so fortunate as to have attracted not only the attention of that great man, but to have procured from him, for the orator, a present of several law books." He was graduated at the Litchfield, Connecticut, Law School, and settled in Savannah, where he acquired a fortune at the bar before attaining the age of thirty-three. He was retained in the set- tlement of the estate of Gen. Xathai Ael Greene, near Savannah, and it is a curious coincidence that a quotation from one of the law books presented to Mr. Bacon by Gen. Washington enabled him to gain a mooted point for the succession to the estate or the second general of the revolution. Ow- ing to ill health, he removed in search of a more healthful location to Edgefield, where he soon became a leading practitioner. He

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