Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/367

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VIRGIXIA BIOGRAPHY

of North Carolina in 1790 he was chosen president of the board. For the last eighteen years of his life he was major-general of militia. A town and county in North Caro- lina were named in his honor. He died in Fort Defiance, Wilkes county, North Caro- hna, May 6, 1839.

Meriwether, David, born in Albemarle county, Virginia, in 1754. son of Col. James Meriwether and Judith Hardenia Burnley, his wife: served in the revolutionary war as a lieutenant under Washington, and was present with the \'irginia troops at the last siege of Savannah, Georgia: brigadier-gen- eral of state militia, September 21, 1797; located in Wilkes county, Georgia, in 1785, and represented that county in the Georgia legislature for several terms, and was speaker of the house, 1797-1800: elected as a Republican to the. seventh congress to fill vacancy caused by the resignation of Benja- min Taliaferro; reelected to the eighth and ninth congresses and served from Decem- ber, 1802, to March 3. 1807; retired to his plantation near Athens, Georgia; appointed a commissioner to the Creek Indians in 1804, and repeatedly appointed to treat with other tribes; presidential elector in 1817 and 182 1 ; died near Athens, Georgia, November 16, 1822.

Nicholas, George, born in Hanover, Vir- ginia, about 1755, son of Robert Carter Nich- olas, lawyer, jurist, and statesman, and grandson of Dr. George Nicholas, who immigrated to Virginia about 1700. In 1772 he graduated from William and Mary Col- lege. He was major of the Second Virginia Regiment in 1777. later colonel, promoted for meritorious service. He was a member of the Virginia convention that ratified the

Federal constitution, was active in the con- vention, and as a member of the Virginia house of assembly was influential in shap- ing legislation. In 1790 he moved to Ken- tucky, and was a member of the convention that met in Danville in 1792, to frame a state constitution. The constitution as adopted was largely his work. He was the first attorney-general elected under its provi- sions. He died in Kentucky in 1799.

McKendree, William, born in King Wil- liam county, Virginia, July 6, 1757. Soon after his birth, the family removed to Green- ville county, and in 1810 to Sumner county, Tennessee. At the begfinning of the revo- lution. William, then twenty years of age, joined a company of volunteers, was for some time adjutant, and was at Yorktown at the surrender of Cornwallis. After the war he would never accept a pension. After leaving the army he was a school teacher. Before leaving home he had become con- nected with the Methodist church, and soon after 1787, when he was living in Brunswick county, Virginia, he was licensed to preach, and in 1788 Bishop Asbury appointed him as junior preacher to Mecklenburg circuit. After this he served upon neighboring cir- cuits, and in 1793 was sent to South Caro- lina, but returned the next year. For three years he had charge of a large district ex- tending from Chesapeake Bay to the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains. In 1800 he went with Bishop Asbury and Bishop Whatcoat to the western conference at Bethel, Kentucky. He was appointed to superintend a district embracing a large part of the partially settled territory beyond the Alleghany mountains, and so passed the next eight years with a yearly pittance of

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