Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/219

 TUCKER

TUCKER

isan Leader : a Tale of the Future, by Edward William Sydney (3 vols., 1836-37); republished as A Key to the Disunion Conspiracy, 1861 ; George Balcombe (1836); Discourse on the Irn- jjortance of the Study of Political Science as a Branch of Academic Education in the United States (1840); Discourse on the Dangers that threaten the Free Institutions of the United States (1841); Lectures intended to Prepare the Student for the Study of the Constitution of the United States {IHio) : Principles of Pleading (1846), and unfinished biography of John Randolph. He died in Winchester, Va., Aug. 26, 1851.

TUCKER, St. George, jurist, was born in Port Royal, Bermuda, July 10, 1752 ; son of Henry and Anne (Butterfield) Tucker ; grandson of Henry and Frances (Tudor) Tucker, and of Nath- aniel and Frances (White) Butterfield ; and a descendant of George Tucker of Milton-next- Gravesend, Kent, England, a leading member of the Warwick party in the Virginia company of London, whose oldest son, George, during the English civil war, emigrated to the Bermudas, of which his uncle, Capt. Daniel Tucker, had been commissioned governor, Feb. 15, 1615-16. St. George Tucker came to Virginia in 1771, as a student in the College of William and Mary ; studied law under George Wythe (q.v.), and was admitted to the bar of the colony in April, 1774, and to practice in the general court in May, 1775. In June, 1775, he returned to Bermuda, where he was admitted to the bar the following month. In November, 1776, he came again to Virginia, bringing a cargo of salt, of which the country stood in great need, and threw his fortunes with the revolting colonies. Before leaving Bermuda he had been concerned in the seizure for the use ■of the colonies of the powder stored in the mag- azine at St. George's. From February to August, 1777, he was engaged in shipping indigo from Charleston, S.C, the home of his brother, Thomas Tudor Tucker (q.v. ), to the West Indies for the purchase of arms and ammunition for the Vir- ginia government. He was aide-de-camp to Gen. Thomas Nelson in 1779 ; was commissioned a major in the Virginia forces, Feb. 25, 1781, served with General Greene in the south, and was wounded in the battle of Guilford Court House, March 15, 1781 ; was commissioned lieutenant-colonel, Sept. 12, 1781, appointed a member of Governor Nel- son's official family, September 16, and was pres- ent at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at York- town, October 19. He became a member of the council of state, Dec. 1, 1781 ; was commissioned by Gov. Patrick Henry, county-lieutenant of Chesterfield, April 1, 1785 ; and was sent with James Madison and Edmund Randolph as a dele- gate from Virginia to the Annapolis convention of 1786 for the amendment of the Articles of

Confederation. He was a judge of the general court of Virginia from Feb. 21, 1788-1804 ; pro- fessor of law in the College of William and Mary, 1790-1804; a judge of the court of appeals of Virginia, from Jan. 12, 1804, until Jan. 19, 1813, when he was appointed by President Madison, judge of the U.S. district court for the district of Virginia, which office he resigned June 30, 1825, having sat a judge upon the bench a period of thirty-seven years. He received the honorary decree of LL.D. from the College of William and Mary, 1790, from which year lie made his home in Williamsburg, Va. He is the author of several poems ; among them the well-known Resignation. and of the satires : TJie Probationary Odes of Jonathan Pindar, Esq., A Cousin of Peter's, and A Candidate for the Post of Poet Laureate to the C.U.S. In two parts (Phil., 1796). His other works include : Dissertation on Slavery, with a proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia (Pliil., 1796; N.Y., 1861); Let- ters on the Alien and Sedition Laics (1799); Hoio far the Common Laiv of England is the Common Laio of the United States, and an annotated edi- tion of Blackstone's Commentaries in five vol- umes (Phil., 1804), with an appendix containing important disquisitions on the Constitution from the point of view of the state-rights school. He married, first, at Matoax, Chesterfield countj^Va., Sept. 23, 1778, Frances, widow of John Randolph of Matoax, mother of John Randolph of Roanoke, and daughter of Col. Theodoric and Frances (Boiling) Bland of Cawsons, Prince George county, Va. He married, secondly, Oct. 8, 1791, Lelia, widow of George Carter of Corotoman. Lancaster county, Va., and daughter of Sir Pey- ton Shipwith of Prestwoud, 7th baronet. He died at Edgewood, near Warminster, Nelson county, Va., Nov. 10, 1827.

TUCKER, Samuel, naval officer, was born in Marblehead, Mass., Nov. 1, 1747. His father was a ship-master. In 1758 Samuel left home secretly in the Royal George, a British sloop-of-war, and in 1775, having risen to the rank of captain, re- turned to New England from London to escape service in the British navy. He was commis- sioned captain in the Continental navy, Jan. 20, 1776, by General Washington, and assigned to the Fratiklin. While waiting for his vessel to be fitted out he cniised in a small private schooner, with which he captured a British transport, and upon conveying Jiis much-needed supplies to Wasliington, was thanked by the general and the army. He commanded the Franklin, and subse- quently the Hancock, 1776, capturing at least thirty vessels. He was transferred to the Boston. Marcli 15, 1777, and in 1779, on his return from France, whither he had carried Commissioner Joim Adams, in 1778, made five valuable captures.