YALE UNIVERSITY L

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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

A

Brief Sketch of the Life
of
WILLIAM GREEN, LL. D,
JURIST AND SCHOLAR,

WITH SOME

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

By PHILIP SLAUGHTER, D. D.,
Historiographer of the P. E. Church, DiGcese of Virginia.
ALSO,
A Historical Tract by Judge Green,
and some
CURIOUS LETTERS UPON THE ORIGIN OF THE
PROVERB, " VOX POFULI, VOX DEI."

RICHMOND:
WM. ELLIS JONES, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER.
I88.S.

DEDICATION.

TO THE DESCENDANTS OF PHILIP AND ANNE
(COLEMAN) CLAYTON,
Who, under the names of Clayton, Green, Williams,
Pendleton, Strother, Slaughter, and many others in
which they have been merged by marriage, are scat
tered abroad from Massachusetts to Mexico,* and
from Virginia to California, this Tribute, to the mem
ory of the most learned man of all our Tribe, is re
spectfully dedicated, by their kinsman, THE AUTHOR.

*This is literally true. Major-General E. O. Ord, U. S. A , now of the
city of Mexico, married one of them, as did also the Mexican General
Trevino, commanding the department of Monterey. Colonel Frank
Thompson, of Monterey, is also of the same descent.
" Inter alios Jurisperitos Julius Clarus vir multis certe nominibus
insignis, sive generosos Natales ; sive eruditionem plane raram, sive
dexteritatem, denique in his quae tractanda sibi sumit felicissiman
spectemus, facile Princeps sit." — Fichards Epistola Dedicatoria ope-
rum JtUii Clari.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. Preface, Explaining the Scope of the Sketch.
II. Sketch of the Life of the Hon. Wilham Green, LL.D. — His
Birth— His Boyhood at Goolrick's and Lewis's Schools— His
Home Education at " Greenwood " — Anecdotes Illustrating
His Habits of Study — Compared with Budasus — His Coming
to the Bar — His First Literary Essays in Newspapers and
Magazines, with R. A. Thompson, R. W. Thompson, and
James F. Strother, &c.— His Practice in Judge Field's Circuit—
His Learning, an Oracle of the Bench and the Bar— His Mar
riage — His Removal to Richmond — Arguments in Court of
Appeals — Testimonials of Judges Chase, Moncure and Lomax ;
of John William Wallace, of Philadelphia; of Conway Robin
son, and of Justices Bramwell and Willes, of England, to his
Learning — The Extent and Accuracy of his Researches — Mr.
Maury's Account of his Great Book on Practice— Mr. Brock's
Enumeration of his Other Publications — Description of his
Office and Library — His Converse with the Mighty Dead —
His First Illness and Recovery — His Continued Labors in
Law and Literature, especially on his Chef d'osuvre — Inter
esting Letter to his Brother Before his Last Illness — His
Death — Funeral and Burial at Hollywood — Suggested Monu
ment to his Memory, and to that of William C. Rives, H. B.
Grigsby, William Maxwell, John R. Thompson, G. A. Myers,
William H. Macfarland, Charles Campbell, and Other Officers
and Members of the Virginia Historical Society — Tribute of
the Bar of Culpeper — Judge Bell's Memorial Address — Tribute
of the Bar of Richmond — Mr. Maury's Address — Tribute of
the Virginia Historical Society ; of Mr. R. A. Brock in the
Richmond Standard; Application to Him of Amantius's Poem
to Capriata — Monument to Him in Hollywood, with Inscrip
tion by William A. Maury — His Last Will — His Religious
Opinions; Letter of Rev. Dr. Charles Minnigerode on that
Subject.

Table of Contents.

III. Essay on Hereditary Genius, as Illustrated by the Number of
Lawyers of his Kin, Including the Families of Williams,
Green, Clayton, Pendleton, &c.; Further Illustrations from
the English Judges, and from the Randolph Family of Vir
ginia.
IV. Personal Reminiscences of Mr. Green by the Author, Including
Letters from Him on the Origin of the Proverb, Vox Populi,
Vox Dei ; Citing the Sermon of Reynolds, Archbishop of
Canterbury, on the Deposition of Edward II, and the Coro
nation of Edward III, on these Words as his Text — ResumS
of the Proceedings on that Occasion — Bishop Orleton and
Other Eminent Men Cited — Walsingham's Account; Hume's,
Daniel's, Kennett's, &c. — Professor Coleman, of the Univer
sity of Virginia, on the Proverb — Edward Everett, Rev. Dr.
Packard, and G. A. Myers — Mr. Green's Estimate of Rev. Dr'
Jarvis on the Date of the Birth of Christ; of John Wesley and
Warwick on the Proverb, &c., &c.
V. Preface to Historical Tract — The Tract Itself, by William Green,
Giving the Genesis of Counties in Virginia from Towns of
the Same Name, as Henrico from Henrico City, James City
County from James City, (Town), Charles City County from
Charles City, (Town), Elizabeth City County from Elizabeth
City, (Town), &c.

PREFACE.

The reasons which moved the Author to write and
print this memorial are given on another page. In
justice to the writer, the reader should bear in mind
that these "Reminiscences" do not aspire to the
dignity of a Biography.
The latter is a full length picture of its subject, as
large as life; perhaps it is more like a Statue than a
Portrait. While the latter can only give a front view,
or a profile of the person, a statue presents a whole
round man. Hiram Powers, the famed American
Sculptor (who had hitherto only made busts of Wash
ington), wrote from Italy to the present writer to have
photographs of Houdon's Statue of Washington, in
the Capitol at Richmond, taken for him. He wanted
three views — a front view, a side view, and a back
view — to aid his conception of the whole figure.
This was when he was meditating a full length
Statue* of the great Patriot, whose head (by the
way) he said, surpassed those of the great Greek and
Roman heroes. The Biographer looks at his subject
on all sides, and man, as the Germans say, is a many
sided being. But he is more than a Statue. The
*This Statue was made by Powers for the State of Louisiana. It
was taken away by General Butler during the war, but afterwards
returned. It has since been accidentally destroyed by fire.

8 Preface.
latter has eyes, but it cannot see; ears, but it cannot
hear; a mouth, but it cannot speak; limbs, but it
cannot move. Some Artists have the faculty of so
fashioning their subjects as to give such an expres
sion as though they could almost speak. But this
expression is but a reflection of the Artist's own
genius, projected into the work of his hands. The
Ancients report the Statue of Memnon as emitting
sounds when stricken by the rays of the morning
sun — a beautiful thought, not now deemed altogether
fabulous. Some modern travellers have noticed like
phenomena in rocks in the East, under the sun's
rays.* But no modern sun has ever evoked a voice
from cold marble statues. They all remain deaf,
dumb and blind, and without sensation. But the
subject of the Biographer, sees and hears, and feels
and speaks, and acts. He has not only sensations,
but intelligence, which receives ideas from the outer
world through those windows of the soul, the senses,
and faculties which remember, analyze, combine them
into new forms, and draw conclusions from them.
He has an emotional nature which feels the force of
them, and a will which decides between the clamors
of passions and appetites, the dictates of reason, and
the warnings of Conscience — that organ of com
munication between man and his Maker, which has
been beautifully called by a French philosopher, " that
* Humboldt speaks of it, and ascribes it to the escape of rarified
air through their fissures.

Preface. 9
mysterious Star which rises on the borders of two
worlds," and which, I add, receives light from the
"Sempiternal source of Light Divine," and reflects it
upon the world within us. Such is man, endowed
with faculties which drag him down to earth, and with
other faculties which aspire to Heaven — a being fear
fully and wonderfully made, having two natures in
one person, one material, (including the merely ani
mal,) and the other spiritual, whose perpetual strug
gles with each other make up the drama of every
life. The subject of the Biographer is the character
and career of this many sided, complex and incon
gruous being. These Reminiscences make no such
ambitious pretensions. Their humble office is to
make a small contribution towards a Biography — of
a few glimpses into the inner life of the subject,
of some of the lesser lineaments, which are not
visible, but to such as come near the object in the
confidence of private friendship.
The Author therefore rather invokes charity, than
challenges criticism.

A BRIEF SKETCH

Life of William Green.

The Hon. William Green, LL.D., descended from
William Green, of His Majesty's (King William III)
Body Guard. The writer lately found in his Library
an old book entitled "The Present State of England,"
and in it he found a census of all the officers of the
Court and Government, civil and ecclesiastical, of
the year 1693-4. Among them are one hundred
members of the King's Body Guard, in daily waiting,
commanded by Charles, Earl of Manchester.
They were required to be men of the best quality,
and not less than six feet high. They wore scarlet
coats to the knee, and scarlet breeches richly guarded
with black velvet, broad crowned caps with velvet
bands, and with ribbons of the King's color. In this
list is the name of William Green. Robert, born
1695, son of this William, aforesaid, migrated to Vir
ginia about 1 71 7, and with his uncle William Duff, a
Quaker, settled in what is now King George County.
They became partners of Joist Hite and Robert
McKay, who had warrants (1731) for locating 140,000

I 2 Sketch of William Green.
acres of land. Hence the firm of Hite, McKay,
Green & Duff.
In 1736, Lord Fairfax entered a caveat against
Hite, alleging that these lands were within the North
ern Neck, and hence his property. This led to the
suit of Hite & Co. against Fairfax, which was not
decided until 1786, when all the parties to it were
dead. Hite and partners recovered a large sum of
money and large tracts of land.
William Duff left his interest in the lands to
his nephew Robert' Green, (who had mar
ried Eleanor Dunn, of Scotland), and set
tled in Culpeper County, near Brandy
Station, on the Midland Railroad. They
had seven sons :
i, William,^ who married Miss Coleman, of Caro
line. He died in Culpeper, leaving eight
children.
ii. Robert,' married Patty Ball, of Northumberland,
and left five children.
>/ iii. Duff,' married, first, Miss Thomas, and, second,
Anne, daughter of Major Henry WilHs, of
Fredericksburg.
iv. The gallant Colonel John' Green, distinguished
at Brandywine, Monmouth and Guilford, mar
ried Susanna Blackwell.
V. Nicholas."
vi. James.'
vii. Moses.'

Sketch of William Green. i 3
This sketch is limited to the line of Colonel John
Green. The descendants of his brothers may be
seen in the History of St. Mark's Parish.
Colonel John' and Susanna (Blackwell) Green
had issue :
WilHam,' who married Lucy, daughter of Wil
liam and Lucy (Clayton) Williams. Issue:
John Williams,* born November 9, 1781 ;
died February 4, 1834. Served gallantly in
the War of 181 2, and so distinguished him
self at the Bar that he was soon made Chan
cellor, and afterwards was promoted to the
Bench of the Supreme Court of Appeals.
He married, first, December 24, 1805, Mary
Brown, and had issue:
i. William^ the subject of this Memoir, born at
Fredericksburg, November 10, 1806.
ii. Raleigh Brown," born March 3, 1808; died June
9, 1 84 1, in Texas.
iii. Daniel Smith,* born February 29, 181 2 Surgeon
United States and Confederate States armies.
iv. Philip,* born 18 14; died 181 5.
Judge John Williams Green* married, second,
Million Cooke, a grand-daughter of George
Mason (Author of "The Virginia Bill of
Rights"). Issue:
V. John Cooke,* born September 18, 181 8; for 20
years Commonwealth's Attorney of Culpeper.

14 Sketch of William Green.
vi. Thomas Claiborne,* born November 3, 1820.
President of the Court of Appeals, West Vir
ginia.
vii. George Mason,* born August 27, 1822.
viii. James Williams,* born March 7, 1824. Major
Confederate States Army ; a leading member
of the Bar of Culpeper.
William Green was a hard student from his earliest
boyhood. With the exception of brief terms in the
schools of Mr. Goolrick, in Fredericksburg, and of
Mr. John Lewis,* a famed teacher in Spotsylvania,
and the occasional aid of his father in his vacations,
he was self-taught. Judge Christian, in the Law
*The school of John Lewis, famous in its time, was called "Llan
gollen,"' and was near the North Anna River, not far from Lewis's
Store, Spotsylvania County. Among his pupils were the late Attor
ney General R. Travers Daniel, and Judge William Robertson, of
Charlottesville. We learn from the latter that William Green left
behind him the reputation of a youth of wonderful aptitude for ac
quiring knowledge, and of great simplicity of character. Mr. Lewis
spoke of him as one of his boys who would certainly become distin
guished. Mr. Lewis had been a Lawyer, and had Law students. He
taught English, Mathematics and Latin. Students in Greek took les
sons from Mr. Boggs, a neighboring Episcopal minister. The chief
end of Mr. Lewis's teaching was (says Judge Robertson) to make his
pupils understand and appreciate the beauties of thought and ex
pression in the Standard Latin Authors and translate them into pure
idiomatic English. He was a man of high sense of honor and of
great kindness of disposition. His wife was a sister of Judge Peter
Vivian Daniel. We learn from Mr. John M. Forbes that, after Mr.
Lewis's removal to Kentucky, he wrote for the Fanner's Register
interesting articles comparing the blue grass of Kentucky with that
of Virginia, and upon other agricultural points.

Sketch of William Green. 15
Journal, as reported by Mr. Brock in the Standard^
gives the following account of his habits as a student,
as told to him by Mr. Green himself:
" His room was in an office in the yard, some dis
tance from the 'great house.' He was very fond of
cats; would get up every morning as soon as it was
light enough to read, put on his gown and slippers,
put a kitten in each gown pocket, get his book and
begin pacing the floor and reading. No one called
him to his meals until the rest of the family had left
the dining-room ; the servant knew what he preferred
to eat, placed that before him, and he ate it in abso
lute silence, no one daring to ask him a question. He
glanced from his plate to his book, lying open before
him, and this was kept open so that he could glance
at it even when washing his face and hands. He told
the writer he verily believed that for six months at a
time he would speak to no human being — entertained
and absorbed entirely by his books and his kittens.
In after years," continues Judge Christian, "although
always an ardent student, he became more compan
ionable; and we have frequently seen him in his own
quaint way, in our judgment, one of the most agree
able and entertaining men that we ever saw. In this
opinion we know that many of our brethren who
knew him will concur."
This anecdote reminds us of a great French Law-
* Richmond Standard, January i, 8, 1882.

1 6 Sketch of William Green.
yer of the Fifteenth Century, William Budseus, ac
counted the most learned man in France of his day.
He regretted the hours he was forced to give to
eating and sleep. Even on his wedding day, he
stole away from his bride for six hours to hold con
verse with the mighty dead through his books.*
Budaeus used to describe himself by a Greek word,
Automathes (self-taught). He had been at college,
but learned nothing, and came home to study. His
words are, Domum reversus intra paternos parietes
clam studere mecum ipse institui.
Like Mr. Green, he affected the Greek tongue, and
loved Homer. Unlike him, he hired a famous scholar
to read Homer to him, for which service he gave 500
pieces of gold; but the scholar could not teach him
more than he knew before, says one of his pane
gyrists. Our Mr. Green had no aid but from his
father, who might be called his fellow- student, for the
father learned the Greek language after his election
to the Bench, that he might help his son in his studies.
There are now extant in the family " Greek exer
cises" in the father's handwriting. After qualifying
himself for the practice of the Law, he came to the
Bar in his twenty-first year, (1827). From the begin
ning, he was regarded as a prodigy of learning, and

*An anecdote has been told of Budasus, which has also been
ascribed to other scholars, that on his servant coming to his study
to tell him the house was on fire, he asked, "Why don't you tell
your mistress? You know I don't concern with household matters."

Sketch of William Green. ij
an Oracle, to be consulted, not only by clients, but
by his seniors at the Bar, and also as Amicus Cwrice.
He traversed Judge Field's circuit, embracing the
counties of Culpeper, Rappahannock, Orange, and
Louisa, with occasional diversions to Richmond and
other towns as important causes called him. In his
journeys on horseback he used to read by the way,
and in his leisure intervals at the court-houses, some
Latin or Greek classic.
The present writer once engaged him as associate
in the case of a party deceased, and when the estate
of the testator was sold, 'Mr. Green chose for his fee
a handy volume copy of Cicero's works, one of
which, he could conveniently carry in his pocket
when he went to court ''en Cavalier.'li
From about 1829, Mr. Green was a contributor to
the columns of divers newspapers and magazines.
These consisted of political articles, historical essays,
topics in general literature, and questions of Law.
The Culpeper Gazette, then edited by Robert A.
Thompson, a member of the Bar, and afterwards a
member of Congress from Kanawha, and, finally.
United States judge in California, was one of the
newspapers in the columns of which he took his first
flights, in competition with R. W. Thompson, (late
Secretary of the Navy,) Bayard Strode, James French
Strother, Stanton Field, and other young men of the
day. The Southern Literary Messenger was the re
ceptacle of his literary and historical lucubrations,

1 8 Sketch of William Green.
and the law journals of his professional articles. If
these could be collected in a volume, it would be a
curious literary melange of things weighty and witty,
grave and gay.
But the Muse of the Law was not the only maid
he courted. From Law he fell into love, and Love
led him into the bonds of Matrimony. He married
on the 6th of April, 1837, Columbia E., daughter of
Samuel Slaughter, of "Western View," County Cul
peper, by his second wife, Virginia, daughter of Wil
liam Stanard, of " Roxbury," who married Eliza,
daughter of Edward Carter, of " Blenheim."
Mr. Green's children were a son and a daughter.
The daughter, Elizabeth Travers, married, June, 1861,
James Hayes, merchant, of Fredericksburg, and has
nine children. Of the son, named for his grand-
' father, John Williams, we shall have something to say
in the sequel.
To free himself from the complications of old busi
ness engagements, and have more facilities for pur
suing his studies in a more congenial clime, with easy
^.ccess to public libraries and a higher vantage-ground
for the practice of his profession, he moved to Rich
mond in the fall of 1855.
I shall not attempt to trace his professional career
in the courts. The arguments of counsel, however
learned and eloquent, as a general rule, expire with
the breath that utters them, or only linger in the
memory of the audience, "fit but few," that hear

Sketch of William Green. 19
them; like what Sir Edward Coke called "auricular
opinions." Briefs give no better idea of them than
does a skeleton in an anatomical museum, of a
human being clothed with flesh and blood, instinct
with life, beaming with intelligence, and warmed by
emotion. " Learned as were all his arguments at the Bar,"
says Mr. Wm. A. Maury, in his elegant tribute to Mr.
Green, "his most notable forensic effort was that
made in the Court of Appeals in the case of Moon
vs. Stone, (19th Grattan's Reports,) involving the
question whether a party claiming under a devise,
took by purchase, or as heir, under the despotic
operation of the rule in Shelly's Case. It may be
doubted whether this argument ever has been rivalled
in acumen, nicety of discrimination, fulness and ex
actness of learning, and fulness and closeness of
research. With the ease and confidence of a master,
he threads his way through the maze of clashing
decisions which have made the labor of acquiring the
learning upon the famous rule in Shelly's Case almost
herculean ; now educing order and harmony where
minds less acute and less learned had found only
hopeless dissonance and confusion, and now laying
bare the errors of imposing names, that never before
had felt the shock of a criticism so fearless and so
thorough. There can be no higher evidence of the
merits of this argument than the order of the Court
directing its publication in its Reports. It fills 127

20 Sketch of William Green.
pages in the 19th volume of Grattan's Reports, and
will always be referred to with pride by the Bar of
Virginia." Mr. Conway Robinson sent a copy of it to Eng
land, and it elicited from Mr. Justice Willes and Mr.
Baron Bramwell high encomiums ; the former saying,
"It shows a prodigious amount of industry and well
directed ability upon very difficult questions." And
the latter said, " It was very remarkable indeed ; that
any one in America should have made himself capa
ble of it, seems surprising. I am afraid Mr. Green
has shown us that all our idols are not gold."
Mr. Conway Robinson pubhshed in the seventh
volume of his learned work on " Practice," Appendix,
page 1099, a letter of his own, favoring Mr. Green's
election to the Bench of the Court of Appeals, calling
him "that gentleman of wonderfully great learning,
to whom Mr. J. W. Wallace has inscribed his volume
entided 'The Reporters.'"
Mr. Green had written some comments upon Mr.
Wallace's book, and sent them to the publishers of it.
On the next appearance of the work, it was dedicated
thus: "To Mr. William Green, of Culpeper County,
Va., who, amidst the engrossing interests of a distin
guished career at the Bar, has pursued with a success
unattained in England, or America, the recondite re
searches of legal bibliography, the third edition of
this work is inscribed, in acknowledgment of that com
munication in studies which Francis Bacon thought

Sketch of William Green. 21
worthy of being reckoned of greater bond than near
alliance and strict friendship and society." "Very
few men in America; no man in England," Mr. Wal
lace added, in his book, "is so accurately acquainted
with the bibliography of the Reports. In the inter
change of a correspondence not as protracted as that
of Bishop Jebb and Alexander Knox, but very fre
quent notwithstanding, I have seldom had reason to
receive his criticisms without finding them to be just."
In many pages particular assistance is ascribed to
Mr. Green, who, as he said in another place, "is not
of the class who talk of the truth, but have never
sounded the depths from which it springeth " In a
letter to Mr. R. A. Brock, Mr. Wallace said: "His
knowledge of law books exceeded that of all the men
I have ever known, in England or America. It was
wonderful, extending alike to what was in the books
and what related to them." In 1874, Mr. Conway
Robinson, in his Practice, (page 1099,) speaks of Mr.
Green, and Mr. N. P. Howard, as "jurists, with a
combination of legal and literary attainments, rarely
to be met with ; each had such a knowledge of the
Classics as would have been appreciated in England
in one of the great universities."
Mr. Green, having in his library a copy of Chan
cellor Wythe's Reports, containing, in manuscript,
additions taken from the author's private copy, and
seven cases of his own reporting, in six pamphlets ;
designed to bring out a new edition of it. This he

22 Sketch of William Green.
postponed on account of the pressure of business,
until he was anticipated by Mr. B. B. Minor, the
accomplished editor of The Southern Literary Mes
senger. On learning Mr. Minor's purpose, he gen
erously tendered his notes and references, which Mr.
Minor gracefully acknowledged in his Preface, and
inserted in his Appendix, filling ninety-three pages.
Mr. Wallace, in his work on the "Reporters," refers
to Mr. Green's "learned notes," and says, "No
American Reporter has ever been so carefully and
learnedly edited." Judge Lomax, in his second edi
tion of his Treatise on Executors, vol. ii, p. 106-7'
says, he has been "corrected in an erroneous im
pression by the learned and elaborate opinion of
Mr. Green in his Appendix to ' Minor's Wythe.' "
The same Judge, in several places in his " Digest,"
refers in a like strain of compliment to Mr. Green's
Appendix; and so does Sands, in his first edition of
his " Suit in Equity," in reference to the subject of
the foreclosure of mortgages in Virginia. In Michie
V. Michie, in 17th Grattan, Moncure, P., said: "Mr.
Green's learning and research have developed a mine
of authority on the subject, which tends to show that
in England such a question might be decided other
wise T^-

* Mr. Green gave the present writer a note of his own, upon this
subject, in which he says : " I cited authorities to show that all the
judges of all the courts in England had unanimously decided other
wise a like point arising upon the Statutes of ii G., 4, and 1 W., 4,

Sketch of William Green. 23
And now there fell upon him, like a flash of light
ning from a clear sky, the great sorrow of his life.
His only son, John Williams Green, born on the 13th
of March, 1838, was untimely slain. He was the
pride of his parents' hearts, the light of their eyes, to
whom they looked to be the stay and the solace of
their declining years ; the heir of his legal lore, and
the bearer of his name to coming generations. It
was an awful blow to his stricken parents. And
while Time, the beautifier of the dead, may heal the
surface of their wounded hearts, yet those hearts
have never made the same music, nor was there the
"same brightness in their eyes" they wore when
their boy was the light of them. Prose is too poor;
the poet only can echo the throbbings of the heart at
such a time. For long years the heart may have
been in battle, and one verse shall condense the
whole of it. And when we think of the many young
noble men who, in the bud of their boyhood, poured
out their hearts' " last libation " to their sense of

namely : that Sunday dies dominicus, and therefore non juridicus is,
nevertheless, to be reckoned as a day of the term, for purposes of
computation, i Dowl., 63; Doe v. Roe, 2 Leg. Obs , 77, S. C. ; i
Crompt. & T., 483 ; i Tyrwh., 499, S. C, &c. And, likewise, that
Good Friday and each of the four days following it, including Easter
Sunday, though they are all specially made dies non juridicce, never
theless are, for purposes of computation, days of the term, as well as
days in the term, when they fall within it. 2 Crompt. & I., 472; i
Dowl., 566, S. C. ; 376, Lilly v. Gompertz; 6 Dowl., 479; 7 Jurist, 628;
12 Mees. W., 2; and thirty-five other authorities."

24 Sketch of William Green.
duty in our civil war, we feel the need of inspired
poets, like the sweet Psalmist of Israel, to interpret
our hearts. "Oh, my son, would God I had died
for thee, my son, my son ! " Lamartine said, "When
I feel sad, I do not open Pindar or Horace; I open
the Book of Psalms, and there I find what seems to
issue from the soul of the ages, and penetrate to
the heart of all generations. Read Greek or Latin
poetry after a Psalm at such a time, and see how
pale it looks."
It may not be the Christian element, but there is
something within us which invests with a halo the
brows of these young martyrs It may be that self-
sacrifice, being the distinctive feature of Christianity,
the Cross of Christ sheds a sort of sanctity over the
noble army of martyrs to a sense of duty. How
ever this may be — and one would not dogmatise
upon so sacred a subject — it is true, that in the eyes
of the world, and, I may add, of most, if not all Chris
tians, the youth thus fallen is beautiful in death.
Tlie Hero boy that dies in blooming years.
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far.
For having perished in the front of war.*

*This gallant youth was a lineal descendant of Colonel John Green,
of the Revolution; in the language of the historian, "one of the
bravest of brave soldiers." This youth had talents of a high order ;
of unsullied honor, frank, generous, unselfish, and was gifted with a
flow of spirits which spread joy around him in his home and in the so-

Sketch of William Green. 25
During the war Mr. Green made preparations to
edit the works of Lord Bolingbroke, and as part of
his plan wrote a sketch of the life and works of the

cial circle, and revived many a drooping heart on the toilsome march
and weary watch. He fell in a cavalry charge near ''Liberty Mills,''
in the County of Madison, on the 22d of September, 1863. It is curi
ous, that in his thirteenth year, he copied in his book of exercises,
the poem beginning with the lines —
" 'Make way for Liberty,' he cried;
'Make way for Liberty,' and died."
He was, in the beginning of the war, a volunteer in Company "F," of
the First Virginia Regiment; from which he was transferred to the
Rockbridge Artillery. He was, after Jackson's arduous campaign, de
tailed as a clerk in the Ordnance Department. This place of safety he
gave up to a friend in feeble health, that he might take the field in the
Eleventh Virginia Cavalry. A large Federal force was making for
the Central road by way of Madison Courthouse. General Stewart,
to check it until reinforcements came, attacked it with much inferior
numbers. The enemy threatening to cut him off from Liberty Mills,
it became necessary to retreat. The Eleventh was in advance, and,
encountering a force that might have captured them, a vigorous
charge was made upon them John Green was among the foremost
leaders of the charge, and, being ordered to surrender, he answered
with a shout back to his comrades, and by throwing his empty pistol
at his foeman, when he was shot down, and was raised by the man
who saw him fall ; he seemed conscious, made a sign for water, but
never spoke above an unintelligible murmur. He was buried on the
25th instant at Hollywood. The Rev. Dr. Minnigerode, his pastor, said
his aspect was pleasant. Upon his brow was the signet-ring of
Heaven; a peace like the peace of God; a smile of triumph, like the
radiant light upon the soul, which has overcome the last foe, and goes
forth to look upon the glories of immortality. Who that stood there
in the silent chamber of death, and gazed upon that placid counte
nance, but said, " He is at rest," and felt as if he heard the parting
spirit say : "My duty done, I do not fear to die."

26 Sketch of William Green.
noble author. He also conceived the idea of writing
the historical outlines of the Government, Legisla
ture, and Judicature of the State of Virginia, with
the agency of the social life of its people on public
sentiment and national progress.
The notes of this work, collected in a volume, says
Mr. Brock, who handled his library, are among his
manuscripts, which contain also much other rare and
valuable matter, including extracts from that once
precious, but irrevocably lost, storehouse of historic
data, the Records of the General Court.
Among the published results of Mr. Green's learn
ing known to us, continues Mr. Brock, are "An Essay
on Lapse, Joint Tenants, and Tenants in Common " ;
"Articles in Res Judicata"; "The Power of a Part
ner," and " The Editions of the Code," published in
the Virginia Law yournal ; and an elaborate paper
on " Stare Decisis," published in the American Law
Journal of September, 1880. To these the writer
will add that Mr. Green often talked with him of
publishing a new edidon of Stith's History of Vir
ginia, with notes, &c., and if he mistakes not the
scope of the proposed work was sketched by Mr.
Green in the Messenger or some other magazine.
He also annotated Barradall's Virginia Reports.
During the war he filled a place of trust in the
Treasury. After the war he was appointed to suc
ceed Judge Lyons on the bench of the " Court of
Conciliation," extemporized by the military authority,

Sketch of William Green. 27
while the life of the State was in a condition of sus
pended animation. The difiicult duties of this office
were discharged with his usual ability, and the ap
pointment was agreeable to the people. His col
league was Judge Henry W. Thomas.
In 1870 he was chosen Professor of Law in Rich
mond College, a place fitted to his tastes, and afford
ing a field for the exhibition of his great learning ;
but his health was not equal to this tax upon his
strength, superadded to his other labors, and after a
brief experience, he resigned it.
In 1870 he was very highly commended to the
Supreme Court of the United States for the office of
clerk of that court, and it was thought, he would have
been chosen, but for his declining age and growing
physical infirmities.
He at one time contemplated an edition of " Bul-
ler's Nisi Prius," and Mr. Brock says that a copy of
an early edition of this work, containing the copious
notes of Mr. Green, is among the treasures of his
library. Mr. Maury says that "the design of this
work was merged in the larger undertaking of a
comprehensive work on 'Practice,' which was the
great aim of his life.* Would that it had been given
him to see the completion and acceptance of his opus
magnum. Having had the privilege of reading and
* There is extant, in print, a lecture to his law class, and also a
characteristic " Outline of the Principal Proceedings in Action," for
the use of the class.

28 Sketch of William Green.
hearing read much of his unfinished work on 'Prac
tice,' I profoundly deplore that he did not live to
complete it, and to receive the homage and the grati
tude which an admiring profession would have laid at
his feet. That work would have presented the law
of procedure with an accuracy, a discrimination, and
a learning which have not been seen since the mas
terly performance of Mr. Sergeant (Barrister) Wil
liams. It would have supplied a desideratum- which is
sadly felt by an age which, from neglect of technical
learning, is losing sight of the principles of which
that learning is the sure guardian and protector. I
cannot but think that the appearance of that book
would have tended to recall the profession to a branch
of study whose neglect has lowered its standard, and
opened its ranks to many who, in a correct state of
technical learning, would have been deterred from
entering them, by a sense of their own incapacity."
We have thought it better to cite the foregoing
testimonia virorum eruditorum, than to rely upon our
own opinions. The line of our learning is not long
enough to sound a deep enriched by so many streams.
We shall not follow the footsteps of our friend, as
he wends his way in "museful mood" along the wind
ing walks which lead to the basement of the Capitol,
ascends to the halls of legislation, dives into the
alcoves of the State Library, and searches the ar
chives of the attic. Nor shall we descend with him
to the depository of the Records of the old General

Sketch of William Green. 29
Court, and the other courts of record, and rescuing
from " the tooth of time," by extraction, some of their
valuable contents, bear the spoils to his own " cav-
erned " office, upon one of the declivities of Shockoe
Hill, as was that of the Delphic oracle upon one of the
terraces of Parnassus. The likeness is suggestive ;
for surely no antique oracle was ever more invoked for
responses as to the future, than was our friend as to
the present and the past. Written notes and per
sonal queries were perpetually put to him, and he
answered them with a fluency and unselfishness, and
with as much ease, as a perennial spring imparts of its
fullness, without exhaustion, to all thirsty comers.
These queries ranged from puerile puzzles to pon
derous problems in philosophy ; from classical criti
cisms to what one of his old law books calls critica
juris ingeniosa.
Of the minor queries, we remember to have told
him once, with an air of triumph, that at last we had
a question that would (as the boys used to say) "cork
him " ; that we had asked every one we met if they
could tell us what was meant by selling at auction by
" inch of candle," and they all gave it up. He, with
out a moment's hesitation, gave us the history and
literature of it. On another occasion I took him a
letter giving a. graphic picture of a sermon preached
by the great pulpit orator, Whitfield, in old Blandford
Church, (1765). The letter was perfect, minus the
sign-manual of the author, who I suspected to be Mr.

30 Sketch of William Green.
Robert Boiling, of Chellowe, in Buckingham County,
and whom I wished to identify. He took down a book,
saying, "It so happens here is a copy of Juvenal with
that gentleman's arms and autograph, and by a com
parison of handwritings we can tell " ; and so we did,
and he begged me to keep the book.
William Green will ever be associated in the minds
of his brethren of the Bar, and of those whom Bishop
Andrews calls his "intimates congenial," with his
library, with its cases packed with books, on all the
walls, from the floor to the ceiling ; with other cases
running through the room longitudinally and diago
nally, with boxes and trunks in the interspaces, leav
ing only narrow, winding lanes between them — a
labyrinth to which he only had the clue, with which
he could thread his way and put his hand upon
the coveted book or manuscript, in the darkness of
the night, as well as by the dim daylight. In looking
on this library one is reminded of the question (in
Chaucer's Boethious) : " Is this the library thou hast
chosen for a right certain siege (sedem), where thou
disputest often touching science and touching man
kind?" How suggestive is this word '"siege": sit
ting down before his books and laying siege to them
till they give up their treasures ! As to his seat, it
was not a tripod, as was that of Apollo, or of other
oracles, in their grottos. It was simply an old arm
chair in which our friend sat, on one arm of which
always lay a manuscript on which he was rapidly

Sketch of William Green. 31
writing, or a book which he was intently reading, and
often glossing the margin. No monk ever illumi
nated his missal with more enthusiasm than did he
crowd the margins of his books with notes and com
ments. Had he lived when the glossators, as one
says, were worshipped as so many evangelists,* and
one gloss was esteemed by the judges as of more
weight than the opinions of two doctors,f Judge
Green would have been more the idol of the Bar than
he was in his generation. Accursius, law professor
at Bologna in the thirteenth century, lived to his
seventy-eighth year, and wrote glosses on the whole
body of the law. Of him Verini says: ''Juris con-
sultos interpres Accursius omnes excellet, brevibus que
notis enigmata rerum exposuit nullus que error reperi-
tur in illis." The like might be said of the subject
of this sketch. That learned jurist, Mr. Conway
Robinson,J speaks of having observed, when in Judge
Green's library, the extent to which he, with his pen,
had filled the blank spaces in his books with notes ;
and Mr Brock has thoughtfully, in his Catalogue, in
dicated the books thus enriched, and they constitute a
large proportion of the whole.
* Advocati adorant glossatores pro evangelistis.
f Si sententia glossatoris duobus doctoribus est contraria, profecto
in judiciis, prevaleret sententia ipsius glossae.
% The writer takes this occasion to acknowledge his obligations to
his friend Mr. Robinson for a copy of his "English Institutes" — a
book not more valuable to lawyers than interesting and instructive
to historians and all men of letters.

32 Sketch of William Green.
His ofiice was a museum, not in the sense of an
" Old Curiosity Shop," but in the original sense of a
place dedicated to the Muses, for there all the Muses
were represented, unless perhaps we except Euterpe
and Terpsichore, the Muses of Music and of the
Dance, and even these are sung in the Odes of Hor
ace and the Metamorphises of Ovid, who John Sel-
den (referring to his "Fasti") calls a great "Canon
Lawyer." Judge Green had collected here the lumi
naries of the law and literature, ancient and modern.
Mr. Wallace said " he did not seem to care what he
gave for a book." Black letter had more charms for
him than the issues of the Oxford and Riverside
press. No virtuoso ever searched with more dili
gence for scarce coins than did he for rare books
and manuscripts, and Tischendorf did not collate the
codices of the Bible with more interest than he col
lated old and modern law books. He obeyed the
precept of the master he much admired, by turning
over by day and by night the models which were all
around him.
The citizens of Richmond, who had occasion to
traverse its streets by night, will remember the light
which shone through the lattices of the little east
window of his office, and how it appeared almost as
regularly as the evening star, and condnued to twin
kle often down to the "wee sma' hours" of the morn
ing. No one could more truly than he appropriate
and appreciate the words :

Sketch of William Green. 33
" The place that does contain
My books, the best company is to me ;
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers :
And sometimes, for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.
Calling their victories, if unjustly got.
To a strict account, and, in my fancy.
Deface their ill-placed statues."
One might, with little imagination, fancy our friend
in the dreamy night calling up before his mind's eye
the spirits of the great men whose remains were
lying on his shelves, clothing them with flesh, array
ing them in the costumes of their time and clime,
and holding a grand symposium ; not in the literal
meaning of that word (a compotatio — a drinking
together), for he had no taste for that, but in the
sense of Plato in his Dialogue,
" A feast of reason and a flow of soul.' '
The historians rise and tell their stories of all time,
in all tongues; the philosophers — physical, mental
and moral — display their treasures ; the orators fire
their long guns ; the artists exhibit their statues and
paintings ; the mathematicians demonstrate ; the meta
physicians split hairs ; the logicians syllogize, and the
poets, with their nymphs and their naiads, of the
sea, of the rivers, the fountains, and the woods,
composed the choir which made music for the feast.
While our friend welcomed all his guests, and en-

34 Sketch of William Green.
joyed their tributes to the feast, there was one class
who were the special objects of his devotion, and
upon whom all the others were made to wait, and
with their laurels crown the Law, to which " all things
in heaven and earth do reverence — the very least, as
feeling her care, and the greatest, as not exempt from
her power ; both angels and creatures and men, each
in different sort and order, yet all, with uniform con
sent, acknowledging her as the mother of their peace
and joy."
One might fancy our friend's face beaming with
unwonted brightness when the lawyers pass before
his mind's eye : Ranulph de Glanville,* Justiciary and
Crusader, with his most ancient coherent account of
the Laws and Customs of England ; Henry de Brac-
ton,f {noster clericus dilectus^ with his Tractatus of
the same ; Gilbert de Thornton, (or Torrenton,) Epi-
tomizer and Interpreter of Bracton ; Fitzherbert, with
his Brevium, in black letter; Fortescue, with his
Lauds of the Law; Linwood, with his "Testaments";
John Selden, with FletaJ in one hand and Hengham
{Flos Auglorum) in the other; Horner, holding the

* Glanville died in the Holy Land. — Robinson's Inst.
t Bracton, though a Justice, seems to have had as many aliases as
if he had been a fugitive from justice — Bracton, Brycton, Breton,
&c., &c.
X Fleta, so called from being written in the Fleet ; so called from
being hard by the Fleet river. The author, for the first time, lately
read Fleta in Latin, with Selden's Dissertation on the same, by the
favor of his friend, Mr. Conway Robinson.

Sketch of William Green. 35
" Mirror of the Justices ; " rude Coke, with the hu
mane and elegant Litdeton ; Bacon, with his big
" Abridgment ; " Aleyne, with his select cases, in
black letter ; Sir R. Brooke, with his new cases ;
Latch, with his tres bon cases ; Tothill, with his ex
traordinary cases ; Jenkins, with his eight hundred
cases ; others, with their Chancery, King's Bench,
Common Pleas, and Exchequer cases ; a long proces
sion of Reporters, from Coke and Plowden to Wal
lace and Grattan, with hosts of other authors, English,
French, and American, each bringing his tribute to
the banquet. All these would our friend interrogate,
cross-examine, collate, criticise, revise, correct, put to
the torture, melt down in his own crucible, in the vain
endeavor to extract from them the "Quintessence"*
of all they knew, and, casting it in his own mould,
produce a perfect book.
In the summer of 1879, Judge Green was pros-.
trated by a severe attack of sickness, " nigh unto
death," induced by his continuous labors by day and
by night in mid-summer. After some recreation in
the mountains, which did not restore his strength, he
returned to his studies, and pursued them with un
diminished ardor until the ensuing summer, when he
received a letter from his brother (James) urging him
to suspend his work and visit the White Sulphur

* Among the principles postulated by Aristotle, the fifth was
" Quintessence," a heavenly body, immutable and eternal.

36 Sketch of William Green.
Springs. To this he made this characteristic re

sponse :

"Richmond, July i, 1880,
"7:48 P. M.

"Dear James, — From 7 A. M. to 6 P. M. I have
worked all this day, with nearly no intermission, ex
cept for meals. From 6 P. M. until now I have
rested and taken my supper. And this has been my
regular mode of life, with very little variation, since
you were here. I have improved upon it. That is to
say, my strength is very perceptibly greater, and my
spirits are better. I am now able to feel hope ; be
fore I could not, from very debility. If my eye-sight
were not so' rapidly failing, I should feel very hopeful,
indeed, confident of getting through the press, at
least, one volume of my book, and that the most im
portant. I have filled up the chasms that were in the
text of it That is what I have been working upon
ever since I finished and sent to Boston my article on
' Stare Decisis,' which is mentioned in the printed
paper I lately sent you. It is, in my judgment, a very
good one, and will well deserve to receive approba
tion. But, although it is accepted, and announced as
awaiting publication, yet I hear from Boston that
several articles are in hand ahead of it.
"I heard from J. Alfred Jones of your talk with
him, about me, in Alexandria ; and he, in person,
enforced' the advice of you both, about my leaving
Richmond. I received your very kind letter on the
subject of my going, and of ways and means, for
which I felt grateful, reminded by it of an expression
I have felt vividly from the time I first read it in Hor-

Sketch of William Green. 37
ace, ' Notus in fratres animi paterni! Certainly, you
and John Cooke have earned it in reference to me.
And now I am answering your kind invitation to visit
you while Mr. Stephens [Hon. A. H.] is with you."
[The remainder of the letter is in the most genial
mood. He regrets that he cannot meet the Hon.
Alexander Stephens in Culpeper, whom he remem
bers with pleasure to have once met with General
Schenck at Jack Pendleton's, when he presented him
(Mr. Stephens) with a curious book on Astrology ;
says he must visit his daughter at Fredericksburg,
and see her last-born child, Lucy Williams, who had
been in danger of dying before he saw her, as he
himself had been in danger of dying last summer.
He decHnes going to the White Sulphur, and prefers
Wytheville, "where the judges will be." He sends
the most cordial greetings of himself and his wife to
his brother and his wife, gratefully recognizing the
kindness of the two latter to the two former, and bids
them a heart-warm adieu.J
(Signed) "William Green."
Neither the entreaties of loved relatives, nor the
cool breezes and sparkling springs of the mountains,
could win him from his "work" ; reminding us of the
words of Cicero, "Habet opus m,agnum in manibus."
He preferred the Castalian to the White Sulphur
Springs, and continued to labor during the fervid
heat of July until the 27th, when his brain reeled

38 Sketch of William Green.
under its burden, and the pen fell from his hand ere
it had written, Finis coronal opus.
The symposium is dissolved. The host is dead.
The guests have fled. The "banquet hall's de
serted." Antrum moestum silet, inconsulti que re-
cessus. He was stricken on the 27th of July and
lingered unconscious until the 29th, when he expired.
He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, from St.
Paul's Church, (in which he had a pew,) on the 31st,
The rector. Dr. Minnigerode, officiated. Nothing
was said but the grand old burial service, after whose
bugle notes other words often seem commonplace.
Every one on this occasion must have felt the force
of the words, " In the midst of Life, we are in Death.
Of whom may we seek for succor, but of Thee, O
Lord ? So teach us to number our days, that we
may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
Mr. Green's death awakened a lively emotion,
which was felt from the centre to the circumference
of a large circle of relatives, friends, and admirers,
and elicited many expressions of sympathy and of
regret. The Bar of Culpeper, the scene of his first
successes, was, as was fitting, the first to do honor to
his memory. They met during the recess of the court,
on the 19th of August, 1880. On motion of Judge
Bell, James Barbour was called to the chair, and
C. B. Payne (clerk) was secretary. On modon of
Judge Bell, the Chair appointed a committee to draw

Sketch of William Green. 39
up resolutions expressive of their pain and sorrow at
the death of the late Hon. William Green, LL.D., of
Richmond. The Chair appointed the Hon. J. W.
Bell, G. D. Gray, Judge Grimsley, and Attorney
General Field, who by their chairman. Judge Bell,
reported an appropriate preamble and resolutions,
reciting leading incidents in the life of the deceased,
and doing honor to his great abilities and matchless
learning and to the purity of his character and career
in all the relations of life, and mourning his death as
a common loss to the Bench, the Bar, and to the
Commonwealth. The Hon. James Barbour was re
quested to present a copy of these proceedings to the
Court of Culpeper, and to ask that they might be
recorded in the order-book, and that the clerk furnish
a copy to the Times and other newspapers ; that Mr.
Gray present a copy of them to the Circuit Court,
and General Field to the Court of Appeals. At the
November term of the Circuit Court (1880), Mr.
Gray presented the resolutions of the members of
the Bar. We have seen no report of Mr. Gray's
remarks, but in the Times of January 14, 1881, we
have the memorial address of Judge Bell on the
occasion. We regret that our limited space will only
allow a running recapitulation of the salient points
in this loving tribute of the Judge of the county in
which Mr. Green won his first laurels. He describes
Mr Green as coming to the Bar without the prestige
of college honors, but as clothed with the whole
armor of the Law, fashioned and fitted by his own

40 Sketch of William Green.
cunning hand in his father's office. Thus equipped,
he enters the lists of contest with the veterans of the
Bar for the prizes of the profession, with a manly, yet
modest consciousness of his own powers. Among
the personnel of the Bar of Culpeper at that day, he
enumerates R. H. Field, afterwards Judge of the
Circuit and President of the Special Court of Ap
peals ; J. S. Barbour, with his imposing person and „
splendid oratory; the elder Shackelford and Gibson'
with their sledge-hammer logic; the bold and dash
ing Barrister Smith, afterwards twice Governor of
Virginia; the brilliant John S. Pendleton, reinforced
by R. E. Scott, Chilton, and Forbes, among the ablest
lawyers of Virginia. Nothing daunted by such com
petitors, Mr. Green, by his untiring industry and
capacity of labor, soon became an authority to the
Bar and the Bench. " Methinks I see him," says the
speaker, "coming into court, with his lithe step and
his benignant smile, his green bag full of chancery
papers, all set for hearing, with every fact and every
point of law at his tongue's ends. I can hardly re
member a case in which he asked for a decree and
did not get it on the terms and in the language in
which he had drawn it. Such was the confidence of
the Bench and the Bar in him, that when he an
nounced a proposition of law, or a statement of facts,
it was accepted as true on all sides." Judge Bell
cites the tesdmony of Judges Field and Moncure,
and illustrates Mr. Green's habits of study, by com
paring him with the Greek painter Apelles, who made

Sketch of William Green. 41
his mark every day; his maxim being, "Nulla dies
sine linea." He then represents Mr. Green's supe
riority to all jealousies, his high disdain of the arts
and sharp practice of the mere pettifogger, who
chases a fee, and, when he has pocketed it, thinks
he has attained the end of his profession; his ten
derness to his clients, and reluctance to exact fees;
his single eye to the honor of his high calling, &c.,
and concludes with the opinion that the necrological
records of the year will contain the name of no man
who could more truly say,
Exegi monumentum eere perennius.
This is only a skeleton of Judge Bell's memorial
address, lacking the unity of form and spirit of the
original. MEETING OF THE BAR OF RICHMOND.
The Bar of Richmond met on the i8th November,
1880, to do honor to their lamented brother. The
meeting was remarkable for its numbers and quality.
Judge Moncure, President of the Court of Appeals,
was called to the chair, and Mr. Austin Smith to be
Secretary. William A. Maury, of Washington, sent
an elegant tribute to the memory of his friend and
brother, which was impressively read by Judge
Crump. Tender addresses, which were said to be
very touching, were made by Judge Moncure and
General Field, of which we are sorry not to have
reports. A committee, consisting of Judge Crump, General

42 Sketch of William Green.
Field, Judge Staples, Ex-Attorney General Marye,
General William H. Payne, Professor Davies, James
Alfred Jones, P. R. Grattan, C. M. Blackford, and
Robert Ould, was appointed, who, by their chairman.
Judge Crump, reported the following appropriate and
chaste preamble and resolutions :
" William Green, Esq., having departed this life on
the 29th day of July, 1880, the members of the Bar
at which he was so long an upright, able, and distin
guished practitioner, desire to express in an enduring
form their appreciation of his virtues as a man and
of his gifts and attainments as a lawyer. With a
heart singularly kind, unselfish, and courteous, and
with a sense of justice which made him conspicuous
for his integrity, he fulfilled the measure of his duty
as a citizen with such rare fidelity that his memory is
as well an honor to his State as a precious treasure
to his friends and brethren of the Bar. His enthusi
astic devotion to the studies of his profession was so
pure and disinterested that, while he earned more of
fame than fortune by his labors, he was content to be
what, the highest professional ambition could render
him — -juris legumque peritus ; haud magna cum re,
sed plenus fi-dei. It will be always to us a matter of
profound regret that the work on which he had been
engaged for many years was not completed before
his death ; that the faithful industry and profound
learning which had elicited the admiration of the
English judiciary, could not have been spared to con
summate the tribute of his genius to the science of
his love and veneration ; therefore, be it
"Resolved, i. That we hereby tesdfy our sincere ap
preciation of the private worth and eminent profes-

Sketch of William Green. \t^
sional abilities of our deceased brother and our heart
felt sorrow at his death.
" 2. That a copy of these proceedings, preamble,
and resolutions be presented by Attorney General
Field to the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State ;
by A. A. Smith, Esq., to the Chancery Court of Rich
mond ; by Professor S. D. Davies to the Circuit and
Hustings Courts of said city, and to the United
States Circuit and District Courts, with a request
that they be entered on the records of the said
courts respectively.
" 3. That a copy of the same be sent by the secre
tary of the meeting to the widow of the deceased,
with an expression of our deep sympathy and feeling
for her in her afflicdon."
When Marcellus died Augustus dedicated to his
memory a library and a theatre. There could not be
a more fitting monument to Mr. Green than a library,
and instead of a theatre a lyceum, such as were com
bined in Cicero's Tusculan Villa.
The Historical Society of Virginia has a library
and a name, but no fixed habitation. It has been a
vagrant from tenement to tenement, having no home
it could call its own, no safe depository for its treas
ures, no hall for its anniversaries and its exhibitions.
It would be a graceful act to rear a monument to
those men of letters who have done so much to
found and to keep alive an institution devoted to the
rescuing from the " razure of oblivion " our moulder
ing records, and keeping alive upon our altars those
fires which, when once quenched, can never be lighted

44 Sketch of William Green.
again. Conspicuous among these, would be the late
President of the Historical Society, Hugh Blair
Grigsby, whose splendid historical pictures of our
conventions entitle him to be called our Virginian
Plutarch ; his predecessor, Hon. William C. Rives —
statesman, diplomatist. Historian — who deserves a
high niche in the Temple of Fame, as well for the
purity of his private life as for the brilliancy of his
public career ; then there is gentle Charles Campbell,
our Virginian Antiquary and Old MortaHty in one,
whose contributions are not only embodied in what
he modestly entitles his " Introduction to the History
of the Most Ancient Colony and Dominion of Vir
ginia," but are scattered in shining fragments through
all our magazines ; and earlier still, that preux cheva
lier, William Maxwell, who dedicated to the service
of the Historical Society his varied attainments, ele
gant taste, and wit keen and bright as the sabre of
Saladin. The time would fail to tell of our poet lau
reate, John R. Thompson, and Myers and Macfarland,
and many others whose names enrich the Historical
Society, and which we should not willingly let die.
The subject of this sketch, too, was for long a vice-
president of the Society, and for many years the
chairman of its Executive Committee, and a life
long expounder of Its annals. The time is propitious
to invoke Virginia to lend a helping hand to a Society
which has so long and so lovingly striven to embalm
the memory of the high-minded men "who knew her
rights, their duties knew, and knowing dared main-

Sketch of William Green. 45
tain." Scions from Virginia's body, transplanted in
the wilds of the West, have grown into great States,
which make annual appropriations to their Historical
Societies. The Mother of States and Statesmen
should not let her daughters surpass her. The
omens are propitious. The statues of many of our
great men stand guard around the Capitol ; the por
traits of others look down reprovingly from the walls.
The time is not distant, we trust, when our Society
shall have an edifice with fire-proof library, a gallery
for paintings, and a hall for public exhibitions, and on
it a sculptured composition (like that in the Pantheon
at Paris) representing the genius of Virginia, and in
scribed in golden letters "Aux grands hommes la pa-
trie reconnaissante" — ("The country gratefully recog
nizes her great men.")
It seems to us that our friend, Mr. Green, was
more like those peripatetic doctors of the civil law,
who went from city to city, in Italy and France, deliv
ering lectures in the universities, and were looked
upon as prodigies of learning and oracles, to be con
sulted upon all knotty points in the law and in letters
generally. Among these were John Peter Capriata,
of Genoa, to whose works Amantius prefixed a poem
entitled, " Paulus Amantius in Carr/iine ad Auctorem
et ad Librum" which is as singularly descriptive of
the subject of this sketch as if he had sat for the
portrait; and as most of our readers have probably
never seen the lines, we reproduce them here :

46 Sketch of William Green.
PAULUS AMANTIUS IN CARMINE AD AUCTOREM
ET AD LIBRUM.
Qui consulta patrum et nodosi dogmata juris,
Atque vagos Legum anfractus, dubiosque recessus
Ingenio solitus celeri scrutarier et quern
Juris consultum, insignem Menochius olim
Testatur, scriptis commendans laudibus 
.... Tu, seu jura doces, juris penetralia quaevis,
Seu patronus agis causas, dubiumque clientem
Sublevat arguto quem promis pectore sensus,
Unde audet dubiae melius confidere causae ;
Seu juris responsa refers consulta petenti,
Seu lites dirimis certantes arbiter inter ;
Tam rite et recte peragi tibi cuncta videntur,
Tam facile atque brevi interjicto tempore, quantum
Per tardas perfecta moras vix quisque dedesset.
The sense is —
Thy piercing genius ever traced with ease
The knotty points of law, however ancient.
And all the random windings of the Bar.
Menochias gave the praise thy merit claim'd.
And told the world that thou wouldst be illustrious. . . .
.... Whether you read law lectures to your pupils.
Or plead a cause in presence of the court,
So well you trace the hidden springs of law.
So happily express your cloudless sense.
That all who listen say you '11 be victorious.
Whether you give advice, or when you re umpire.
Justice and truth confirm your every dictate.
No lawyer, tho' he studied months on months,
On some perplexing, controverted point,
Could argue better than you do at once.

Sketch of William Green. 47

MONUMENT.

A monument of granite, simple and firm, like his
own character, was erected in Hollywood Cemetery
to Mr. Green by his widow, with an inscription by
William A. Maury, as follows:
In Memory of
WILLIAM GREEN, LL.D.,
Jurist and Scholar.

Born ioth November, 1806,
In Fredericksburg, 'Virginia.
Died 29TH July, 1880,
In Richmond, Virginia.

Justice, Faith, Charity, Courage :
These
Abounded and wrought together in him
BONUM VIRUM FACILE CREDERES MAGNUM LIBENTER.

The Last Will of William Green.

In the Name of God, Amen.
I, William Green, do make this my last will,
whereof, I constitute executor my son-in-law, James
Hayes. If, from any cause, he shall not act, then, in
his stead I nominate and appoint my brother, James
W. Green, to be my personal representative. And
having full confidence in each, I request that neither
of them be required to give security for performance
of his duties as such personal representative, or ex
ecutor. To my said brother I bequeath all my manuscripts,
whether bound or unbound, except what is written
as annotations or otherwise in printed books: this
bequest includes manuscripts of whomsoever, more
especially the written opinions of our late father as
a judge of the Court of Appeals, which opinions I
have carefully and reverently preserved.
To my beloved wife I devise, for and during her
widowhood, one-sixth part of my real estate, which
part, added to the third part secured by the law for
her dower, will make a moiety or half of the whole.
The said sixth part and the said third part, at the
termination, or terminations, of my wife's respective
interests in them as devisee or doweress, and the

Mr. Green s Religious Opinions. 49
other moiety or half, forthwith, I devise to the sole
and separate use of our beloved daughter, in fee
simple, and I direct that her (my said daughter's)
distributive share of the clear surplus of my personal
estate, be secured, as well as the real estate devised
for her benefit as aforesaid, to the sole and separate
use of my said daughter, in so far as our present law
may fail itself to secure their property to married
women. In testimony whereof, I do set my signature to
the present instrument, altogether in my own hand
writing, this thirteenth day of October, eighteen hun
dred and seventy-nine. William Green.

Mr. Green's Religious Opinions.

There are many persons who will read these pages,
in whose eyes religion, or the relations of the soul
to God, is the paramount question for every man.
Whatever else he may be, or may have done, if he
fails here, he falls short of the chief end for which he
was made These persons are naturally desirous of
knowing what were the final conclusions of so learned
a man upon this vital quesdon. This is a delicate
subject to treat fairly, and the author was incHned to
pass it by without touching it. But as wrong impres
sions in regard to it have gone abroad, we deem it

50 Mr. Greens Religious Opinions.
our duty, in justice to our friend and to the subject,
to tell the truth about it to the best of our knowledge
and beHef We premise that Mr. Green never had
any sympathy with those unhappy men who, as Car
lyle says, "sailed thro' the universe and found no
maker thereof; searching in stooping posture and
with Lucifer matches and a farthing rush-light for the
sun, and could not find it — seeing only the glimmer
ing rainbow of creation, which originated from ro
sun," Mr. Green never doubted, much less denied,
the being of an all-wise, all powerful, and all-good
Creator and Governor of the Universe. He was
born of Christian parents, had an early religious
training, and amid all the chances and changes of
his after life he looked back with loving recognition
to those who had taught his infant lips to pray, and
marked out for him the course of his life. There
was little in the pulpit of that day that tended to keep
alive the fires which had been kindled at the family
altar, and among his associates were some persons of
skeptical tendencies, who were the more dangerous
from their ready wit and pleasing address. But his
chief companions were his books, and among the
authors he most read for recreation were such as
Horace and Juvenal, whose fine sentiments and beau
tiful diction, "like apples of gold in pictures of sil
ver," were mingled, as every one knows, with much
that dimmed the fine gold, and filled the memory with
impure images associated with rites and objects of
worship. He was, too, smitten with the fascinating

Mr. Green's Religious Opinions. 5 1
Bolingbroke, whose unbelief insinuated through his
blooming rhetoric, like a serpent hidden in flowers,
poured "its leprous distilment" into his mind. Our
diverging careers in life so separated us that I had
but few opportunities of noting the phases his opin
ions may have undergone. Many years elapsed be
fore I had occasion, in Richmond and at the White
Sulphur Springs, to converse with him on the subject
of religion. I then found him speaking in dispar
aging terms of the Old Testament as untrustworthy
in its history and unscientific in its astronomy, and
the like. He had been reading Colenso's destructive
criticism upon this antique document, and adopting
his conclusions, without stopping to verify his premi
ses, as he would have done in the case of a law book
or the authenticity of a deed or will. He expressed
himself without reserve, as many persons will doubt
less remember, as he always "wore his opinions upon
his sleeve for daws (or doctors) to peck at."
He listened to Jewish Rabbis, conversed freely
with Roman Catholic and Protestant Doctors, and
considered carefully what each had to say. Upon
this occasion he changed his tone, when reminded
that the Church had never defined inspiration. For
aught that any one knew, it might be that inspiration
may have been limited to religious doctrine proper,
and to such facts as were so interwoven with doc
trine as to be necessary to the preservation and
propagation of its life, in some such relations as the
surrounding integuments to the vital organs. That,

52 Mr. Green's Religious Opinions.
as to everything outside of this, whether history,
chronology or science, the writers of the Old Testa
ment may have been left to acquire their knowledge
as other men, with only such providential supervision
as to keep them from making shipwreck of the faith
delivered to those privileged to be the organs of
special revelations. However this may be, it is
certain they spoke in popular language, describing
things, not as they really were, but as they seemed
to the observer to be. If a rounded system of sci
ence had been revealed at that time, it would not
have been believed, and it would have discredited
their message, as the case of Galileo witnesses. The
world was not ready for it. The eye would be
blinded by a sudden sun-burst, instead of its grad
ual rising. Progress by gradual growth is the uni
versal law. The book of nature is a revelation of
God, and its pages have been unrolled every day and
night before the eyes of all men, and yet how slow
have they been in its interpretation ; and so it has
been with the Revelation in the Bible. Theory after
theory has been formed for the solution of the prob
lems in each, only to be rejected and give place to a
new hypothesis, which soon meets with a like fate.
It may be that when the errors of each shall have
been corrected, theologians and sciendsts may meet
in harmony, and sing in concert the same hymn of
praise. If, in those things in which they were not
inspired, the writers of the Old Testament have been
mistaken, and in the transcriptions of manuscripts

Mr. Green s ' Religious Opinions. 5 3
by many copyists, through many ages, errors have
crept in, they do not affect their authenticity or credi
bility any more than like errors in secular books,
which scholars correct. But if all the counts in the
indictment of the Old Testament were granted for
the sake of argument, there remains an organic
unity between the Old and the New Testaments like
that between the root, trunk and branches of a tree,
through which a life current circulates, whose vital
ity is not impaired, but invigorated by cleansing it
from excrescences and the pruning of its superfluous
shoots. Upon any other hypothesis than the substantial
truth of this history, how can one account for the
traditions of the fall of man, of the deluge, of the
ark, and the like, which have floated over the earth,
and become imbedded in all religions ? Again : upon
any other theory than that of Divine Revelation, how
can we account for the fact that, in the midst of a
world of idolaters, in utter ignorance of the harmo
nies of the material universe, one man alone pro
claimed the unity of God, the unity of nature, and
the unity of the human race — one Father in Heaven,
one family in earth — those ideals of which the wisest
philosophers, after the lapse of 2,000 years, had but
dim and doubtful glimpses, and towards which all
civilization has been tending ever since ? Again :
upon any other hypothesis, how can you account for
the perdnent fact that the voices of the prophets, all
through the ages, announced the coming of a Re-

54 Mr. Green's Religious Opinions.
deemer in the fullness of time ; that heathen histo
rians and poets echoed their voices, that in the
opinion of historians, looking from a merely secular
standpoint, all ancient history and mythology looked
forward to Christ, as all after history looks back to
his advent — all these rays converging to a focus,
which is the "Light of the World" and the centre-
point of history ? If we look at the ecclesiastical
firmament of the Old Testament, the manifold types
which crowd it have a like relation to the "Sun of
Righteousness," as the heavens over our heads at
night, studded with stars, have to the natural sun, at
once reflecting his light and heralding his rising. A
great German has said that Adam and Christ are the
two poles on which the moral world turns, and from
which light and darkness, life and death, stream upon
individuals and nations ; and we add, that the axis
which connects these two poles is not an imaginary
line, but a real one.
Some of these views were new to our friend, as he
often said that he had been so absorbed by other
studies and business that theology had not had its
due proportion of time and space in his encyclo-
peedia. I did not see him again for many months,
and in the mean time he had been ill mgh. unto death.
He had rallied, and his mind was as vigorous as ever,
and as interested in his studies. He uttered no
skepdcal sendments, and his whole tone was so
changed that I told him he was like a new man.
He said there were three things weighing on his

Mr. Green's Religious Opinions. ^^
mind : to make provision for his wife and children,
to finish his "book," and, above all, to have the
divinity of Christ demonstrated to his satisfaction.
He said that he feared he had made a great mistake
in investing so much money and time in this great
library, instead of in something that would be more
profitable to his family. He told me that "Young's
Christ of History" had shaken his doubts about
the divinity of Christ. We talked about the unique
character of Christ, as standing alone in history, like
a pillar in a desert, with nothing like to him, as ad
mitted by skeptics, from Rousseau to Renan ; of the
pregnant speech of Napoleon, that "he knew men,
and he knew that Christ was not a mere man." We
talked of the Christian conception of God as "light
and love " ; of the Christian illustration of his love
in the tragedy of Christ's life and death ; of the aim
of his teaching, to make all men love God ard love
one another, an ideal whose realization in the actual
world would be heaven on earth ; of the method of
his teaching, going with love beating at the heart and
flowing from the lips, and telling to "every creature"
the " good news" that God is Love, and has so loved
him that he should love God and love his brother
man, because God loves him, &c.
But he coveted a demonstration. To which, it was
suggested, that to begin with the demonstration of
a great theorem, was to begin at the wrong end.
When he studied law, he did not begin with " Fearne
on Contingent Remainders," but with the "Student's

56 Mr. Green s Religious Opinions.
Blackstone." When he learned Greek, he did not
begin with Homer's Iliad, but with the Alphabet. In
mathematics, axioms and definitions came before the
Calculus; so, in religion, we must be as "little chil
dren," crying for the light and begging for bread.
"No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the
Holy Spirit." Behind the logical faculty there is a
spiritual faculty, which, when touched by the Holy
Spirit, shines through and illuminates it? And this
aid can be had for the asking, for Christ has assured
us that our Heavenly Father is more willing to give
the Holy Spirit to those who ask it, than earthly
parents are to give good gifts to their children, and
what father and mother could refuse the prayer
of a hungry child crying for bread? I put into his
hands Liddon's Bampton Lectures on the Divinity of
Christ, and left him reading it with interest, and I
never saw him again. He was, after some months
or more, seized with his last illness, and although the
writer was summoned, as in the previous illness, he
was himself too ill to obey the summons. Here my
personal knowledge stops, and feeling that it needed
a supplement, I wrote to Mr. Green's pastor and
friend. Dr. Minnigerode, rector of St. Paul's church,
for the impression made upon his mind by his in
tercourse with our friend. The writer has not seen
Dr. Minnigerode since Mr. Green's death, and the
Doctor did not know what had been written above.
Under these circumstances our brother so fits and
supplements what was wanting in the foregoing state-

Mr. Green's Religious Opinions. ^j
ments, as to seem to us providential. His letter was
written in the fullness of his heart, and for our,
and not the public's eye, and yet it so carries out
and completes our unfinished sketch, that we have
begged to be allowed to print it for the satisfacdon
of the surviving friends of the deceased, and the
edification of our readers generally It is dated —
" Richmond, April lo, i88s-
"My Dear Brother, — I agree with you that it is a
delicate matter for either of us to speak of My own
views are very consolatory, based upon my knowl
edge of the man and the progress he made — in the
earnest, I may say agonizing, search for the truth.
He took to me, I may say, from the first day of our
acquaintance, was very kind in attending zealously
the services ; he sought my society, and we often
spent whole evenings together in discussing his re-
ligio-philosophical, or philosophico-religious views, in
which the adoration of the great Creator and man's
obedience to Him as the absolute condition of happi
ness and right, formed the leading idea. His views
of the Bible and of positive Christianity were very
deficient then, partly because of his unbounded ad
miration of ancient literature (Latin chiefly), and
placing the second-hand philosophy and common
place ethics of Cicero and the Satires of Juvenal, &c ,
so high as to compare them, with evident compla
cency, with the morality of the Gospel. Besides this
he was a lawyer in the fullest and strictest sense
of the word, every inch of him, and his mind was
so thoroughly trained to weigh everything in that
balance, and admit nothing but upon such eviden-

58 Mr. Green's Religious Opinions.
tial proof as he was used to in court, that it was
next to impossible for him to break through these
narrow bounds, and when, under God's providence,
his mind was carried beyond, it was a triumph of
grace, even though that phantom, ' sufficient legal
evidence,' still haunted him. I remember conversa
tions with him, years before his illness, in which he
endeavored to justify his views to me, construing all
I said in a general way, so as to wind up with the
assertion, that after all, we were agreed essentially.
The good man took it very kindly when I told him
he was mistaken, and there was, with all apparent
agreement, a radical difference, beginning with first
premises and affecting all the results, and the charac
ter of the results flowing from them. But he was an
honest, earnest searcher after the truth, and I believe
the suspicion gradually grew upon him (he hardly
could say how) that he might be mistaken in his
premises, or in the way in which he tried to test the
truths. It is certain that his mind was much more
open to conviction, and especially, that the desire
had grown up in his mind to be convinced — to be
able honestly to say that he believed and held the
truth. " That, became the leading feature of his spiritual
condition ; and, unless I am mistaken, continued with
increasing force during the interval between his two
attacks of illness, the second of which carried him
away. During all that time he craved my visits, and
requested my prayers with him, fully satisfied that
they should be offered by me in the name of Christ.
I hardly ever saw one so anxious to say (in consis
tency with what his antecedents led him to believe
to be necessary for a perfect conviction) that he was

Mr. Green s Religious Opinions. 59
fully convinced and satisfied. That was the chief de
sire left, apart from his affection and care for his wife
and children.
" As time advanced, and he felt it was getting
shorter, he made the Resurrection of Christ the last
point, and said as soon as he was strong enough he
would give his whole mind to the examination of this
point. As far as the Tvill went, he was all right, I
think, and he seemed to throw the promise of a final
examination of this point as a quieting sop to his life
long legal prejudices. But all along, through these
long days and weeks, there was the one hope and
confession of his soul, coupled with the bitter cry,
that he did not know how to go further : all was con
centrated in the daily, hourly prayer, "Lord, I believe;
help Thou mine unbelief."
"That is all, dear Slaughter, I can say about the
matter. It is a great comfort to me, and I have told
his family so.
" Yours, affectionately, " Charles Minnigerode "
We thank God for this testimony, and that we are
not left to mourn as those who have no hope. We
cannot keep down the thought that if our friend had
lived to give us the results of his thorough examina
tion of the fact of the resurrection of Christ, by the
rules of legal- evidence, how he would have cleared
away the rubbish that hides from some eyes the rock
on which this corner-stone of Christianity firmly re
poses, and what a valuable contribution it might have
been to the literature of the subject.

Hereditary Genius.

The present writer was the first person to give
currency in print to the reputed descent of the Hon.
William Green, LL. D., from William Peere Williams,
Barrister-at-Law, and the famed English reporter.
My authority was the late General James Williams,
of "Soldier's Rest," in the County of Orange. He
was the grandson of the first immigrant of the name
and family to Virginia, and said, that such was the
" received tradition in the family." Our Mr. Green
himself was the first to cast a doubt on the truth of
this tradition. This he did by making a note upon
the margin of a copy of " St. Mark's Parish," in my
library, in these words : " This is very doubtful, and
it seems impossible, Peere Williams died about
1742, and I was born in 1806, in the sixth genera
tion from him, according to the sequel here."
I afterwards procured, through the kind ofifices of
Mr. Lea, of Massachusetts, who had married a grand
daughter of the late Dr. William Williams, of Cul
peper, the pedigree of William Peere Williams, Bar
rister and Reporter. From this it appears that the
Reporter was a son of the " Clerk of the Extracts "
(in the time of Charles II), who married a dauo-hter
of William Peere, Esq. The Reporter's sons were :

Hereditary Genius. 6 1
i. Sir Hutchin Williams, Baronet (April 4, 1747).
ii. Frederick Williams, D. D.
iii. Peere Williams.
iv. George Williams.
And three daughters.
The sons of Sir Hutchin Williams were :
i. Sir William Peere Williams, M. A., Cambridge,
1759; killed in battle 1761. He was succeeded as
Baronet by Sir Booth Williams, born 1732. So that
the first American brothers could not have been
grandsons of the Reporter by these lines. Of the
other sons of the Reporter : Peere, had only daugh
ters ; the children of George are not given, and the
immigrant brother may have derived from him. I
showed the pedigree to Mr. Green, and upon compu
tation, he concluded that the descent was most proba
bly from a brother of the first Peere Williams.
In English pedigrees, the cadets of a family are
often omitted, and they are limited to eldest sons and
heirs of property or title. These details are rather
curious than important, except for their bearing upon
one of the living quesdons of the day — "The Here
dity of Genius."
It has ever been the creed of Christendom, that
our first forefather in Eden was the root out of which
the human family tree has grown, and as all the
branches of a tree partake of the nature of the
root from which they spring, so all human beings
inherit the nature of our fallen forefathers. This
ardcle of the Christian creed was long a matter of

62 Hereditary Genius.
mockery to the unbeliever. In the meantime, plain
men, without regard to any creed, and without think
ing of any theory, but as the result of their own
experience and observation, discovered the workings
of this law of heredity, in the veg^etable and animal
kingdoms, and applied it pracdcally to the culture of
the fruits of the earth and the improvement of their
stock. And now men of science, using scientific
methods, are everywhere expounding this law and
using it as a weapon to smite Christianity, in seem
ing obliviousness of the fact that Christianity in this,
as in other matters, has been ahead of them, and
anticipated their conclusions. Some, perhaps many
good people are jealous of science upon this point,
because some of its chief votaries, as Darwin, Bauds-
ley, and others, are pushing it to infidel extremes.
But Christian champions, conspicuous among whom
is Joseph Cook, are springing up, and, armed with
the facts and method of the scientist, are grappling
manfully with them on their own chosen ground,
driving them from their extreme positions, and hold
ing them within the limits of demonstrated facts,
which are shown to coincide with revealed truth.
The following laws of hereditary descent are now
generally received :
I . The law of direct heredity, by which children
resemble one or both of their parents.
2, The law of reversional heredity, according to
which a child may resemble its grandparents or more
remote ancestors.

Hereditary Genius. 63
A writer in the Edinburgh Review, in a notice of
the author's "Memoir of Randolph Fairfax," points
out as a singular instance of the pertinacity of family
type, the reappearance in this youth and some of his
relatives, in our late civil war, of that warlike Puri
tanism of which their remote ancestor, Thomas Fair
fax, was so exalted a type.
Then there is the law of collateral heredity, accord
ing to which a child may resemble an uncle or aunt,
or some kinsman outside the direct line of descent.
When one considers the countless different elements
representing all his ancestors, which meet in the
blood of every person, it is impossible to tell which
one may come out visibly in any particular individual,
or how many of the infinitesimal elements may meet
and neutralize each other, or combine into new com
positions. Like rivers which sink into the earth, and
after running underground a certain distance, rise to
the surface again, so certain qualities descend unseen
for years and reappear in later generations. Beyond
certain limits, we know nothing ; the elements of the
problem are beyond computation, and the problem is
insoluble. But enough is known to invest the sub
ject with the liveliest interest in the minds of all
people who think.
But this may perhaps be regarded as an imperd-
nent digression; my purpose being chiefly to note
the curious fact that the Williams family, of which
Mr. Green's grandmother was one, has in every gen
eration showed a fondness and a fitness for the law.

64 Hereditary Genius.
which is very remarkable, however it may be ac
counted for. I now proceed to establish this propo
sition by an induction of particulars. The father of
our Mr. Green was the Hon, John Williams Green,
sometime Chancellor, and afterward promoted to the
Bench of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and of
whom Mr. Grigsby said, in his historical picture of
the Convention of 1829-30, "His name will go down
to posterity associated with one of the most memora
ble debates on record, but whose modest demeanor
gave no indication of the high judicial merit gen
erally accorded to him." Of his sons, besides the
subject of this sketch, were : First. John Cooke
Green, for fifteen years the efficient Commonwealth's
Attorney of Culpeper. Second. Thomas Claiborne
Green, President of the Court of Appeals of West
Virginia. Third. Major James Williams Green, a
leading member of the Culpeper Bar, whose son,
Angus McDonald, is a lawyer, and the Mayor of the
town. To these may be added S. Slaughter Green,
the son of Dr. Daniel Green and grandson of Judge
J. W. Green, a rising young lawyer of Charleston,
West Virginia.
Of the brothers of our Mr. Green's grandmother,
the eldest. Major John Williams, had a son, Isaac
Hite Williams, of Fredericksburg, one of the ablest
lawyers of his day, whose genius descended to his
son, John James Williams, long prominent at the Bar
of San Francisco, and to five of his grandsons. Colo
nel John Mercer Patton, Colonel George S. Patton,

Hereditary Genius. 65
who fell in battle at Winchester ; Colonel Tazewell
Patton, who was killed at Gettysburg ; Colonel
George Smith, Reporter of the Supreme Court, and
Captain Henry Smith, now lawyers of reputation in
California. From the same Major John Williams
descended S. Smith Turner, the Hon. R. H. Turner,
and the Hon. John T. Lovell, of whom, the last two
rose from the Bar to the Bench.
Another brother of the mother of Judge John Wil
liams Green, was General James Williams, of " Sol
dier's Rest," from whom descended several lawyers,
among whom are Charles U. Williams, late repre
sentative of Richmond in the State Assembly, George
Morton Williams, and James Williams Morton, late
Commonwealth's Attorney of Culpeper.
Sally, daughter of General James Williams, mar
ried Hon. George French Strother, (Member of Con
gress,) of Culpeper, and had issue — James French
Strother, lawyer and Member of Congress — whose
sons, John (late Senator), Philip Williams, and James
French, are all lawyers, and the last two Judges, the
former of Giles, the latter of Rappahannock County.
Another brother of the mother of Judge Green,
was Philip Williams, for fifty-five years clerk of the
courts of Shenandoah, whose son, Philip Williams, of
Winchester, had a national reputation as a jurist, and
has been succeeded by his son, John James Williams,
of Winchester, and his nephews. General James H.
Williams, of Winchester, William Williams, of Wood
stock, E. Holmes Boyd, of Winchester, and his bro-

66 Hereditary Genius.
ther, sons of his sister Ellen, and the Rev. Dr. Boyd.
Another brother of our Mr. Green's g^randmother
was William Clayton Williams, a bright light of the
Bar of Richmond, whose gown fell upon his son, John
Green Williams, Sr., and his grandson, John G. Wil
liams, Jr., and upon another son, Lewis B. Williams,
the veteran Commonwealth's Attorney of Orange,
and from him upon his sons. Colonel Lewis B Wil
liams, Jr., untimely slain in the late war, and the Hon.
William G. Williams, Judge of the County Court of
Orange, and John Green Williams, Commonwealth's
Attorney of the same county.
But there is another stream of blood mingled with
that of the Williams, in the veins of our Mr. Green,
which in other combinations is alike fruitful of law
yers. It is that of the Clayton's, one of whom was
his great-grandmother. It is curious that at the very
time when William Green was of King William's
Body Guard, and George Slaughter "gentleman in
waiting" in the Queen Dowager's Court, Sir William
Williams was of his Majesty's Counsel at Law, Sir
Thomas Clayton was of the Privy Council, Sir Robert
Clayton Member of Parliament, and Sir John Clayton
the head of Merton College — branches of all which
families, met and intermarried in Virginia. Early in
the following century, during the administration of
Governor Spotswood, John Clayton was Attorney
General of Virginia, and accompanied John Fontaine
to Germanna in 1714.
John Augusdne Clayton, son of Philip Clayton of

Hereditary Genius. 67
Virginia, was an able jurist and statesman in Georgia.
John M. Clayton, of Delaware, was of the same
stock, as was agreed between him and a member of
the family from Virginia, who visited him when he was
Secretary of State.
We now turn to the offspring of the union between
the Claytons and Pendletons. Anne, daughter of
Philip Clayton, of " Katalpa," in Culpeper, (so called
from a katalpa tree,* the first in the county, which he
brought with him from Essex,) married Nathaniel Pen
dleton, grandson of Philip Pendleton, the root of the
family in Virginia.
Nathaniel Pendleton, born 1746, died 1821, in
New York. He was an Aid to General Greene, in
the Revolution, and second to Alexander Hamil
ton in his duel with Aaron Burr. He was an
eminent lawyer, and had a son, Edmund H., who
was a judge and Member of Congress, and an
other son, Nathaniel Greene Pendleton (born 1793,
died June 16, 1861), Aid to General Greene, M. C,
1840-2, and the father of the Hon. George H.
Pendleton, the present distinguished Senator from
Ohio. The eminent Judge Henry Pendleton, of South
Carolina, whose memory is perpetuated in the Pen
dleton district of that State, was the second son of
the first Nathaniel Pendleton and Ann Clayton.
* This is stated on the authority of Captain Philip Slaughter, who
was a grandson of Philip Clayton, and was born in his house. Rev.
Mr. Clayton, Rector of Crofton, England, visited Virginia, and wrote
to the Royal Society a learned dissertation upon its climate, soil, &c ,
a reprint of which may be seen in " Force's Tracts.''

68 Hereditary Genius.
Philip Pendleton, fourth son of Nathaniel and Ann
(Clayton) Pendleton, born in Culpeper, and who set
tled in Martinsburg, was a prosperous lawyer, leaving
a handsome landed estate. It was he who mainly built
the old Church in Norborne parish, now in ruins,
and where the family cemetery now is. He was
the grandfather of the brothers, Hon. John Pendle
ton, Andrew, and the Hon. Anthony Kennedy, late
United States Senator.
Philip Pendleton's daughter, Elizabeth, married
Colonel David Hunter, who was the grandfather of
General David H. Strother (Porte Crayon) and of
John Blair Hoge, judge and Member of Congress,
The sons of Colonel David Hunter — Philip Pendle
ton, Andrew and Edmund Pendleton Hunter, were
well known lawyers, as is now Major R, W. Hunter,
son of the last. The third son of Philip Pendleton, of
Martinsburg, was Judge Philip Clayton Pendleton,
whose son, Edmund Pendleton, was also judge of
the Circuit Court. Alexander, son of the last, is a
rising young lawyer of Winchester,
Maria, seventh child of Philip Pendleton, of Mar
tinsburg, married the famous Valley lawyer, John
R, Cooke, father of the historian and novelist John
Esten Cooke. Judge Henry Shackelford, of Cul
peper, his brother Howard, of Warrenton, and his
nephew and son-in-law. Colonel J, Catlett Gibson, of
Culpeper, Captain Eustace Gibson, of Huntington,
a Member of Congress, and Richard Cadett, of
Staunton, well known lawyers, are descendants of

Hereditary Genius. 69
Nathaniel Pendleton and Ann Clayton, through Eliz
abeth Pendleton, who married Benjamin Tutt, and
Anne Tutt, who married Robert Cadett, of Fauquier.
Colonel G. Woodson Hansbrough, of the Valley of
Virginia, the present Reporter to the Court of Ap
peals, is a lineal descendant of Philip Clayton, of
" Katalpa." The foregoing Philip Clayton, of "Katalpa," the com
mon ancestor of all the lawyers enumerated in this
chapter, had another daughter, Susan, who married
Colonel James Slaughter, of Culpeper, and from this
union sprang many lawyers, among whom were his
grandson, Judge James Slaughter, of Bardstown,
Kentucky, and his brilliant son, Clayton, State Sen
ator, &c.
Colonel William B. Slaughter, Secretary of State
of Wisconsin ; Richard W. Thompson, late Secretary
of the Navy ; and Judge John W. Jones, of Indiana ;
Daniel French Slaughter, (Senator), and his son
Philip; Colonel Reginald Thompson, of Louisville,
judge of the City Court ; Joseph Fry, eminent judge
of Wheeling ; Judge Henry Fry ; Thomas Hope, of
Huntington ; William Hope, of Galliopolis, Ohio ;
William M. Gwin, son of ex-Senator Gwin, San Fran
cisco ; Samuel Slaughter Merrill, Denver, Colorado,
and doubtless divers others whom the author does
not know, or cannot now recall.
If we were to ascend one generation higher, to the
father of Mrs. Clayton, of "Katalpa," (Coleman), it
would greatly enlarge the field of induction, and

JO Hereditary Genius.
comprehend many other lawyers, conspicuous among
whom would be the late United States Senator Fos
ter, of Tennessee, and the living, very eminent jurist,
Judge Thomas Coleman Slaughter, of Croydon, In
diana. It should not be forgotten that this induction
is limited to those branches of the several families in
whom the blood of the Claytons runs, and therefore
excludes lawyers outside of this limit — such, for exam
ple, as the great Edmund Pendleton, President of the
Court of Appeals of Virginia, and the brilliant John
S. Pendleton, of Culpeper, and the Hon. Judge John
S, Green, of Danville, Kentucky, and some others,
I had written thus far before I had seen Dalton's
book, whose design is to show, that as a general rule,
eminent men have relations eminent in some way, if
not in their special line. He has tested this theory
by applying it to statesmen, poets, literary men, art
ists, and to wrestlers and rowers. The section on
judges had peculiar interest for us, because of its
bearing on the contents of this chapter. He has
taken the lives of the judges by Foss as his guide.
This limits the induction to the interval between
1660 and 1865, thus excluding many judges outside
this limit. Within it are two hundred and eighty-
six judges, of whom one hundred and nine have
known eminent relations, and more than one in every
nine have been either the father, son, or brother
to another judge ; to say nothing of many other
relatives who were lawyers, and many other judges
who were more remote kinsmen, leaving- no doubt

fudges of England, &c. 71
(he thinks,) that this peculiar type of genius is
transmitted by descent.
We add an enumeration of English judges, which
will probably interest some of our readers.
On taking leave of this subject, we beg to com
mend to the reader the Boston Lectures on "He
redity," by Joseph Cook, who has discussed it
from the Christian stand-point, with a combination
of learning, logic and eloquence, rarely surpassed.

JUDGES OF ENGLAND AND OTHER HIGH LEGAL
OFFICERS, BETWEEN 1660 AND 1865, WHO WERE
AND ARE RELATED.
FATHERS. SONS.
Atkyns, Sir Edward, B. E. (Charles Sir Robert, Chief Justice C. P. ; Sir
II). Edward, B. E. Qames II).
Atkyns, Sir Richard, Chief Justice, Sir Edward, B. E. (Charles II).
North Wales.
Bramston, Sir Francis, Chief K.B. Sir Francis, B. E. (Charles II.)
(Charles I).
Coleridge, Sir John, Justice Q. B. Sir John, Duke, Solicitor-General.
(Victoria).
Dolbein, Sir William, Justice K. B. Sir Gilbert, Justice C. P., Ireland,
(William III). cr. Baronet.
Erskine, T. ; cr. Lord Erskine ; Hon. Sir Thomas, Justice C. P.
Lord Chancellor. (Victoria).
Eyre, Sir Samuel, Justice K. B. Sir Robert, Chief Justice C. P.
(William III). (George II).
Finch, Heneage, Lord Chancellor; Heneage, Solicitor-General ; cr.
cr. Earl of Nottingham. Earl of Aylesford.
Finch, Sir Heneage, Recorder of Heneage, Lord Chan. ; cr. Earl of
London. Nottingham.
Forster, Sir James, Justice C P. Sir Robert, Chief Justice K. B.
(Charles I). (Charles II).
Gurney, Sir John, B. E. (Vict.) Rt. Hon. Russel Gurney, Recorder
of London.

72

Judges of England, &c.

Herbert, Sir Edward, Lord Keep- Sir Edward, Chief Justice K. B.
er (Charles II). (James II).
Hewitt, James ; cr. Lord Lififord ; Joseph, Justice K. B., Ireland.
Justice K. B.
Jervis,  , Chief Justice of Sir John, Chief Justice C. P. (Vic-
Chester, toria)
Law, Edward ; cr. Lord Ellen- Charles Ewen, M. P., Recorder of
borough; Chancellor K, B. London.
Pratt, Sir John, Chief Justice K. B. Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor,
(George II). (George III).
Raymond, Sir Thomas, Justice Robert; cr. Lord Raymond; Chan-
C. B. cellor K. B. (George II).
Romilly, Sir Samuel, Solicitor- Cr. Lord Romilly, Master of Rolls,
General. (Victoria).
Willes, Sir John, Chief Justice C. P. Sir Edward, Justice K. B. (George
(George III). III).
Yorke, Philip, Lord Chancellor; Hon. Charles, Lord Chancellor
cr. Earl Hardwicke. (George III).
BROTHERS.
Atkyns, Sir Robert, Chief C. P. Sir Edward, B. E. (James II).
(Wilham III).
Cowper, William; cr. Earl Cow- Sir Spencer, Justice (George II).
per; Lord Chancellor.
Erskine, T. ; cr. Lord Erskine; Henry, twice Lord Advocate,
Lord Chancellor. Scotland.
Hyde, Sir Robert, Chief K. B. Sir Frederick, a Judge in South
(Charles II). Wales, Judge of Admiralty.
Lee, Sir Wm., Chief K. B. (George George, Dean of Arches, etc.
II).
Lyttleton, Lord, Lord Keeper Sir Timothy, B. E. (Charles II).
(Charles I).
North, F., cr. Earl of Guilford; Roger, Attorney General to the
Lord Chancellor. Queen.
Pollock, Sir F., Chief B, E. (Vic- Sir David, Chief Justice Bom-
toria). bay.
Powis, Sir Littleton, Justice K. B. Sir Thomas, Justice K. B. (George
(George I). I)
Scarlett,Sir J.; Lord Abinger; Ch. Sir William, Chief Justice Ja-
B. E. maica.
Scott, John ; cr. Earl of Eldon ; William, cr. Lord Stowell ; Judge
Lord Chancellor. Adm.

fudges of England, &c.

71

Wilde, T. ; cr. Lord Truro ; Lord
Chancellor.
Wynham,Sir Hugh, B. E. (Charles
II).
GRANDFATHERS.
Atkyns, Sir Robert, Chief C. P.
(William III).
Burnett,  , Scotch Judge ; Lord
Cramond.
Gould, Sir Henry, Justice Q. B.
(Anne).
Jeffreys,  , Judge in North
Wales.
Finch, H. Solicitor-General ; cr.
Earl Aylesford.
Walter, Sir E., Chief Ju.stice South
Wales.
Heath, Sir R., Chief K. B. (Charles
I).

Sir  , Chief Justice Cape of
Good Hope.
Sir Wadham, B. E. (Charles II).

GRANDSONS.
Sir J. Tracy (assumed name of At
kyns), Cursitor B. E. (Geo. III).
Sir Thomas Burnett, Justice C. P.
Sir -Henry Gould, Justice C. P.
George III).
Jeffreys, Lord, Lord Chancellor
James II)
Hon. H. Legge, B. E. (George III).
Lyttleton, Sir T; B. E. (Charles
II).
Verney, Hon. Sir J., Master of
Rolls

Note. — The Randolphs, of Virginia, are remarkable for the number of lawyers and
other eminent men of the same descent. Among these are Sir Jno. Randolph, Speaker,
Treasurer and Attorney. His son, Beverly, was Governor of Virginia. Another son,
Peyton, was Attorney General, and President of the first Congress, whose son, Ed
mund, was Governor of Virginia, Attorney General and Secretary of Slate (U. S.);
Thos. Mann Randolph, Governor of Virginia and Member of Congress; General George
W. Randolph, Secretary of War (C. S.); John Randolph, of Roanoke; Thos. Jefferson,
President of United States; Jno. Marshall, Chief Justice United States; Judge Henry
St. George Tucker, Author, Member of Corfgress, and President of Court of Appeals;
Judge Beverly Tucker, Author and Professor of Law, William and Mary College;
Richard Bland, Member of Congress, olc. ; James Pleasants, Member of Congress, and
Governor of Virginia; John Randolph Tucker, Member of Congress, Attorney General,
and Professor of Law {Washington and Lee); W.J. Dawson, Member of Congress.
Of the same descent were General {Light-Horse Harry) Lee, Member of Congress and
Governor of Virginia; General Robert E. Lee, and his brothers and sons; Wm. Mun-
ford. Translator of Homer's Iliad ; Commodore B. Kennon and many other eminent men.
The transmission of physical tendencies by descent is a fact well-known, so that every
one comes into the world with intellectual, physical, and, to some extent, moral heritage
from all his ancestors, which it would be as impossible to count as it would be to discrim
inate the countless drops of rain which compose a river. It should not, however, be for
gotten, that every man, by the power of his own will, especially if aided by help from on
high, can modify, and even so conquer these tendences, if ill, and strengthen those which
are good, as to establish, as it were, an improved stock, &c. To expand the whole sub
ject, even if the writer were capable of doing it, would demand a separate treatise.

PREFACE
EXPLANATORY OF THE "REJVIINISCENCES."

It is due to the author that the reader should be
informed that the following Reminiscences were writ
ten before the foregoing Sketch.
They were designed for the Standard newspaper,
but from the author's ill-health, they were laid aside
until recently, when he was induced to write the
Sketch. This will explain any want of unity and a
few repetitions.
It might have been better to have reconstructed
the whole, and to have embodied the Reminiscences
in the Sketch, but this explanation will answer the
same end.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

William Green, LL.D.

REV. PHILIP SLAUGHTER, D. D.

Soon after the decease of Judge Green, I was
requested by eminent members of the Bar of Rich
mond to write a memoir of him for the Historical
Society ; but feeling, as I did, a deep grief for the
personal loss I had sustained, and being myself in
poor health, I had no heart for such a task at such a
time. That office has been well done by his breth
ren of the Bar, of which he was conceded to be in
learning facile princeps, and by his Fellows of the
Historical Society, of which he was an officer and an
ornament. But now that the effects of the first
shock resulting from his sudden departure from
us is somewhat abated, the present writer would
hang up an humble votive offering in the temple
of his fame ; not because I think that the offerings
which have been laid upon the altar to his memory
need any supplement The feeblest voice, if in
accord, may blend with the grandest chorus without
presumption, and without marring the harmony.

76 Personal Reminiscences.
The writer having been associated intimately with
the deceased in boyhood, youth, manhood, and old
age, has been induced to think that some personal
reminiscences of a gentleman so urbane in his social
relations, so pure and so tender in domestic life, and
of such marvellous and matchless learning in the
lore of the law, and also in the wide field of history
and general literature, might be of interest to his
surviving friends and fellow-citizens.
The only objection which I have to doing this
office, is, that Personal Reminiscences involve the
necessity of using the personal pronoun more fre
quently than accords with my own taste, or that of
the unsympathizing reader.
Mr. Green was my senior in age by several years,
he having been at the Bar while I was a student of
law at Culpeper, which place he persisted in calling
"Culpeper Courthouse," asking pardon (as he said
in a late letter to me) of the old burg, christened
since the war Culpeper
By the way, it occurs to me here to say what I
happen to know, and what may not otherwise be
known, that he was the author of the elaborate and
instrucdve article in Martin's Virginian Gazetteer
on the County of Culpeper. Richard Wigginton
Thompson, late Secretary of the Navy, James French
Strother (late Member of Congress), Mr. Green and
myself, who were all kinsmen and school-fellows,
made our first essays in the columns of a news
paper in the Culpeper Gazette of that day. I nomi-

Personal Reminiscences. jj
nated, for the first time, John S. Pendleton as the
young men's candidate for the county. Strother
and Thompson vigorously seconded the nomina
tion. William Green advocated the claims of Colo
nel Gibson, the father of the present delegate, and
we had a long and sharp contest, raising quite a
tempest in the village tea-pot. Mr. Grefen's candi
date prevailed ; but Pendleton, who was even then
giving promise of the brilliant success, which he
afterwards achieved as a popular orator, some years
later, had his triumph. Mr. Green and I had many
like tilts in the same newspaper, notably upon the
division of the County of Culpeper (1831), to which
he was strongly opposed, and which I advocated.
Wishing to do some sharp-shooting from under
cover, I got Stanton Field, brother of the judge, to
be sponsor for that article. But the use of one
word discovered me to my astute antagonist. The
word was "Exegesis," with which I, who had con
cluded to give up the law for the gospel, had be
come familiar. Mr. Green, in his reply, said that
there was but one person in the village whose
studies made him familiar with theological terms.
He then revenged himself upon me for my bush
whacking, by playfully reminding me of "a certain
animal in the lion's skin," whose dialect betrayed
him. This was a good hit, and I took it in good
humour, as it was intended to be taken. These
duels " with paper pellets of the brain" never marred
for a moment the harmony of our hearts, whose

78 Personal Reminiscences.
melody became sweeter as their strings were tuned
by time. Mr. Green having been, as I have said,
my senior in age, and my superior in culture,
generally got the advantage. If there were any
exceptions to this rule, it would not become me to
reproduce them.
The mention of Secretary Thompson's name re
minds me of a remarkable example of his memory.
Soon after his accession to the Navy Department
I asked him if he remembered some incidents of
our school-days. He said yes, and I remember
what you have doubtless forgotten. I can repeat
now a quotation you made from Tom Moore, in
your Fourth of July speech at a barbecue in
Sam Washington's tavern in Stevensburg :
" In the woods of the North there are insects that prey-
On the brain of the Elk, till the very last sigh.
Oh ! Genius ! thy patrons, more cruel than they.
First feed on thy brains, and then leave thee to die."
Moore (he added), applied the lines to Sheridan ;
you applied them to Jefferson, who had just made
an unsuccessful application to dispose of his prop
erty by lottery to pay his debts.
Returning from this, perhaps impertinent, digres
sion, I may say that our paths in life parted at this
point. William Green remaining at the Bar, and I
going to the pulpit. During my term at the Bar, I
became the administrator of a large estate. A dif
ficult question of law having arisen in my adminis-

Personal Reminiscences. 79
tration, I consulted Mr. Green, who gave me his
written opinion. Wishing to be fortified behind the
highest authorities, I took the opinion to the great
jurist, General W^alter Jones, at Washington city. I
found him on his hands and knees, crawling among
books, maps and papers, strewn over his parlor car
pet. He read the opinion, studied it for a while,
and perhaps referred to some authorities. He then
endorsed the opinion with these words, which im
pressed themselves on my memory, because I thought
them so complimentary from such a veteran to a
comparative novice at the bar : " I can say nothing
to add to, or detract from, Mr. Green's very able
opinion upon the points in question." If my read
ers will pardon another digression, I will mention
that Judge John W. Green (father of William,) told
me that he was once associated with General Jones
in a cause involving very grave issues, at Warren
ton. Each was to argue one side of the case.
Judge Green (as was his wont), prepared his side
thoroughly, and going to Warrenton, found General
Jones lounging about the hotel, smoking his cigar,
and seemingly oblivious of the business which so
absorbed him. Apprehending that the burden of
the case would fall upon him, he sat up that night,
preparing to argue the whole case. He made his
argument, which was answered by the adverse coun
sel, and he hung his head upon the bar, giving up
the case as lost. He found himself, an hour later,
listening with fixed eyes and open mouth of won-

8o Personal Reminiscences.
der, to General Jones, who made the most masterly
argument he ever heard.
Soon after my settlement as pastor of Christ
church, Georgetown, D. C, I was summoned by
Mr. Green to Culpeper, to marry three couples —
Mr. Green, and his brother, Daniel, (late Surgeon
of the United States and the Confederate States
Navies,) to two sisters ; and the Rev. Mr. Scher-
merhorn (a Presbyterian divine), to Mrs. Spots-
wood (the poetess), who, I think, had taught the
other two brides. Mr. Schermerhorn had the cour
tesy to call and take me in a carriage (there
was no railroad then), to Culpeper, which we
reached after a tedious journey of two days — a
journey now made in three hours. Just before
the ceremony an incident occurred, which is so
characteristic that I will not omit it. Mr. Green
took me aside and told me that he had had doubts
about my "legal authority to solemnize the rite of
matrimony in Virginia," but upon examination his
doubts had been removed. I could not resist the
temptadon of exclaiming: "The ruling passion strong
in" — marriage. His bride was then in the bud of
her beauty, and most faithfully and tenderly has he
kept the troth he then plighted, " to love and to
cherish and to keep, in sickness and in health, till
death us do part "
I could fill pages with like incidents, but I must
leave room for some illustrations of his literary di
versions from his professional routine, which are

Personal Reminiscences. 8 1
known only to me. The magazines, Historical So
ciety Collections, and newspapers, contain many
things from his pen. I shall purposely omit all
reference to anything of his which has been printed
or otherwise made public. To those who know any
thing of his labors generally, and of his special de
votion to his "magnum opus,'" in which he had by day
and by night for long years been striving to realize
an ideal, too high for even his surpassing energy of
mind and body, and his almost unparalleled learning
in the law, it is amazing that he had any time or taste
for literary lucubrations. One can only account for
it on the theory that what to most other men was
hard work, to him was only an unbending of the
brow — a refreshing recreation from severer studies.
Within the last two years he presented me with a
manuscript, twenty-seven pages of "cap" paper,
closely written by his own hand, in which he, with
a wealth of historical learning, had developed the
rise of certain counties, as Henrico, Charles City,
James City, and Elizabeth City, out of towns of the
same name, accompanying the gift with the remark,
" This may be of some service to you ; it can be of
none to me now." This valuable contribution to the
history of the State I purpose to print, or turn over
to the Historical Society.
In 1874, I put a query to him about the history of
the laws in England touching vestries, &c. In a few
days I received an elaborate citadon of the leading
authorities on the subject, giving volume, page, sec-

82 Personal Reminiscences.
tion, and marginal notes, accompanied by the charac
teristic remark, "This is the best account I find,
though not all, by any means, in my library." "Your
letter" (he adds) "was received on the 12th, post
marked the nth and dated the loth, on which last-
mentioned day I entered my sixty-ninth year. In
my old age I am compelled by circumstances to labor
more than I was ever, by necessity, obliged to work
in my youth, or prime, or middle age. I fear that
the time I have bestowed on this paper will result in
more harm to me and those dependent on me, than
benefit to you ; nevertheless, you are heartily wel
come to it, or I would not have performed it." Of
course, if I had dreamed that he would have put
himself to so much trouble, I would rather have gone
without the information than put this burden upon
his over-taxed strength. This letter concludes in a
tone of sadness and tenderness, which I may be par
doned for reproducing, because it discloses a phase
of his character which the public seldom, or never,
saw, and which was known only to those who were
admitted to the inner sanctuary of his heart. There
was an under-current of emotion in him which only
occasionally came to the surface, as some waters run
under-ground, and break out at intervals into springs.
¦"Great as is my haste" (he adds) "I cannot refrain
from mendoning your brother Daniel, some years my
senior in age, and with whom I have had a most in
timate and agreeable friendship from my boyhood.
Tell him that I often think of him with affection, and

Personal Reminiscences. 83
wish that I could see him once more before one of
us 'goes hence and is no more.'^^^ The same wish
I have concerning you, but probably neither wish
will be gratified.
"Your friend and kinsman, "William Green."
As Carlyle said of one of his heroes: "There
were tears in this man, as well as laughter — tears
with toil. We will call him a great man — great in
intellect, in courage, in afifecdon, in integrity — a
most lovable man — simple, honest, spontaneous —
not setdng up to be great — firm granite, yet in the
clefts of it green, beautiful valleys, with flowers."
In i860 I was curious to trace the proverb, "Vox
populi, vox Dei'' to its source. Accordingly I sent
the query to several Colleges, and to divers men
of letters. The Professor of Latin at the University
of Virginia, Lewis Minor Coleman, who soon after
laid down his life for the Lost Cause ; replied, "You
have corked the Faculty." The President of Prince
ton gave it up, as did the faculties of other seats of
learning. A learned Professor in a Catholic College,
said I would find it in Juvenal. With this, I taunted
my friend, Coleman, who ran off to the library in the
rotunda, and soon returned in triumph, saying, " I
knew it was not there." Professor Packard said it

*This is the only slip we ever knew him to make in a quotation,
the omission of the word "seen," the true reading being "no more
seen.''

84 Personal Reminiscences.
was one of those proverbs of unknown origin, but
added that his son (now of the Baltimore Bar,) re
ferred to a like sendment quoted by Sir William
Hamilton from Hesiod, of which, more in the sequel.
Gustavus A. Myers said he would send it to the
English "Notes and Queries," which he did, as we
shall presently see. The Honorable Edward Everett,
replied that the earliest use of the phrase known
to him, was in William of Malmesbury. William
Green replied, in May, i860, "Amid sickness of
my wife, and of myself, and divers urgent demands
upon my time, I have spent several hours in vain,
turning over page by page (for want of an index,)
of the many volumed Port -Folio, where I thought I
had seen it.
He then quoted Horace, Book ii, Ep. i :
"Interdum vulgus rectum videt est ubi peccat, etc.,
added Pope's imitation :
" The people's voice is odd,
It is, and it is not the voice of God."
In conclusion, he says, that "both Horace and
Pope are better expositors of truth than the author
of this phrase, whoever he may have been, cannot,
I think, admit of a doubt."
The war ended, and the voice of the people,
North and South, each believing its own to be the
voice of God, drove the subject from my mind.
One may fancy my surprise when, after the lapse

Personal Reminiscences. 85
of nearly twenty years, during which no allusion
had been made to this question by either of us,
I received the following letter :
" Richmond, 28th May, iSyg.
"Dear Philip, — Long since I was asked by you, or
by somebody else, (I believe by you), what was the
origin of 'Vox populi, vox Dei?' meaning by the
question, not whence, but where it originated. The
former was obvious enough, one would be prompt
to think, who had any knowledge of demagogues,
but the latter, I could not then tell, because I must
have forgotten (if I had read) what I probably had
read. Perhaps I cannot even now trace the ex
pression to its source, but I can carry it back to an
Archbishop of Canterbury, in A. D. 1326-27. In
1827 I procured from Cincinnati, a book I had long
desired, Thornhagh Gurdon's History of the High
Courts of Parliament, &c., &c., London, 1763, in
which I to-day read, at page 85: "In 1326, the Par
liament of Westminster assumed a most exhorbi-
tant power, exhibited many articles against Edward
II, and in conclusion, that he was not fit to govern ;
wherefore, by unanimous consent, they agreed to
depose the King and elect his eldest son, Edward,
to be King; and the Archbishop of Canterbury makes
a sermon upon the text ' Vox populi, vox Dei' ex
horting the people to invoke the King of Kings for
the prosperity of him that they had unanimously
chosen to reign over them. In the margin there is
a reference to Daniel xxvii, 28. I have not the book
cited, but in ' Kennett's Complete History of Eng
land,' I have ' Daniel's History of the Reign of Ed
ward the Second,' somewhat retouched, I suspect.

86 Personal Reminiscences.
and there we read, vol. i, p. 210, this account of the
transaction :
"1327. After a month's stay at Hereford, the
Queen returned with the Prince, and kept her
Christmas at Wallingford, and her Candlemas at
London, where the Parliament, being assembled,
agreed to depose the King, as being unfit to govern,
objecting many articles against him, and to elect
his eldest son, Edward, which they did, at the
great Hall at Westminster, with the universal con
sent of the people there present; and the Arch
bishop of Canterbury made a sermon upon the
text, ' Vox populi, vox Dei' exhorting the people to
pray to the King of Kings, for him whom they had
chosen. A foot-note is appended."
" ' This sermon was preached at his Coronation' —
T. Walsingham. In one more of my books there
is the following notice of the same affair. ' By
what authority soever called, the Parliament met at
the time appointed, January 7, 1327 (1326-27), at
Westminster.' The first charge that was made there
was by Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, who
put the memorable question : ' Whether the King
Edward, the father, or his son, Edward, should reign
over them ? ' He was seconded by several other
Bishops, and it was not long before they all agreed
the son should have the government of the Kingdom,
for the reasons following, which are there set forth
in six detailed ardcles, concluding, 'And that all
these things were notorious, beyond contradiction.'
These articles are said to have been dictated by
John de Stratford, Bishop of Winchester, Treasurer
of England. They were written by his Secretary,
and a public notary having put upon them his pro-

Personal Reminiscences. 87
bat, they were, by common consent of Parliament,
sent to the King, then a prisoner at Kenilworth.
"The committee chosen for that purpose, were the
aforesaid Bishop, with (read ' and ') Adam de Orleton,
Bishop of Hereford, and Henry Budwash, Bishop of
Lincoln, together with two Earls, four Barons, and
three Knights of every county, as also some of
the citizens and Burgesses from London, the Cinque
Portes, and other cities and towns in England.
These commissioners had a power given them to
resign their homage and fealty to the King, in the
name of all the rest, to give him notice of the
election of his son, and to procure his voluntary (?)
resignation of his Crown ; or, if he refused, to give
up their homages, and proceed as they thought fit.
The reason of this mild proceeding, says Walsing
ham, was because the Queen felt a qualm of con
science about the deposition of her husband ; and
the young Prince, affected by this seeming con
cern {v.t foris apparuit^ of his mother, declared he
would not accept the title against his father's will ;
therefore, the King's absolute resignation was
thought necessary for the latter's satisfaction.'
The poor King, being sufficiently worked upon,
at first swooned away, and had fallen to the ground
had he not been supported by the Earl of Lan
caster and the Bishop of Winchester. However,
coming to himself, he answered, with tears in his
eyes, 'That he was very sorry he had so mis
behaved himself towards his people, and asked par
don for it of all who were present ; but seeing now
it could not be otherwise, he returned them thanks
for choosing his first-born son in his room. He
then made his resignation by delivering up the

88 Personal Reminiscences.
royal ensigns of Sovereignty, the Crown and Sceptre,
which the commissioners had taken care to bring
for that purpose ; after which, one Sir William Trus-
sel, supplying the place of Chief Justice of Eng
land, and chosen as Procurator, as ordered by the
whole committee, announced their resignation (re
nunciation) of homage to the King, which he did
in this form : ' I, William Trussel, Procurator of the
Prelates, Earls and Barons, and other people in
my Procuracy named, having for this full and suffi
cient power, do surrender and. deliver up to you,
Edward, King of England, before this time, the
homage and fealty of the persons in my Procuracy
named, in the name of them, and every one of
them, for certain causes therein enumerated, and
do deliver them up to you, Edward, and acquit or
discharge the. persons aforesaid in the best manner
that the law and custom can give it, and do make
this protestation in the name of all those that
(they?) will not for the present be in your fealty
or allegiance, nor claim or hold anything of you
as King, but account you as a private person,
without any manner of Royal dignity. The cere
mony ended with Sir Thomas Blount, the High
Steward, breaking his staff, declaring all the King's
officers discharged from his service, in the same
manner as if the King was actually dead.
"The Commissioners returning to Parliament with
the King's coronet and the Royal ensigns (insignia),
made the common people rejoice ;" and presently
the whole community admitted Edward, a youth of
fourteen years of age, to be their King.
"After this, the Archbishop of Canterbury preached
a sermon before the whole assembly. His text was

Personal Reminiscences. 89
' Vox populi, vox Dei,' etc , exhorting his audience
to pray for the King they had chosen. Thus, says
an author, the lawyers found out a legal method to
deprive their King of sovereignty, and the divines
asserted their mighty power in calling their voice
a Divine election. (Historical Observations of the
Reigns of Edward I, Edward II, and Richard III. By
a Post. Harrow, London: 639, 500). The Par
liamentary or Constitutional History of England,
London, (73, pp. 182-86. It is then added: "All
this was done on the 20th of January, 1327," mean
ing 1326-27).
As to the lawyers, Foss, in his Biographical Dic
tionary of the Judges of England, examines the
question whether this Trussel was ever a Chief
Justice among them, and concludes in the negative.
As to the text of the Archbishop, if he took it from
Holy Writ at all, he took it, of course, from the
Vulgate. If my copy of Cruden's Concordance (un
abridged) was at home, I should probably find out
satisfactorily there, under the words 'People' and
'Voice,' whether it is in the Bible or not. If there
at all, it is probably in the Apochrypha. With his
help, I might, perhaps, find it in my old Ladn Bible,
of which I showed, perhaps gave, you my written
account at the Springs last summer.
"Give my love to your family, and my kindest
recollections to your brother Daniel.
" Very truly your friend,
" William Green.
"Rev. P. Slaughter, D. D."

90 Personal Reminiscences.
"VIRGINIA STATE LIBRARY,
"Capitol, 2oth June, 1879.
\_Notes for Rev. P. Slaughter, D. £>.}
"Notes and Queries (English), First Series,
vol. I, p. 321. 'Can any reader give me the
origin of the saying Vox populi, vox Dei?' Qu(e-
sitor, Reg. Cot, Ibid, 370. 'Vox populi, vox Dei —
about the origin of which sayings 'Qucssitor' asks —
were the words chosen by the Archbishop of Can
terbury, Simon Mepham, as his text for the ser
mon which he preached when Edward III was called
to the throne, from which the nation had pulled
down his father, Edward II. This we learn from
Walsingham, who says : ' Archiepiscopus vero Can-
tuari(Z prcssenti consensit electioni, ut omnes Prcelati ;
et archiepiscopus quidem, assumpto themati Vox populi,
vox Dei, sermonem facit populo, exhortari omnes ut
apud regent regum intercederent pro electa' Tho.
Walsingham, Hist. Angl. ed., Camden, p. 126.
Daniel Rock."
"Ibid, 419. 'Vox populi, vox Dei! — The words
' Populi vox, vox Dei' stand as No. 97 among the
'Aphorismi Politici ex Ph. Comincso,' in a small
volume in my possession, endtled 'Aphorismi Po
litici et Militares, &c., par Lambertum DancBum
collecti, Lugduni Batavorum, CXXXIX.' There is
no reference given to book or chapter, and, judg
ing from the manner in which the aphorisms of
Thucydides and Tacitus (which I have been able
to examine) are quoted, I fear it may be found
that the words in quesdon are rather a condensa
tion of some paragraph by Des Comines, than the
ipsissima verba that he employed. C. Forbes, Temple."

Personal Reminiscences. 91
"Ibid, 492. 'Vox populi, vox Dei.' — Your corres
pondent, 'Qucssitor,' asks for the origin of the say
ing Vox populi, vox Dei. Warwick, in his Spare
Minutes, (1637,) says: 'That the voice of the com
mon people is the voice of God, is the common
voice of the people,' yet it is as full of falsehood
as commonness. The cry before Pilate's judgment-
seat, ' Let him be crucified,' was vox populi, ' the
cry of all the people.' How far was it the voice
of God?' Ibir
[" ' Mr. G. Cornewall Lewis, in his valuable Es
say on the Influence of Authority in Matters of
Opinion, p. 172, has some very interesting re
marks upon this proverb, which, in its original
sense, appears to be an echo of some of the sen
tences in the classical writers, which attribute a
divine or prophetic character to common fame or
rumor.' See pp. 172, 173, and the accompanying
Notes."] "Vol. 3, p. 254 'Notices to Correspondents. —
E. M. ' Vox populi, vox Dei,' were the words
chosen by Archbishop Mepham for his sermon,
when Edward III was called to the throne. See
'Notes and Queries,' vol. i, pp. 376, 419, 492, for
further illustrations."
"Ibid, 288. ' Vox populi, vox Dei. — Your corres
pondent, Daniel Rock, states these words to have been
chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon
Mepham, as his text for the sermon he preached
when Edward III was called to the throne ; and in
your Notices to Correspondents, vol. 3, p. 254, you
repeat the statement. The Prelate, by whom the
sermon was preached, was not Simon Mepham, but
his predecessor, Walter Reynolds, who was Arch-

92 Personal Reminiscences.
bishop of Canterbury, when the second Edward
was deposed, and when Edward III was crowned
on February i, 1327. This Walter Reynolds died
on November 16, 1327, and Simon Mepham was ap
pointed his successor on December 11, 1327. John
Toland, in his Anglia Libera, p. 114, has this refer
ence to the sermon, which was preached by the
Archbishop Reynolds on the occasion of the King's
coronation: 'To Edward I succeeded his son, Ed
ward II, who, growing an intolerable tyrant, was, in a
a parliament summoned by himself, formerly ac
cused of misgovernment, and, on his own acknowl
edging the truth of this charge, solemnly deposed.
When his son, Edward III, was elected with uni
versal consent, Walter, the Archbishop of Canter
bury, preached the coronation sermon, and took
these words for his text : ' Vox populi, vox Dei,
the voice of the people is the voice of God' —
so little did they dream in those days of the
divine right of monarchy, or that all power did
not originally derive from the people, for whom
and by whom all governments are erected and
maintained. Sir Harris Nichols, in his Synopsis
of the Peerage, and Dugdale, in his Monasticon, give
the name of this Archbishop as Walter Reynolds.
Sir Richard Baker, in his Ch-onicle, describes him
as Walter Reginald ; and, in Hume's England, he
is called Walter de Reynel. St. Johns"
"Ibid, 381. "Vox populi, vox Dei is, I find, a
much older proverb in England than Edward Ill's
reign, for whose coronation sermon it was chosen
the text, not by Simon Mepham, but by Walter
Reynolds, as your correspondent, St. Johns, rightly
says. Speaking of the way in which St. Odo

Personal Reminiscences. 93
yielded his consent to be Archbishop of Canter
bury, circ. A. D 920, William, of Malmesbury,
¦writes : Recogitans illud proverbium. Vox Populi
vox Dei.' — De Gestis Pont., lib. i, p. 114, ed. Savile.
D. Rock.
"Vol. 6, p. 185: 'Vox populi, vox Dei. — A gentle
man once used this expression in conversation with,
I believe, Mr. John Wesley. He at once replied,
' No, it cannot be the voice of God, for it was vox
populi that cried out ' Crucify him ! crucify him ! '
Clericus {D.)'
"Vol. 8, p. 494: 'Pox populi, vox Dei. — Lieber, in
the last chapter of his Civil Liberty, treating of this
dictum, ascribes its origin to the middle ages, ac
knowledging, however, that he is unable to give
anything very definite Sir William Hamilton, in
his edition of the Works of Thomas Reid, gives the
concluding words of Hesiod's Works and Days thus :
'The word proclaimed by the concordant voice of
mankind fails not, for in man speaks God.' And to
this the great philosopher adds, ' Hence the adage
( ? ) Vox populi, vox Dei.' The sign of interroga
tion is Sir William Hamilton's, and he was right to
put it, for whatever the psychological connexion
between Hesiod's dictum and Vox populi, vox Dei
may be, there is surely no historical. 'Vox populi,
vox Dei' is a different concept, breathing the spirit
of a different age. How far back, then, can this
dictum, in these very words, be traced ? Does it,
as Lieber says, originally belong to the election of
bishops by the people ? Or was it of Crusade
origin ? America begs Europe to give her facts,
not speculation, and hopes that Europe will be
good enough to comply with her request. Europe

94 Personal Reminiscences.
has given the serious ' V. P. V. D.' to America,
so she may as well give its history to America
too. Americus.'
" [As this Query of Americus contains some new
illustration of the history of this phrase, we have
given it insertion, although the subject has already
been discussed in our columns. The writer will,
however, find that the earliest known instances of
the use of the saying are by William, of Malmes
bury, who, speaking of Odo yielding his consent to
be Archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 920, says: 'Re
cogitans illud Proverbium, Vox Populi, Vox Dei! and
by Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, who,
as we learn from Walsingham, took it as his text
for the sermon which he preached when Edward
III was called to the throne, from which the people
had pulled down Edward II. Americus is further
referred to Mr. G. Cornewall Lewis's Essay on the
Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion (pp.
172, 173, and the accompanying notes), for some in
teresting remarks upon it. See further ' N. & Q.,'
vol. I, pp. 370, 419, 492 ; vol. 3, pp. 288, 381.
"Vol. 12, p. 96: 'Vox populi, vox Dei. — Your cor
respondent, Clericus {D.), ascribes to the celebrated
John Wesley the dissentient rejoinder once made
to that well-known proverb ' Vox populi, vox Dei ' :
¦* No, it cannot be the voice of God, for it was vox
populi that cried out ' Crucify him ! crucify him ! '
and I have seen it elsewhere ascribed to him. It
appears, however, to have had a much earlier origin,
and Wesley did but quote from Arthur Warwick,
whose Spare Minutes, or Resolved Meditations and
Premeditated Resolutions, had reached a sixth edition
in 1637. I am unable to give you the exact refer-

Personal Reminiscences. 95
ence to the page where the words occur, not having
the volume by me, and having omitted to make a
' note ' at the time of reading the work. The words,
however, are as follows : ' That the voice of the com
mon people is the voice of God, is the common voice
of the people, yet it is as full of falsehood as com
monness. For who sees not that those rack-
mouthed hounds, upon the mere scent of opinion,
as freely spend their mouths in scenting water, or,
like Actseon's dogs, in chasing an innocent man to
death, as if they followed the chase of truth itself
in a fresh scent ? Who observes not that the voice
of the people — yea, of that people that voiced them
selves the people of God — did persecute the God
of all people, with one common voice, 'He is worthy
to die ' ? I will not, therefore, ambitiously beg their
voices for my preferment, nor weigh my worth in
that uneven balance, in which a feather of opinion
shall be moment enough to turn the scale, and make
a light piece go current, and a current piece seem
light. John Booker.' "

"FROM MY OWN OFFICE,
"Richmond, 20th June, i8yg.
",Dear Philip, — On the foregoing pages I have
extracted for you all the passages I could find in
the first series of Notes and Queries, complete in
twelve volumes. There are several other series,
each in twelve volumes, and I think it not unlikely
that some, perhaps many things, on the same subject
may be contained in them, or some of them. But I
could not be permitted to go wherever the volumes

96 Personal Reminiscences.
were, and I would not let old Col. McRae take the
trouble of bringing them all down stairs to me, and
there was no general index (now left unstolen) of
any series but the first. So I had to be content with
what I send you. Those extracts you will find to
contain a great amount of information, and they, with
what you have already, will truly enable you to write
a very 'readable' article on 'Vox populi, vox Dei!
"I was particular to copy literally, down even to
the capitalizing of words, and to the punctuation ;
of course, as to the spelling. — Since I returned from
the Capitol, I have looked again into Hume, and
I find that he mentions ' Walter de Reynel, Arch
bishop of Canterbury,' merely as, with 'many of
the Prelates,' expressing their approbation of the
Queen's measures,' at a certain period, before the
dethronement of the King, Edward the Second.
Hist. Engl, vol. 2, p. 91, ed. Philad., 1795. I had
before looked into him, and all the other histo
rians of England, in my possession, without find
ing in them any passage about the Archbishop's
sermon, except those noticed in my last letter to
you. "The passage from Warwick's Spare Minutes,
which closes the whole collection, is a very fine
one ; but both he and Wesley, who followed him,
were mistaken in their application of Scripture,
to prove that the voice of the people is not the
voice of God, if they maintained, (as I suppose
they did,) with the orthodox part of Christendom,
that man could not be saved consistently with
the Divine decrees unless Christ were crucified,
and crucified at that particular time, and in that
precise manner. For if God preordained this, the

Personal Reminiscences. 97
voice of the people, " Crucify Him, crucify Him,'
was in exact accord with the will and purpose
of God, and so might be called the voice of God,
more especially if their outcries are supposed to
have had any influence in bringing about the
event, which, however, cannot be orthodoxly sup
posed, if God was determined the event should
absolutely take place, then and there, and in that
precise mode, which the prophets had foretold ;
but a truce with Theology.
" I am glad you have been appointed to write
the history of the Church in Virginia. You cannot,
of course, complete it, unless Mrs. Cole's speech,
that the Slaughter's never die, be verified as to
you for one. I am sure you will not make the
mistake of another gentleman, whose single volume
I have. He (Dr. Jarvis) beginning at the begin
ning, investigated the time of Christ's birth, and
had time to produce but one volume (about the
most learned work I ever saw) to prove that
Christ was not born within some years of the
commencement of the Christian era, nor within
some months of the Christian's Christmas.
" I have dosed you sufficiently, so farewell. We
both send our love to you and yours.
"Your old friend and kinsman,
" William Green.
"Rev. P. Slaughter, D. D."

The Genesis
OF CERTAIN COUNTIES IN VIRGINIA, FROM CITIES
OR TOWNS OF THE SAME NAME.
By William Green, LL.D.

This is the Historical Tract spoken of in the fore
going Reminiscences, as having been presented to
the present writer by Mr. Green, to be used at
discretion. He called it "Some Remarks upon Cer
tain Counties, &c." I have taken the liberty of
naming it "The Genesis of Certain Counties from
Cities (Towns) of the same name." It is a fair
sample of his method of working a historical mine.
He was not content with superficial researches.
He sunk his shafts to the bottom, fortifying his
way with props of proof — following every vein he
opened, so long as it yielded a grain of gold, and
then moulding the materials into monuments of
patient labour, illustrated with a wealth of learnino-.
This, like other works of Mr. Green, was left un
finished. The present writer was tempted, at first
thought, to give it the finishing touch, by endea
vouring to realize Mr. Green's conception, as indi
cated on its first page. But sober, second thouo-ht,
made him shrink from such a "lame and impotent

Genesis of Counties. 99
conclusion," It would have been as rash and as
unsatisfactory as the work of clumsy modern artist,
who should undertake to give the finishing touch
to a picture, or a statue of one of the grand Old Mas
ters. One would not provoke derision by not heed
ing the Canon of Horace, against attaching the
neck of a horse to a human head, or making the
figure of a beautiful woman terminate in the ex
tremities of a monster : " Ut nee pes nee caput uni
reddatur formes!' (Horace, Epistles, b. 2nd, ch. 3rd.)

Remarks on Some Localities Distinguished {more or
less) in Virginian Annals During a Quarter of a
Century, from, the First Landing of English Col
onists at James Tozvn.
The 13th of May, 1607, has been generally re
garded by writers of all sorts as the date of the first
eventually permanent settlement of the English on
the Continent of America ; conformably to which
received opinion, that day was celebrated in 1807
as the second centenary anniversary of the settle
ment of Virginia, by a "jubilee" at James Town.
2 Meade's Old Churches, 420-425. A similar cele
bration of (I believe) the fifth semi-centennial an
niversary has happened since I lived in Richmond,
but on a smaller scale, of which I have printed ac
counts somewhere among my books and papers,

loo Genesis of Counties.
which I shall not now take time to find. But the
most accurately learned writer on Virginian antiqui
ties that has yet appeared, Mr. Charles Deane, of
Cambridge, Mass., has recently pointed attention to
the fact that "the settlement or 'landing' at James
town was begun, according to Percy" — doubtless the
most reliable authority — "on the 14th of May" — the
place having been finally chosen the day before.
Newes from Virginia (Captain John Smith's True
Relation), edit. 1866, pp. 4-5, note, citing "Percy, in
Purchas, vol. 4, pp. 1687, 1688."
"In 1634 the country" was "divided into eight
shires," the names whereof, first given, were "James
City, Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, War
wick River, Warrosquyoake, Charles River," and
"Accawmack," (i Hen. Stat., 224; 2 Burk's Hist.
Virg., 43), whereof "Warrosquyoake" was changed
into "Isle of Wight" in 1637, (i Hen. Stat.,
577,) and "Warwick River" into " County of War
wick," "Charles River" into "County of York,"
and "Accawmack (Achowmack)" into "County of
Northampton," in 1642-3. i Hen. Stat., 249. The
last-mentioned county was at the same time di
vided into two parishes {ibid), and afterwards into
two counties, the southernmost of which retained
the name of Northampton, while the northern
most took the name (again), which it has ever
since retained, of Accomac. This division happened,
it is said, in 1672, {Mercer's Abr. Virg. Laws, 61 ;
Martin's Virg. Gaz., 11 1 ; Howe's Historic. Collect.

Genesis of Counties. loi
Virg., 163, 404,) but I have not found original au
thority for the statement, nor the act of Assembly
by which (as it is said) the division was made. See
2 Hen. Stat., 13-14, 66, 362, 397. And the fact ap
pears authentically, now, that courts were held in
'Accomack County " so long before as 1 6th No
vember and 1 8th December, 1665, and 17th January,
1665-6. Campb. Hist. Virg., 261-262. It is also
stated {ibid) that "on the loth day of November,
1663, the County Court'of Accomac" made a certain
order for summoning the people " to come together
and arm themselves for defence against any that
might invade them." Bishop Meade says the County
of Accomac was founded in 1662, probably from in
formation which the clerk's office of the county
furnished. Old Churches, &c., of Virginia, vol. i, p.
257. In the session that began 23d March, i66i-'2,
there was an act passed concerning the County of
Northampton, (2 Hen. Stat., 122,) which, in a subse
quent act passed at the session that began loth Sep
tember, 1663, is recited as concerning the Counties
of Northampton and Accomac. Of course, the di
vision had been made in the interim. 2 Hen. Stat.,
186. There had been an intermediate session, com
mencing on the 2d or the 23d (accounts vary) of De
cember, 1662, (2 Hen. Stat., 163-179; see ibid, 180),
but I cannot find any statute for making the division.
But for this circumstance, I should have thought,
very confidently, that the first establishment of
shires must have been by act of assembly; nor

I02 Genesis of Counties.
would it have been a serious difficulty that we
find no trace of an assembly held at that time.
For not to notice the assembly held in July-Au
gust, 1 619, whose proceedings, long supposed to
be lost, have only been recently brought to light ;
and the assemblies held in May, 1620, and in No
vember-December, 1 62 1, mentioned i Hen. Stat,
119, Stith 182, Campb., 142, i Burk, 228, whose
proceedings have not been handed down to us in
print; it is certain that there were numerous later
sessions at periods when it is commonly sup
posed there were none. Thus, in i Hen. Stat.,
226, 229, acts are recited of a session in 1636;
ibid, 227, an act is recited of a session in 1637;
ibid, 229, 274, 316, acts are recited of a session
that began 21st October, 1639/ ibid, 284, 294,
319, 332, 333, acts are recited of a session ist
March, 1643-4; and ibid, 363, an act is recited of
a session that began 12th March, 165 1-2; of all
which sessions the several enactments are not
otherwise preserved ; at least, not known to be so.
By whatever authority shires were established
in 1634, it is certain that previously, no mention
occurs of them, but localities are mentioned for
all public purposes, as cities, towns, hundreds,
necks of land, plantations, either by that term, or
some other, tantamount, as gift, choice, or the
like. And what I propose in the sequel of this
paper, is to identify (so far as my information will
enable me) those places which were represented in

Genesis of Counties. 103
the General Assembly prior to 1 634, or which have
some other special importance attached to them.
Stith says (p. 160): "About the latter end of
June," 1 61 9, Sir George Yeardly, their Gover-
nour, " called the first General Assembly that was
ever held in Virginia. Counties were not yet laid
off, but they elected their representatives by town
ships, so that the burroMghs of James Town, Hen
rico, Bermuda Hundred, and the rest, each sent
their members to the Assembly." To which he
subjoins: "I can nowhere find, among the records
now extant, any account of the particulars that
passed." And afterwards he says (p. 1617) : "This
summer [1619] they laid off four new corpor
ations, which increased the number of their bur
roughs, that had right to send members to the
Assembly, to eleven in each." In which paragraph
are several mistakes.
A contemporaneous report of the proceedings
of that first Assembly has been discovered and
published, from a copy furnished by Mr. Bancroft,
in Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc, 2d ser., vol. 3, and in
pamphlet, which is abstracted in Campb. Hist. Virg.,
139-142, and more concisely in i Bancr. Hist. U.
S., 17th edit., 154-156, and a MS. copy made for
the State of Virginia, is contained in i McDonald
Papers, 5-42. This is, upon the whole, the most
correct copy — proved to be such from internal
evidence — and in my remarks I shall follow it.
Eleven places had in this first Assembly two

I04 Genesis of Counties.
burgesses from each, which places are in the fore-
cited accounts, severally named as follows; (i.)
James Citty ; (2.) Charles Citty ; (3.) City of Hen-
ricus; (4.) Kiccowtan ; (5.) Martin Brandon, Cap
taine John Martin's Plantation ; (6.) Smythe's Hun
dred; (7.) Martin's Hundred; (8.) Argal's Guifte ;
(9,) Flowerdieu Hundred; (10.) Captaine Lawne's
Plantation; (11.) Captaine Warde's Plantation. I
shall notice them in their order.
I. "James Citty." The site of this place, con
sidered as a town merely, is abundantly well
known. The name, however, spread beyond the
town, and even beyond the island (so-called) on
which it stood, and at length became, as we have
seen, the name of a county. In this, its greatest
latitude of meaning, it extended on the north side
of James River, from the mouth of the Chicka-
hominy up that stream, indefinitely so far as I can
discover, and from it and the James River, to
wards what was afterwards called York River,
without reaching anywhere the latter river, from
which it was separated by the county called at
first Charles River, afterwards York; the boundary
between these counties, at first established, I have
not been able to discover ; but, whatever it was,
the county of James City followed it eastwardly,
till it reached the western boundary of Warwick
River Shire, afterwards Warwick County, which
boundary was established in 1642-3 (1 Hen. Stat.,
250,) as being "from the mouth of Keiths [after-

Genesis of Counties. 105
wards called Skisser] Creek, up along the lower
side [thereof to] the head of it, including all the
divident of Mr. Thomas Harwood, provided it preju
dice not the present bounds of James Citty County."
And on the south side of James River it ex
tended from the western boundary of Warrosqu
yoake Shire, afterwards Isle of Wight County, up
the James River to the eastern boundary of Charles
City County, on that side of the James River, and
southwardly between those boundaries an indefinite
distance ; the said boundaries being, of Isle of Wight,
Lawne's Creek, (1 Hen. Stat., 247,) and, of Charles
City, the little stream (whose name I cannot dis
cover*) that separates towards the north the coun
ties of Surry and Prince George, the one formed
from James City County in 1652, as it is com
monly said, {Merc. Abr. Virg. Laws, 62 ; Martin's
Virg. Gaz., 286; Howe's Historic. Coll. Virg.., 486;
see I Hen. Stat., ^iTZ!) the other formed from Charles
City County in 1702. 3 Hen. Stat., 223; see ibid,

*" Whose name I cannot discover." This I wrote at a late hour
last night, with no helps but such as my own library would afford,
including maps, and among them quite a large one of Virginia,
provided by the State. But this morning I have been at the State
Library, and have there discovered what I could not, otherwise.
On the largest map of the State the stream is called "Upper Chip-
oaks Creek." But in a "topographical descripdon of the County of
Prince George, in Virginia," 1793, by Rev. John Jones Spooner, pub
lished in Coll. Mass. Historic. Soc., ist series, vol. iii, p. 85, it is
called " Upper Chippoak Creek." The difference, perhaps, is a mere
typographical mistake. Qucere? How is it named in the survey of
James River by the United States (Coast Survey?)
5th October, 1869.

io6 Genesis of Counties.
217. In 1654 it was "ordered that the upper part
of York County should be a distinct County, called
New Kent, from the west side of Scimino Creek to
the heads of Pomunkey and Mattaponie river,"
(i Hen. Stat., 388;) and in November, 1766, it was
enacted, that "all that part of New Kent County,
which lies on the lower side of the bounds here
after described, that is to say, beginning at the
mouth of Diascum Creek, on Chickahominy River,
thence up the said creek to the mouth of John
Blair, Esquire, his mill swamp, thence up the said
swamp to the mill, thence up the mill pond to the
head thereof, thence up that water course to a
marked red oak, at Isaac Goddin's spring, near the
said Goddin's house, thence eastwardly to a marked
persimmon, at the head of a branch near the main
road, on the lower side of Goddin's house, thence
to a rock near James Hockaday's spring, thence
down the said spring branch to Russell's mill,
thence down the mill swamp to Ware's Creek,
and then[ce] down the said creek to York River,"
should be "added to, and made part of, James
City County ; and that all that part of the said
county of James City which" lay "on the upper
side of the bounds" so " described," should be
"added to, and made part of. New Kent County."
8 Hen. Stat., 209. So that now James City County
had got a definite boundary westward; and from
the time that act took effect, to wit, ist May,
1767, it extended, in its upper part, from the

Genesis of Counties. 107
Chickahominy to the York River, and fronting upon
the latter from the mouth of Ware's Creek to
that of Scimino Creek. Williamsburg was built
partly within this county and partly within York
County; and, in 1769, the boundary between the
two counties was defined, within the limits of that
city, by statute ; and, during the same session of
assembly, part of York County, within the city, was
taken from it and added to James City County,
likewise by statute. 8 Hen. Stat., 405-6, 419-420,
From the time shires or counties were formed,
all the burgesses or delegates from them were
elected for the whole of each several shire or
county, respectively, till the session of March,
i66o-'6i, when it was provided that "James Citty
[town], being the metropolis of the country," should
" have the privilege to elect a burgesse for them
selves," not as part of the delegation to which the
county was entitled, but additionally thereto, "and
every county that will lay out one hundred acres
of land, and people this- with one hundred tithable
persons, that place" should "enjoy the like liberty
and priviledge." 2 Hen. Stat., 20; see ibid, 106,
196-7, 249, 272-3, 282, 362; 3 Hen. Stat., 414.
This " privilege " was expressly continued to James
Town, or City, after it had ceased to be the seat
of government, (3 Hen. Stat., 236) or in any sense
the "metropohs." 7 Hen. Stat., 518; 8 Hen. Stat.,
306. And it was not taken away till the forma
tion of our Constitution, 29th June, 1776, at the

io8 Genesis of Counties.
breaking out of the Revolution. 9 Hen. Stat., 114.
Meanwhile a like privilege had been granted to
the College of William and Mary, by the charter
thereof, dated 8th February, 1692-3, (s. 18, p 24,
edit. 1 81 7, p. 19, edit. 1855,) which had afterwards
been confirmed by statute, (3 Hen. Stat., 241 ; 7 Hen.
Stat., 526, 529-530; 8 Hen. Stat., 312, 313, 317,)
and remained unaltered till it was dropped at the
same time and by the same act with the repre
sentation of James Town, (9 Hen. Stat., 114,) and
like privilege had also been granted to the city
of Williamsburg by charter, bearing date 28th July,
8 Geo. I, (A. D. 1722,) confirmed by statute in
the session of May, 1742, (5 Hen. Stat., 205,) and
to the town of Norfolk by charter, bearing date
15th September, 10 Geo. II, (A. D. 1736,) confirmed
during the session of Assembly then in progress,
(4 Hen. Stat., 541, 542,) which privilege to those
constituencies remained unaltered till the Revolu
tion, and was then continued to them, (7 Hen. Stat.,
529-530; 8 Hen. Stat., 397; 9 Hen. Stat., 114;
R. C. 181^, c iv, s. 5,) till our Constitution of 1830,
which took it away from Williamsburg (by giving
only one delegate to that city conjointly with the
counties of James City and York), but still continued
it to Norfolk. Virg. Const. iSjo, art. iii, sec. 2.
But before the formation of shires or counties, many
different places, in each of what were afterwards
such (shires or counties), sent their respective bur
gesses, as we shall have occasion to see.

Genesis of Counties. 109
2. " Charles City." This, considered as the name
of a town, is in remarkable contrast to "James Citty,"
for, whereas that (the latter) denotes a locality most
notorious, this (the former) denotes one very little
(if at all) known to well-informed persons of the
present day. Bishop Meade, in one place, says
" the East India School was to be estabHshed at
Charles City, a place somewhere in what is the County
of Charles City, and probably not far from Henrico
City," and, in another place, "we read of Westover
Hundred, and Weynoake Hundred, and Charles City
Hundred, as early settlements on James River, within
its bounds [i. e., the bounds of Charles City County],
and of the destruction, or great injury of them by
the Indians in the great massacre of 1622. We
read of a school being established, or about to be
estabHshed, at Charles City Hundred, in aid of the
proposed College at Henrico, without being able
to ascertain the location of it, though we presume
it was somewhere on the river." Old Churches,
&c., of Virg., vol. 1, pp. 85, 314. So that he did
not venture to locate it at any particular place ;
though he ventures to suggest that it was within
the present bounds of Charles City County, there
fore on the north side of James River; and in
this, I think, it is demonstrable that he was mis
taken. I believe I can prove the precise spot
where it was, or was to be, though no writer upon
Virginia, that I remember to have met with, has
ever indicated it, except whoever was the com-

1 1 o Genesis of Counties.
piler of certain " Particulars of Land in Virginia,"
which I shall have occasion to mention in the
sequel more particularly.
Stith, under date of A. D. 1621, says: "Mr.
Copland, chaplain to the Royal James, an East
India ship just returned to England, by his ex
ample and persuasion prevailed on the ship's com
pany to contribute seventy pounds, towards build
ing a church or a free school in Virginia ; and
an unknown person gave thirty pounds more, to
make the benefaction an hundred ; to which twenty-
five pounds were afterwards added by another
unknown person. It was therefore determined to
build a school at Charles City, (which was judged
the most commodious place, and most convenient
to all parts of the colony,) by the name of the
East India Schools ; and the Company allotted, for
the maintenance of the master and usher a thou
sand acres of land, with five servants and an
overseer. This school was to be collegiate, and
to have dependence upon the College at Henrico,
into which, as soon as the College was sufficiently
endowed, and capable to receive them, the scholars
were to be admitted and advanced, according to
their deserts and proficiency in learning. Mr. Cop
land was also presented with the freedom of the
Company, and with three hundred acres of land in
Virginia. And carpenters were accordingly sent
over for this purpose early the next year." Stith,
204; see ibid, 218, 229. Campbell says: "Charles

Genesis of Counties. 1 1 1
City County [not then in existence] was selected as
the site of it, and it was to be called the East India
School, and to be dependent upon the College at
Henrico. Hist. Virg., 158. Beverley, Burk, and
Howison, are silent on the subject. So (as might
be expected) is Smith, Grahame, and Chalmers,
Bancroft, and Hildreth, ditto, ditto. So, too, Mar
shall, {Life of Washington, ist edit. Intro.)
When we consider that all travelling at that time
in the colony was on foot or by water (in vessels
and boats of different sizes and kinds), and that
this was likely to be the case during many years,
it will occur readily that no spot could better
answer the conditions of the site mentioned by
Stith, than the mouth of the Appomattox ; and there,
on the lower side of that river at its junction with
the James, was the site of the small town, or hamlet
rather, called Charles City. This I shall prove
more conveniently hereafter ; at present I shall
assume it.
In the pamphlet of Captain Nathaniel Butler, (if
indeed it was ever printed!) entitled " The Unmasked
Face of Our Colony in Virginia, as it was in the
Winter 1622," it was said (in substance, as repre
sented by Stith,) "that he found the ancient planta
tions of Henrico and Charles City quite deserted,
and abandoned to the spoil of the Indians, who
not only burnt the houses (said to be once the
best in the country), but fell upon their stocks of
all kinds, and killed and destroyed them." Stith,

112 Genesis of Counties.
267-8, 269, ist edit., (277-8, 279, 2d edit.) To which
the Governor and Council and Burgesses, in their ses
sion of February-March, 1623-4, gave, under their
hands, this answer: that he was never at either
of those places, by some score of miles, "having
never been higher up the river than the territories
of James City"; that "Henrico was quitted in Sir
Thomas Smith's time, only the church and one
[other] house remaining;" and that "Charles City.
so much spoken of, contained but six houses." Stith,
307-8, 311, 312. Nevertheless, it gave a name to
the spot, which has ever since been called City
Point, because there, the " City," so-called, had been,
or was to be ; and (as in the case of James City)
the name spread beyond that locality, so as to
comprehend lands on both sides of the river (James);
and at last, in 1634, became the name of a shire or
county. Thus applied, it extended from the point
where the Chickahominy empties into the James,
up stream, between both those rivers, until it
reached the boundary of Henrico, on the northern
side of the James ; and on the southern side of it,
from the mouth of the Appomattox down the James,
until it reached the Creek heretofore mentioned,
which separates Prince George from Surry, with
an undefined extent, from that frontage, in a south
ward direction, All this part of it (south of the
James) was, as we have before seen, taken from it
in 1705, and erected into a new county, called
after Prince George (of Denmark), husband of the

Genesis of Counties. 1 1 3
Queen (Anne,) who wds then upon the throne.
Its boundaries on the northern side of the James
have remained unaltered, except that on the side
next to Henrico the county was enlarged in 1720.
4 Hen. Stat., 94.
3. "City of Henricus." This is English for Hen-
ricopolis, by which name I do not doubt that the
place was first named, though I have for years
kept a sharp look out for any original authority to
that effect, but in vain, unless this very passage,
is such authority. The notion that it was at first
called Henricopolis is adopted by Oldmixon, in
his British Empire in America, 2nd edit. Lond.
1 741, vol. I, pp. 365, 406; by Bishop Meade, in
his Old Churches 0/ Virginia, vol. i, pp. 124, 137;
and by Mr. Deane, {Proceed. Am. Antiq. Soc,
1864, p. 61, n. ;) and it is the most natural (per
haps only natural) way of accounting for the name
Henri^£>. The five syllables were too much for the
patience of those who had occasion to speak of
the place, and according they dropped the "polls"
quite early ; for Hamor and Rolfe and Smith (after
them) speak of it always as Henrico. By the way,
it may be mentioned that in Mr. Sainsbury's " Calen
dar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1 574-1660,
p. 7, under date of "1607, August 18," there is
an abstract of a letter (which I have not seen
elsewhere noticed) from Dudley Carieton to John
Chamberlayne, in which abstract we have these
words: "A Dutchman writes in latin from the

114 Genesis of Counties.
new town in Virginia, Jacobopolis." Had that
name been given to James Town, which, at first,
was called James Fort, (as is mentioned in the
same letter from Carieton, and in Archer's (?)
Relation of the Discovery of our River from James
Forte into the Maine, 4 Archaeologia Americana,
40, 41 ;) in a short time popular use would have
abridged it in like manner, and then we should
have had ]z.cobo. To confirm which, yet further,
I will mention, that from 1823 to 1856, I resided
in Culpeper County, where is a small town, very
frequently spoken of there, which hardly ever was
called in my hearing anything but Jefferson, and so
it is set down on the smaller map of Virginia pub
lished by the State, (as it is termed to distinguish
it from one much larger, though the smaller is
itself quite a large map,) the true name being Jef-
ferson^;«, as it is given (correctly) in Mart. Virg.
Gaz. 158, and Howe's Histor. Coll. Virg. 237; and
" Jefferson" being the name of a town in our
county of Powhatan, created by Act of Assembly
passed 21st December, 1794, Sess. Acts, ch. 41;
I Sheph. Stat., 319. The site of this " city of Hen
ricus," alias " Henrico," is too well known to all
persons even moderately conversant with our early
history, for me to state it here, though Mr. Ban
croft, with strange inattention, (it surely could not
have been ignorance in him,) has said that it was
where Richmond now stands ! i Bancr. Hist. Un.
St., ijth edit. 153; Introd. (written and signed by

Genesis of Counties. 115
him) to printed copy of "Report," mentioned ante 4-5,
(in which introduction, by the way, there are other
most remarkable oversights and blunders, or at least
one, which I now remember). As "James City" and
"Charles City," so "Henrico" came soon to signify
much more than the mere town or site for it, and
extended over a large tract of country, till it, too,
became the name of an original shire or county
formed in 1 634, at which time it took in, on the north
side of James river, all the land westward from
Charles City, between that river and the Chicka
hominy, and still further west along the James till
Goochland was created from it in 1727, (4 Hen. Stat.,
240,) and, on the south side of James river, all the
land westward from the Appomattox (which divided
it on that side, originally from Charles City, after
wards from Prince George,) till 1727, when its more
western part was made part of Goochland, and 1 748,
when the portion of it left between Goochland and
the Appomattox was formed into the County of
Chesterfield. 6 Hen. Stat., 212, 214; 9 Hen. StaL,
322 ; Howe's Histor. Collec. Virg., 240, 470, 229. I
shall hereafter recur to the subject of Henrico.
4. "Kiccowtan." This (spelled in very many va
rious ways) was originally the name of an Indian
village, first seen by the colonists on the 30th of
April, 1607, a litde distance from Cape Comfort or
Point Comfort, (now called Old Point Comfort,) in
the direction towards the site where afterwards stood
James Town. Newes from Virginia, edit. 1866, p. 4,

1 1 6 Genesis of Counties.
note, citing 4 Purchas, 1687-8. It was afterwards
visited frequently by the (red and white) Virginians,
even before 1610, in which year, according to Rev.
Hugh Jones, "they sent out" a settlement "to
Kiquotan." Present State of Virginia, Lond. 1724,
(reprinted N. Y. 1865,) p. 22. See also Bev. Hist.
Virg., 23, edit. Richm. 1855. Doubtless this "set
tlement" was what Stith describes in the following
passage, under date of 1610: "In the meanwhile,"
between 9th June, 1 610, and 28th March, 1611, "the
Lord Delawarr built two forts at Kicquotan, and
called one Fort Henry, the other Fort Charles.
They stood on a pleasant plain, near a little river,
which they named Southampton river, in a whole
some air, having plenty of springs, and commanding
a large circuit of ground, which contained wood,
pasture, and marsh, with fit places for vines, corn,
and gardens." Stith, 120. Hamor, in 1614, men
tions both the same forts, by the same names, in
two passages of his True Discourse, (pp. 26, 33,)
as being "upon Kecoughtan." And Rolfe, in his
letter to the King, written in England, within a
year after May, 161 6, as appears from internal evi
dence, (which letter is printed, from a MS. copy,
in 5 South. Lit. Mess., 401-406, and reprinted in
I Virg. Histor. Reg., 101-113,) says: "The places
which are now possessed and inhabited are sixe :
I. Henrico and the lymites ; 2. Bermude Nether,
[and] West & Shirley, Hundreds, members be
longing to ye Bermuda Towne, a place so called

Genesis of Counties. 1 1 7
there, by reason of the strength of the situation,
were it indifferently fortified ; 4. James Towne ; 5.
Kequoghtan ; 6. Dale's Gift." So that, at that time,
some three years before the meeting of the first
General Assembly, the whites had probably crowded
the natives out from Kiccowtan, as it seems certain
they had by the time of that meeting. At which
(Assembly), divers petitions were made to the
Treasurer, Council, and Company (in England),
whereof "the sixte and laste" was, "that they"
would " be pleased to change the savage name of
Kiccowtan, and to give that incorporation a newe
name." i McDon. Pap., 16. And I think there is
demonstrative proof that this change was authori
tatively made within a short time thereafter, and
that the place, by which I mean site of the Indian
village aforesaid, was renamed Elizabeth City, not
after Queen Elizabeth of England, but after King
James's daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, who, on
Valentine's Day, 14th February, 161 2-1 61 3, had
married Frederick, elector palatine, {Court and Times
of James the First, vol. i, pp. 224-226; Aik. Court of
James the First, vol. i, pp. 354-357, ed. Bost, 1622;
Ling. Hist. Eng., vol. ix, pp. 86-87, ed. Philad., 1827,)
and who was afterwards known in history as the
"unfortunate" Queen of Bohemia, {Lodge's Portraits,
vol. V, pp. 127-137, Bohn's edit., 1850; Grang. Biogr.
Hist Engl., vol. i, pp. 316-318, 2d ed,, 1775). But
nevertheless the first name, though not afterwards
used as the legal designation, was long continued as

1 1 8 Genesis of Counties.
the popular designation, and often employed by wri
ters on Virginian affairs — a thing by no means uncom
mon as to places yet existing and flourishing in this
State and elsewhere As one argument of this
(change of name), besides the positive proof I shall
adduce presently, the question is almost conclusive :
If Elizabeth City (the town) was not here, where was
it? To which nothing I have ever seen furnishes
any material for an answer.
It is curious: one town (the first) in Virginia, was
called after King James; another (the second of the
colonists' building) was called after his son Henry,
then Prince of Wales ; another (estabHshed soon
after) was called after his second son, Charles, after
wards King Charles the First ; and another (the next
possessed by them, perhaps,) was called after his
daughter, the princess first named : all of them con
sidered, at the time, to have been most eligibly
located, and to promise fairest for long and pros
perous continuance ; and now scarce a vestige of any
of them remains ! The name of Elizabeth City,
however, like the names, James City, Henrico, and
Charles City (i Hen. Stat., 224; 2 Burk, 43), first
spread over a large surrounding country, and then
became the name of a shire or county, the bounda
ries of which have undergone so litde mutation that
it seems scarce necessary to notice them at all.
From the first it was bounded, landward, by the
counties of Warwick River, afterwards Warwick,
and Charles River, afterwards York ; and its limits

Genesis of Counties. 119
have never been altered, unless when the boundary
between it and Warwick was settled, in 1642-3.
I Hen. Stat., 250. I shall recur hereafter to the
subject of the precise site of the town so called.
Beverley, who was long and much conversant with
the records of the Secretary's office in Virginia,
writing of the year 1620, says: "This year they
bounded the corporations (as they called them) : but
there does not remain among the records any one
grant of these corporations. There is entered a
testimony of Governor Argall, concerning the bounds
of the corporation of James City, declaring his
knowledge thereof; and this is [in] one of the new
transcribed books of record [destroyed in the con
flagration of 3d April, 1865]. But there is not to
be found one word of the charter or patent itself
of this corporation. Then, also, they apportioned
and laid out lands in several allotments, viz. : to the
Company in several places, to the Governor, to a
College, to glebes, and to several particular persons ;
many new settlements were made in James and York
rivers," not meaning in the water, nor on islands, but
in the district of country bordering on them — ^just as,
in 1634, they called one shire Warwick River, and
another Charles River. Bev. Hist. Virg., 2,7, ed.
Richm., 1855.
In Sainsbury's Calendar (before quoted), pp. 80-81,
there is abstracted, as No. 10, and it is said that
No. 1 1 is a copy of the same letter, dated 1 7th May,
1626, from the Governor (Sir F. Wyatt), and Council

I 20 Genesis of Counties.
of Virginia, to the Privy Council, inclosing "a par
ticular of all the lands granted, by patent or other
wise " ; which enclosed paper, headed " Particulars of
land in Virginia ; " is copied in i McDon. Pap.,
307-3 1 7 ; and, from comparison, it appears a some
what less perfect copy of the same paper in i
Burk's Hist.., 331-339- Therein the lands granted
or appropriated are set down under four principal
heads: (i.) "The Corporation of Henrico"; (2.)
" The Corporation of Charles Cittie " ; (3.) " The
Corporation of James Cittie " ; (4.) " The Corpo
ration of Elizabeth Cittie " ; after which is men
tioned, very briefly, (5). "The Eastern Shore, over
the Bay " ; concerning which, after mentioning by
name only three persons as having lands there, this
note is added : " Certain others have planted there,
but noe pattents have been graunted them ; the Com-
panie's and the Secretarie's tenaunts were alsoe there
seated, but noe land ordered to be laid out for them,
as in the other 4 corporations!' This list alone, of
everything I have seen, enables me to determine the
precise locality of Charles City (that is, town), and of
Elizabeth City (that is, town)., in the modern sense of
the word city.
As to the former : Under the head of each " corpo
ration " there are in the list subordinate heads, and
one of these, under the head "The Corporation of
Charles Cittie," is as follows: "Upon Appomatucke
River," i McDon. Pap., 309, or "Upon Apomatuck
River," i Burk's Hist, 333, under which we read:

Genesis of Counties. i 2 1
"Here is land laid out for Charles Cittie and the
comon land." i McDon. Pap., 2,^0; i Burk's Hist.,
333. It is incredible that this can have been any
where but at the mouth of the river; but it does
not per se determine on which side of the river, at
its mouth, this land for a common (annexed to the
city), and the site of the city itself was. That is
demonstrated various ways. The first and most
obvious is, that the land on the James above the Ap
pomattox was in the corporation (afterwards county)
of Henrico, not Charles City. But another, which I
state at large for the light that statement sheds on
other subjects, is this : Soon after Sir Thomas Dale
had laid the foundations of Henricopolis, on what
was afterwards called Farrar's Island, though really
not an island, but a peninsula, celebrated of old
(but much more of late) for its Dutch Gap, he took
from the Appomattock Indians their town, "about
Christmas" (1611), says Stith; who adds: "This
town stood at the mouth of the river [Appomattox],
and was accounted but five miles, by land, from Hen
rico. And Sir Thomas, considering how convenient
it would be to the English, resolved to possess and
seat it, and at the instant, called it New Bermudas."
Stith, 124-125. The rest of the story I prefer to
tell in the words of Hamor, who was Stith's authority
as to this part of his history, {Stith, 133), and who,
after noticing what he calls the town of Henrico, and
the twelve English miles of ground on the opposite
side of the river, impaled for the use of that town.

122 Genesis of Counties.
and called Coxendale (see list of errata at the end
of Hamor's volume), says: "I proceed to our next
and most hopeful habitation, whether we respect
commodity or security (which we principally aime at)
against foreigne designes and invasions ; I meane
the Bermuda Citty, begun about Christmas last,"
(Hamor wrote in 1614, and after the month of June
in that year), "which, because it is the nearest
adjoyning to Henrico, though the last undertaken,
showed it pertinent to handle in the next place.
This towne, or plantation, is seated, by land, some
5 miles from Henrico, by water fourteen, being, the
year before, the habitation of the Appamatucks (to
revenge the trecherous injurie of those people done
unto us, taken from them, besides all their corne,
the somer [summer, misprinted " former," see list of
errata at the end of Hamor's volume, where "p. 21,
1. 25," should be p. 31, 1. 25,] before, without the losse
of any, save onely some few of those Indians pre
tending our hurt;) at what time Sir Thomas Dale,
being himself upon that service, and duly considering
how commodious a habitation and seat it might be for
us, tooke resolution to possesse and plant it, and at
that very instant gave it the name of the New Bermu
das ; whereunto he last laid out and annexed, to be
belonging to the freedome and corporation for ever,
many miles of champion [champain] and wood land,
in severall hundreds, as the Upper and Nether Hun
dreds, Rochdale [called, according to Stith, in his
time, Rocksdale] Hundred, West's Sherly [West &

Genesis of Counties. 123
Sherley] Hundred, and Digges his [Digges's] Hun
dred. In the Nether Hundred he first began to
plant and inhabite, for that there lyeth the most
convenient quantity of corne ground ; and with a pale
cut over from river to river, about two miles long, wee
have secur[e]d some eight miles extent of ground,
the most part champion [champain, cempestris'], and
exceeding good corne ground ; upon which pale, and
round about, upon the verge of the river in this hun
dred, halfe a mile distant from each other, are very
faire houses already builded, besides other particular
men's houses, not so few as fifty. Rochdale Hun
dred, by a crosse pale, well nigh four miles long, is
also already empaled, with bordering houses all along
the pale, in which hundred our hogges and other cat-
tell have twenty miles circuit to graze in securely.
The undertaking of the chiefe city \is'\ deferred till
all their harvest be in ; which once reaped, all hands
shall be employed thereon ; which Sir Thomas Dale
purposeth, and he may with some labour effect his
designs, to make an impregnable retreat against any
foreign invasion, how powerful soever." True Dis
course, &c., 31-32.
Some two years afterwards Rolfe wrote the letter
to the King, which I have before quoted, wherein
among the places "now possessed and inhabited,"
below " Henrico and the lymites [thereof]," and
above "James Towne," he mentions, as we have
seen, Wjj/ " Bermuda Nether Hundred" and "West
and Shiriey Hundred," and it was, as we shall here-

1 24 Genesis of Counties.
after see, the one which Stith- (p. 125) calls simply
"Shirley Hundred," and these as "members belonging
to ye Bermuda Towne, a place so-called there, by
reason of the strength of the situation, were it in
differently fortified." The rest of the huudreds men
tioned by Hamor he does not notice at all, and, in
giving afterwards particular descriptions of the six
places he mentions, he says : "At Bermuda Nether
Hundred, (seated on the south side of the river,
crossing it and going by land, five myles lower than
Henrico, by water [fourteen],) are one hundred and
nineteen [persons], which seate conteyneth a good
circuite of ground, the river running round, so that
a fall, running cross a neck of land from one parte
of the river to the other, maketh it a peninsular."
Bermuda Upper Hundred, whatever became of it,
was doubtless intended to be above the nether hun
dred of that name — that is, higher up stream — and
whether up the Appomattox, or up the James, or up
both, is of no moment; anyway the nether hundred
would be at the junction of the two rivers, where is
found to this day the place which has long been
called (simply) Bermuda Hundred (without an affix
of either Upper or Nether). In the corner of Hen
rico formerly, Chesterfield since, '' New Bermuda,"
Says Bishop Meade, "in what is now Chesterfield
County, in the angle formed by James river and the
Appomattox, and which afterwards assumed and still
retains the name of Bermuda Hundred." Old
Churches, <2fc., of Virg., vol. i, p. 76. See also ibid

Genesis of Counties. i 25
125 ; 3 Hen. Stat., 6; Proceed. Am. Antiq. Soc. 1864,
pp. 63-64.
About three years later was held the first General
Assembly in Virginia, to which, as we have seen,
Stith says "the burroughs of James Town, Henrico,
Bermuda Hundred, and the rest, each sent their
members," not naming Charles City, whereas the
contemporaneous report, as we have seen, says that
Charles City sent two burgesses, not naming at all
Bermuda Hundred. How shall this discrepancy be
accounted for? Though more than a century has
elapsed since Stith wrote, still he wrote more than
a century after the times he speaks of, and in his
day Bermuda Hundred was a place of note and
consideration, whereas Charles City (town) had
long been invisible and almost forgotten as a thing
that ever existed even in name on that side of
the James; but in 1619, when the Assembly met,
it was in great vogue, insofar as expectation went,
whence in a few years after it gave name to one
of the four "corporations" that included all the
setdements west of the Bay, and was the place
designated for the East India School. Probably
the persons represented by the burgesses (nomi
nally) for Charies City lived in Bermuda Nether
Hundred and other places adjoining; and certainly
the fact that Appomattox river separated them
from Charles City did not constitute an objection,
since, many years afterwards and after that river
had (in 1 634) been constituted the boundary between

1 26 Genesis of Counties.
Charles City County and Henrico County, Bristol
Parish was laid out on both sides of it from the
mouth upwards, (1 Hen. Stat., 251 ; i Meade's Old
Churches, &c., 438-439,) and in 1653 had the privi
lege conceded it of holding local courts of justice,
"appeals lying from this court to either Henrico
County or Charles City County Court," (i Hen.
Stat., 376, 424,) which privilege became extinct I
know not when, but probably when the next revisal
of the laws took place in the session of March,
1657-8. See I Hen. Stat., 432; also ibid 426.
When the town of Charles City vanished, the place
seems to have got the name of Charles Hundred,
{Stith, 306, 310,) for which Bishop Meade substi
tutes Charles City Hundred, writing (doubtless)
from memory. Old Churches, &c., vol. i, p. 314.
Besides the " Particulars of Land in Virginia," we
have (Jther lists in which the names of places, more
or less conspicuous, are mentioned. In 2 Smith's
Gen. Hist., 75-76, ed. Richm., 181 9, we have a
list of those that were "slaine" in the great mas
sacre of 22d March, 162 1-2, wherein the places
are named at which the murders were committed.
Next, in Sainsbury's "Calendar of State Papers,
Colonial Series, 1 574-1 660," p. 57, we have ab
stracts of a "list of names of the living in Vir
ginia," and "also list of names of the dead in
Virginia," which, it is there suggested, were "sent
by Davison to Farrar," pursuant to the promise in
Davison's letter from "James City, 14th April,

Genesis of Counties. i 27
1623," noticed ibid, 43-44, but which more pro
bably was prepared in accordance with one point
in the commission to Harvey and others, dated
24th October, 1623, noticed ibid 53, whose arrival
in Virginia took place early in January, 1623-4,
{Stith, 304, 1st edit.; 304-/^ 2d edit.,) since it is
entered in the "Calendar" under date of "i6th
February, 1624" \i. e., 1623-4], agreeing with the
caption of the document (as transcribed) in McDon.
Pap., 45-79, to-wit, " Lists of the Livinge and Dead
in Virginia, February i6th, 1623," after which we have
(pp. 45-71) 'A List of the Livinge," and (pp. 72-79)
"A List of the Names of the Dead in Virginia Since
April Last, February i6th, 1623"; in aU of which,
to-wit, abstracts of the two lists, and the two lists
themselves, the places are named of residence and
of death. Then we have a list of places repre
sented in the General Assembly "holden on the
1 6th day of October, 1629," \!ci& first (after that of
1 61 9) wherein the places are distinguished, i Hen.
Stat., 138-9. After which we have a like list of
places represented in March, 1629-30, (i Hen. Stat.,
147-149,) and in February, 1631-2, {ibid, 153-4,) and
in September, 1632, {ibid, 178-9,) and in February,
1632-3, {ibid, 202-3,) the last session in which we
have any such list prior to the formation of shires
or counties. And upon those lists I make the follow
ing observations with reference to Charles City:
The place of that name is mentioned in the first of
them, — slaine "at Charles City, and of Captaine

I 28 Genesis of Counties.
Smith's men, 5 " ; but in neither of the next two lists,
to wit: of the living, and of the dead, is there any
mention of it; nor is there in the next, to wit: of
places represented in Oct., 1629; nor in the next,
to wit: of places represented in March, 1629-30;
nor in the next, to wit: of places represented in Feb.,
1 63 1 -2; nor in the next, to wit: of places repre
sented in Sept., 1632; nor in the next, to wit: of
places represented in Febr., 1632-3; so that, from
the time of the massacre, it seems to have lost all its
importance and distinctiveness, and of the name
Charles City (south of the James), there has survived
nothing but City Point.
As to Elizabeth City {town) : In the forementioned
" Particulars of Land in Virginia," we have, under
the head " Corporation of Elizabeth Cittie," this
item : " On the easterlie side of Southampton River
there are 3,000 acres belonging to the Companie at
Elizabeth Cittie, and 150 acres comon land." i Mc
Don. Pap., 316; I Burk's Hist., 338, grievously mis
taken by fault of copyist or printer. This precisely
determines the site of Elizabeth City to have been
on the easterly side of Southampton River, as for a
time that stream was called, {Stith, 120, cited ante
15: "So high was the character of Southampton
held in Virginia, that one of her rivers for some time
bore his name," i Meade's Old Churches, <2fc., 131;)
afterwards changed to Hampton River, not by pub
lic authority, so far as I can discover, but probably
from that same popular aversion to long names,

Genesis of Counties. 1 29
which I have before noticed. The changed (or sub
stituted) name, Hampton, was however, recognized
by the Legislature as early as its session in June,
1680. 2 Hen. Stat., 472. And I shall now proceed
to show, that there also was the site of Kiccowtan.
" In the year 1 667 we read of a Rev. Jeremiah Tay
lor, who buried a Mr. Nicholas Baker in the new
church at Kickotan, . according to a request in the
will. In the same year Mr. Robert B rough, by will,
requests that he may be buried in the old church at
Kickotan. In one and the same year there were a
new and an old church standing at Kickotan," says
Bishop Meade, who, following Burke, supposed Kick
otan to have been upon the present site of Hampton.
Old Churches, &c., of Virginia, vol. i, p. 230; see
ibid., 229. But this supposition is mistaken; the
site of the two places not being the same, but about
a mile apart, and probably on opposite sides of the
river. We have seen just now, that Elizabeth City
was on the easterly side, as was also Kiccowtan,
according to Captain Smith's map of Virginia, and
other maps that foHowed his. But Hampton was
built on the western side of the river. The statute
of 1680, mentioned above, enacted that, in and for
every county thereinafter "set downe and expressed."
fifty acres of land should be "purchased by the
feoffers of the several counties at the costs " there
inafter "set downe, and measured about, layd out,
and appointed, for a towne — that is to say," inter al.
"In Elizabeth City County, on the west side Hamp-

130 Genesis of Counties.
ton river, on Mr. Thomas Jarvis' s plantation, where
he now lives." Which act being suspended by the
King (2 Hen. Stat., 508), it was, in pursuance of the
same plan, enacted at the session commencing in
April, 1691, "that these severall nominated forts,
wharfes, keyes, and places hereafter named and set
downe be, and [they] shall be, the severall and
respective forts, wharfes keyes. and places consti
tuted and appointed by the act, for the uses, intents,
and purposes before named — that is to say," int. al.
"For Elizabeth Citty county, on the west side of
Hampton River, on the road of Mr. William Wilson,
lately belonging unto Mr. Tho. Jarvis, deceased, the
plantation where he late lived, and the place appointed
by a former law, and severall dwelling houses and
warehouses already built," — meaning, as appears evi
dently from the context in respect of several other
places, "and whereon several dwellings are already
built, since that former law was past!' 3 Hen. Stat.,
58-59. And this statute having also been suspended
(3 Hen. Stat., 108-109), the subject came again be
fore the legislature at the session commencing in
October, 1705, when it was enacted "that the places
hereinafter named, shall be the forts meant and in
tended by this act, and none other place or places
whatsoever, writ. On James River, Hampton, James
City, Flower de Hundred," — meaning other places
on other rivers, — and then proceeding as follows :
"And be it also enacted, that at each of the said
forts there be forthwith laid out by the common con-

Genesis of Counties. 131
sent of the burgesses and justices of the county
wherein such fort shall be, fifty acres of land [mean
ing, of course, where that had not been already
done], which land so laid out shall be appropriated,
and is by virtue hereof appropriated, to a town for
every such fort respectively, and all the lands so laid
out or to be laid out and apportioned at the forts afore-

NoTE. — Here the manuscript ends abruptly. For most readers it is
hardly necessary to say that the old spelling in the authorities referred
to in the document above is retained.
The author once printed an article, the chief value of which consisted
in its antiquated orthography, and was told by a reader that it was very
interesting, but the spelling was so bad that he could hardly read it.
Among the lawyers descended from P. Clayton, of Culpeper, and
omitted in the text, were Philip Clayton and John Strother, of Alabama,
and Richard Slaughter, of Russelville, Ky., all deceased ; John Logan,
now living in New York, and his brother, Joseph, of Union, West Va.
There are two or three errors in this book, such as the putting the
letter n for ?» in the Latin word felicissimuw in the motto; "who" for
"whom," and "brow" for "bow," on the 8ist page.

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Churches and Old Families, and Illustrations of the Manners and
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ested in the history of the State should have it," &c., &c.
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Dr. Slaughter's History of St. George's Parish is out of print. A few
copies of St. Mark's, and of " Man and Woman," may be had.

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