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St. George Tucker
Born 1752 near Port Royal, Bermuda
Studied law under George Wythe
Married John Randolph's widow
Served at Battle of Yorktown
Taught law at College of William & Mary
Served as U.S. District Court Judge
Died 1827
Born and reared in Bermuda

Lawyer, trader, inventor, scholar, professor, judge, essayist, poet, gardener, stargazer – St. George Tucker was what the 18th century called "a man of parts."

St. George Tucker was born near Port Royal, Bermuda, in 1752, the son of Colonel Henry Tucker, a trader and owner of the Grove plantation. His christening name, St. George, had been in the family since about 1600, when Frances St. George married George Tucker of Kent, England.

Sailed for Virginia to study law

Reared in Bermuda, Tucker sailed for Virginia at age 19 to pursue an education in the law, a study he seems already to have begun. He enrolled at the College of William and Mary in 1772 and read under George Wythe, who had instructed Thomas Jefferson. Wythe examined and approved Tucker for the bar on April 4, 1774.

Virginia's courts closed as the Revolution began, and Tucker could not pursue his practice. He returned to Bermuda in June 1775, two months after the raid on Williamsburg's Magazine. Before he departed, he told Peyton Randolph and Jefferson of the existence of a similar magazine in Bermuda that might be a target for rebel retaliation.

Tucker's father obtained exemption from embargo against trade with British colonies

The Continental Congress had banned trade with colonies that remained loyal to Britain, and Tucker's father, the colonel, traveled to Philadelphia in July to argue for Bermuda's exemption. He received it by negotiating with Benjamin Franklin the capture of the powder his son had mentioned earlier. Two American vessels carried away 100 barrels from the Royal Powder Magazine in Bermuda the night of August 14, 1775. St. George Tucker hinted that he helped roll some of the barrels to the ships.

Williamsburg agent for father's trade business

Tucker returned to Virginia on January 3, 1777, landing at Yorktown aboard the Dispatch (a ship purchased for him and his associates by his father, the colonel) with a cargo of smuggled salt. Tucker became his father's Williamsburg agent and made himself financially comfortable in a deal that dispatched indigo valued at £10,000 in four ships from Charleston, South Carolina, to the West Indies to trade for arms.

Married John Randolph's widow

He also fell in love with a woman he met at Bruton Parish Church. The object of his heart was Frances "Fanny" Bland Randolph, 25, the widow of John Randolph and the mother of three. They married on September 23, 1778, and moved to the Randolph plantation Matoax near Petersburg.

When the British entered Hampton Roads in 1779, Tucker joined the militia as a major. He later fought at Guilford Courthouse, where he sustained a minor wound; chasing a runaway soldier, he ran into the man's bayonet.

Liaison with French at Yorktown

Fluent in French, he served as Governor Thomas Nelson's liaison with the French army at the Battle of Yorktown. His letters and diary from those days are rich in historical detail, and his description of General George Washington's arrival in Williamsburg before the battle is widely quoted.

Returned to practice and teaching of law

After the war, Tucker practiced law in the Petersburg area until 1788 when Fanny died shortly after bearing their sixth child. That year he accepted appointments as the professor of law and police at the College of William and Mary, and as judge of the Virginia General Court at Richmond.

He succeeded George Wythe at the school and, as was true of Wythe before him, Tucker's tenure was marred by disputes with the administration over instructional methods. Tucker favored lectures, and he preferred to teach in his home (the St. George Tucker House on Market Square), where his law library was handy. He usually had about a dozen pupils. One of them, William Taylor Barry, wrote: "He is a Man of genuine Cleverness and of the most exalted talents."

Married again after the death of first wife

Tucker married again in 1791, this time to Mrs. Lelia Skipwith Carter, 24, a widow with two children. She bore him three more, all of whom died early.

Urged the abolishment of slavery

In 1796, Tucker wrote and published the pamphlet "A Dissertation on Slavery: With A Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It in the State of Virginia." Cogently argued, it nevertheless had little effect. During these years he also edited Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" to put them in an American context and make them more useful to students. It was published in Philadelphia in 1803 and earned Tucker the title the "American Blackstone."

Twentieth-century legal historian Lawrence Friedman said Tucker was "one of the most eminent of Virginia lawyers." But he was best remembered in Williamsburg for writing a spirited defense of the city and its inhabitants. It was a reply to a critical passage in a geography and tour book published by the straight laced Reverend Jedediah Morse.

Morse was a progenitor of Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraphic code – a subject that would have excited Tucker. In 1794, he was enthusiastic over the new French "Telegraphe," a semi mechanical semaphore signaling system. He had a colleague set up part of the apparatus at the Capitol to signal him at the college on the other end of Duke of Gloucester Street.

Constructed Williamsburg's first bathroom

Tucker is credited with the construction of Williamsburg's first bathroom; he converted his backyard dairy house and installed in it a copper bathtub into which heated water was piped. The tub had a drain. He also invented an "earth closet" for his home that removed "night soil" through the wall and designed a water pump driven by a steam engine.

An amateur astronomer, and an avid gardener, he was a charter member and officer of "a Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge" in Williamsburg.

Left college over dispute and became judge in Richmond

Continuing disputes over his teaching methods led to Tucker's departure from the college of William and Mary in 1804, when he was appointed to the Virginia Court of Appeals in Richmond. He had built a law office modeled after a Grecian temple there in 1803, but the change of locale and his appointment were delayed by scandal.

Gambler Robert Bailey of Staunton accused Tucker of soliciting a 100-guinea bribe for the acquittal of a current gaming charge. Tucker vigorously defended himself against the accusation, even traveling to Staunton to gather depositions about Bailey's character, thereby convincing the public of his innocence.

At the new capital he lodged in the Swan Tavern, a legendary inn. Though he wrote memorable poetry, he was also given to humorous doggerel, and he wrote these lines:

"There was a sorry judge who lived at the Swan by himself.
He got but little honor, and he got but little pelf [i.e. wealth],
He drudged and judged from morn to night, no ass drudged more than he,
And the more he drudged, and the more he judged, the sorrier judge was he."

In 1813, St. George Tucker became United States District Court judge at Richmond, serving until 1825. By then two of his sons were on the way to becoming prominent judges themselves.

Lived to the age of 75

Tucker died November 10, 1827, at the home of his stepdaughter Mary Cabell in Warminster. He was 75 years old.

 

 

 

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Home of St George Tucker

 

The Tucker House, a long wooden house that fronts the Courthouse Green in Williamsburg, Virginia, was one of the focal points for the town’s population during the period between the Revolution and the restoration. One never knew who might show up at the Tucker House next. To this lovely home of one of the America’s foremost families came visiting celebrities, writers, poets, scholars, clergymen and Europeans on a regular basis. Indeed, the Tuckers, themselves, were a family of individualists, the men and women alike, drawn to scholarship, the professions, and literature. And so the site became a much needed diversion to the people of the little slumbering town of Williamsburg after the Capitol was moved to Richmond, when Williamsburg could then only be described as it was by George Tucker in his ’Letters from Virginia’:
"In short, this poor town has very little to recommend it to a stranger except the
memory of its ancient importance, and this is but a sad sort of interest at best.
There is neither business without doors, nor amusement within; but all is just as
lifeless as the very Goddess of Dullness could wish. --Indeed, if it wasn’t for the
College, and the Court, and the Lunatics, I don’t know what would become of it.
As it is, it is but the shadow of itself, and even that seems passing away."

 

The original Tucker House, the center portion of the present structure, was first located on the Palace Green. In 1788, when St George bought his Williamsburg site, he moved this earlier, smaller building to its present site in Market Square. It was through years of adding extensions as the family grew and prosperity allowed, and through the restorations made during 1930 and 1931, that the house was created into what we see today. Its color scheme is the same as it was in 1798, when Tucker and a local painter, Jeremiah Satterwhite, made an agreement to use the colors--"Spanish brown, pure White, Chocolate, dark brick, yellow Ochre, straw-colour, and pale Stone colour."

 

St. George Tucker married without the wholehearted approval of his parents in Bermuda. They apparently did not object to Frances Randolph, but rather to his marrying and staying in Virginia, when they had expected he would return to Bermuda. He did not inform them of his marriage until after it had taken place. In 1780 he commissioned John Durand to paint both his and his wife's portraits, which he sent to Bermuda, hoping no doubt that Frances's obvious beauty and elegance would soften the blow of his absence.
Although born in Bermuda, St. George Tucker threw himself wholeheartedly into support of the American Revolution. His military service required frequent absences from home soon after their marriage. During the war, he rose to the rank of Colonel and was injured in 1781. Their correspondence during that period bemoaned their mutual loneliness. Frances remarked once that she had difficulty getting letters to him because most of her neighbors did not understand the intensity of their attachment and so they did not think to inform her when they were going to see him. During her husband's absences, Frances continued to manage both Matoax and Bizarre effectively.

After the Revolutionary War, St. George Tucker busied himself establishing his law practice in Richmond. Once again, he was often absent from Matoax, and Frances was kept busy managing children and plantations. Their letters continued to provide solace and express mutual affection. In April 1787 he wrote to Frances, whom he called Fanny, that Richmond was the "dullest place in the universe," because he saw no one but lawyers and judges. She wrote of her daily routine and the children's activities and scholastic progress. Her health declined during the latter years of their marriage, and her death in January 1788 followed the birth of her last child by only a month. She was buried at the Randolph plantation, Matoax, beside her first husband, John Randolph.

St. George Tucker moved to Williamsburg with the children shortly after the death of his wife, and in 1791 he married Lelia, widow of George Carter and daughter of Sir Peyton Skipwith.
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The first Tucker occupant of the home was St George Tucker, who was born in Port Royal, Southampton Parish, Bermuda, on April 10, 1752, and came to Virginia in 1770, to attend the William and Mary College, in Williamsburg. He was a clever man, talented, placid and philosophic, and led a life diversified in professions. He was an attorney, professor of law, a judge, a playwright and a poet. As a noted jurist, he was known as "the America Blackstone." He died November 10, 1827, and over his grave, his epitaph in Latin proclaims his merits:

 

Here rests St Geo Tucker
Born in Bermuda
An adopted son of the State of Virginia,
Impelled by a love of liberty,
He was a brave and valiant Soldier.
After liberty was established
He was a pure and upright Judge--
At the College of William & Mary he was for some time
A learned and faithful Professor,
Well versed in the Laws and decisions.
He was familiar with the Arts and Sciences,
With a cultivated taste for Poetry.
In public affairs he was vigilant and enlightened,
In private life his affections were constant and conspicuous.
In all things upright and faithful,
At all times firm and constant.
This tomb is erected by his children and his nephews,
And by his beloved wife, in memory of the benevolence and
benignity
Of his admirable life and of his uprightness and virtue,
As an expression of their sorrow.

Born July 10, 1752
Died Nov. 10, 1827

St George Tucker married twice, both his wives being wealthy widows. His first wife, Frances Bland, was the daughter of Theoderick Bland and Frances Bolling, and the widow of John Randolph. She was the mother of all his children: Ann Frances Bland Tucker, Henry St George Tucker, Sr, Theoderick Thomas Tudor Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, and Henrietta Elizabeth Tucker. He married second, Lelia Skipwith, the daughter of Sir Peyton Skipwith and his wife, Anne Miller, of "Prestwould," Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and the widow of George Carter.

Ann Frances Bland Tucker married in 1802, John Coalter, and had Frances Lelia, Elizabeth, and St George Coalter, before passing away in 1813.

Henry St George Tucker, Sr, was an attorney and professor of law, moving to Winchester, Virginia where he taught young men in his law office. He was also a member of the Virginia Legislature, a congressman, and the President of the Virginia Supreme Court. He married Ann Evelina Hunter in 1806, and had: Henry St George Tucker, Jr, of Charlottesville, Virginia; Ann Evelina Hunter Tucker, who married Dr Alfred T Magill, a professor of medicine, and the son of Colonel Charles Magill and his wife, Mary Buckner Thruston, of Winchester, Virginia; Moses Hunter Tucker; Frances Bland Tucker; Mary Stevens Tucker, David Hunter Tucker, who married Elizabeth Dallas; Sarah Virginia Tucker, who married Henry Laurens Brooke, Sr, an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, and the son of John Taliaferro Brooke and his wife, Anne Mercer Selden; Beverley Tucker, who married Jane Shelton Ellis; Stephen Dandridge Tucker; John Randolph Tucker, of Lexington, Virginia, a congressman who married Laura Holmes Powell, daughter of Humphrey Brooke Powell, and his wife, Anne Holmes, of Middleburg, Loudon County, Virginia; Henry Tudor Tucker; St George Tucker, also an attorney, as well as a poet and author, of Charlottesville, who married Elizabeth Anne Anderson Gilmer, daughter of Thomas Wal er Gilmer, Governor of Virginia, and his wife, Anne Elizabeth C Baker, of Mt Air, Albemarle County, Virginia; and Alfred Bland Tucker, who married Elizabeth Taylor.

Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, known as Beverley, was also an attorney, author and poet. He succeeded his father as owner of the Williamsburg home, the Tucker House. But first, he went to Missouri, where he married his first wife, Mary Coalter, in 1809. They had at least two children, John St Michael Tucker and Frances Elizabeth Tucker. After Mary died in Dardenna, South Point, Missouri, Beverley married Elizabeth Naylor in 1828, but she died less than a year later, in Fulton, Missouri. At the urging of his half-brother, John Randolph, of Roanoke, Beverley came back to his native state in 1833. On the death of James Semple, he accepted the position of professor of law at the William and Mary College, a position he continued to hold until his death in 1851. Before returning to Virginia, however, Beverley married his third, and last wife, Lucy Ann Smith, the daughter of Brigadier-General Thomas Adams Smith, and his wife, Cynthia Berry White, of Franklin, Missouri. By Lucy, Beverley had Cynthia Beverley Tucker, who inherited the Tucker house after her mother’s death. She married first, Henry Augustine Washington, a professor, and the son of Lawrence Washington, and his wife, Sarah Taylor Washington, of Washington, D C. Secondly she married Dr. Charles Washington Coleman, a Williamsburg physician, and the son of Thomas Coleman and his wife, Frances Catherine Hill; Lucy Beverley Tucker, who died young; Dr Beverley St George Tucker, a physician who married Elizabeth Christina Mercer; Thomas Smith Beverley Tucker who married Julia Clark; Frances Bland Beverley Tucker who married Major Edwin Taliaferro, professor of languages at William and Mary College, and the son of Warner Throckmorton Taliaferro, Sr., and his wife, Leah Seddon; Henrietta Elizabeth Beverley Tucker, who married Dr John Peyton Little, a physician; and Berkeley Montague Beverley Tucker who married Ada Lewis.

Of the great-grandchildren of St George Tucker, it was the third son of Cynthia Beverley Tucker, George Preston Coleman, who inherited the Tucker House upon the death of his mother. Although he had moved to Minnesota earlier, when his mother became ill he brought his family back to Williamsburg, becoming master of the house. The Tucker house, again, was brought to life with writers and artists, as his wife wrote constantly. To Mary Haldane Begg, writing came natural, as the was a descendant of Isabella Burns, the sister of Robert Burns, and she rapidly produced articles and books. She also produced two lovely daughters with her husband, Janet Coleman, who married Raymond Kimbrough, and Cynthia, who married Singleton Morehead. Although their parents reserved a life tenancy for Janet and Cynthia, neither was to inherit the lovely old home. Before George and Mary died, they sold the Tucker house to the Rockefeller restoration.