George Wythe (1726-6/08/1806) was born in Chesterton, Virginia, present day Hampton, Virginia. His illustrious career included careers as a lawyer, a judge, and a prominent law professor at the college of William and Mary. Wythe taught such notable Americans as Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, James Monroe, and John Marshall. Thomas Jefferson once refereed to Wythe as a "second father" and the two remained close friends all their lives. In 1774 and again in 1775 he was elected to the Continental Congress and was a signer or the Declaration of Independence. In 1777 he was elected speaker of the house for the Virginia House of Delegates, and in 1778 he was named one of three judges to the Chancery Court of Virginia, and became chancellor in 1789. He was also one of four prominent Virginians that designed the seal of Virginia with the motto "Sic Semper Tyrannis" that is still in use today. Wythe was poisoned in Richmond, Virginia in 1806 with arsenic along with his freed slave Lydia Broadnax and her son Michael Brown by Wythe's grand-nephew George Wythe Sweeney. Wythe and Brown both secummed to the arsenic while Lydia Broadnax survived the poisoning and was very vocal in laying the blame for the poisoning at the feet of George Sweeney.
The Wythe House' pictured above is believed to have been designed in the mid 1750's by George Wythe's Father-in-Law Richard Taliaferro, and is arguably one the best looking Colonial homes in Williamsburg. Richard Taliaferro's daughter Elizabeth and her Husband George Wythe lived in the house for more than thity years. The house is located on Palace Green in Colonial Williamsburg next to the Bruton Parish Church. Colonial Williamsburg acquired the house in 1938 and the house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
To learn more about this fascinating American I recommend the Book: "I am Murdered - George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing that Shocked a New Nation" by Bruce Chadwick.
©2009, B. Payden Photography, LLC. All rights reserved, no unauthorized use without the written permission of Bryant Payden.
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