University of Virginia Library

EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Edmund Randolph was born in Williamsburg, the capital of the Colony
of Virginia, August 10, 1753. He was of distinguished lineage. His
father, John Randolph, was Attorney-General of the Colony, and the son
of Sir John Randolph, who had filled the same office and received the
honor of Knighthood for eminent services to the Crown, and was the
fifth son of the emigrant ancestor of the family in Virginia, William
Randolph, born in Yorkshire, England; died at his seat, "Turkey Island,"
James River, April 11, 1711. The mother of Edmund Randolph was
Ariana, daughter of Edmund Jenings, Attorney-General of Maryland
and of Virginia, and at one time the Acting Governor of the last. Peyton
Randolph, the first President of the Continental Congress, was his
uncle.

Educated at William and Mary College, Edmund Randolph early determined
on the profession of law, which his ancestors, paternal and
maternal, had so eminently adorned. But his career was temporarily
interrupted by the exciting occurrences of 1775, when ardently enlisting
in the cause of the "rebellious" colonists, he was disinherited by his
father, who remained "loyal" to the Crown, and sailing with Lord Dunmore
for England, subsequently died there. Upon the appointment of
Washington as Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, then investing
Boston, Edmund Randolph became a member of his staff and secretary,
remaining in such capacity during the greater part of the siege. But
having been adopted by his uncle, Peyton Randolph, who owned several
large plantations in Virginia, whose public duties precluded his attention
to them, and who died in October, 1775, he was compelled by his extended
interests to return to Virginia, to civil life. He combined with
the management of his estates the practice of law, in which he was
eminently successful.

On the 29th of August, 1776, he married Elizabeth, daughter of
Robert Carter Nicholas, Treasurer and Speaker of the House of Burgesses
of Virginia, and granddaughter of Robert "King" Carter. In
the same year he was a delegate from Williamsburg to the Convention
which adopted the first constitution of the State, and before the close of the
year was elected Mayor of the same city. He was appointed by the
Convention Attorney-General under the new constitution, with an annual
salary of £200, and at a subsequent session of the General Assembly he
was elected its clerk, an office which has been filled by such men as
George Wythe and William Wirt. In 1779 he was a delegate to the
Continental Congress, of which he remained a member until 1782. Upon
the resignation of Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia, he succeeded
him in the office by the election of the General Assembly, December 1,
1786, and was chosen by the same body one of the seven delegates to
the Convention at Annapolis, and in the following year, in 1787, a
member of the convention that formed the Federal Constitution, and
introduced what was called the "Virginia plan." In 1788, he was returned by the county of Henrico, being then a resident of Richmond, to the convention
which was called to decide upon the Federal Constitution. December
1, 1788, Edmund Randolph was succeeded as Governor of Virginia
by his kinsman, Beverley Randolph. In 1784 he was appointed Deputy
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons
of Virginia, and in 1786 was elected Grand Master of the same body,
"when he was pleased to appoint the Honorable John Marshall as his
Deputy." They served in their respective positions until 1788. It is of
interest to note that the Masons' Hall in Richmond, a large wooden structure
on the south side of Franklin, near Eighteenth Street, the oldest
building for Masonic purposes in America, was erected in 1785, during
the term as Grand Master of James Mercer and whilst Edmund Randolph
was Deputy Grand Master. The name of Edmund Randolph is masonically
perpetuated in that of the Richmond Randolph Lodge, No. 19, chartered
October 19, 1787. In 1790 he was appointed by Washington the first
Attorney-General of the United States, and on the 2d of August, 1794, he
succeeded Jefferson as Secretary of State, which office he held until the
19th of August, 1795, when he withdrew to private life and resumed the
practice of law. His person and his eloquence are vividly embalmed by
Wirt in the pages of his British Spy Hugh Blair Grigsby, another
masterful delineator, in his Virginia Convention of 1776, says of Edmund
Randolph's service in the Federal Convention of 1787, "His career in
that body was surpassingly brilliant and effective, * * * nor was his course
in the Virginia Convention of Ratification less imposing." The withdrawal
of Edmund Randolph from the Cabinet of Washington, in 1795,
was made the occasion, and the causes of it, of misrepresentations and
calumnies by his political enemies, which he ably refuted and effectively
silenced by the "Vindication," then published by him, and which was

republished with a preface by his grandson, Peter V. Daniel, Jr., in 1855.
Edmund Randolph died in Frederick County, Va., September 12, 1813.
His daughter Lucy married Peter Vivian Daniel, born in Stafford
county, Va., 1785; appointed, March 3, 1841, Justice of the United States
Supreme Court, died at Richmond, May 31, 1860. His son, Peter V.
Daniel, Jr., long President of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac
Railroad, is a prominent member of the Richmond Bar. A MS.
history of Virginia, by Edmund Randolph, which is several times quoted
from in these sketches, is in the collections of the Virginia Historical
Society.