University of Virginia Library

GEORGE TUCKER

Tucker Hall commemorates the name of
George Tucker, Professor of Moral Philosophy
from 1825 to 1845. He was fifty years
of age when he became a member of the
University's original Faculty, and both before
and after his career as a Professor he
achieved distinction in other fields. Born
20 August 1775 in Bermuda of a leading
family which was actively sympathetic with
the American Revolution, he had received
private tutoring and had been clerk in a
law office when he came to Virginia in
1795 for courses at the College of William
and Mary. Two years later he was graduated,
was married, and had commenced a
period of varied interests, social, legal, literary,
and political, during which he resided
successively in Richmond, in
Chatham in Pittsylvania County, and in
Lynchburg. He was elected to the Virginia
General Assembly in 1815; and he served
for three terms, 1819 to 1825, as a Congressman
in Washington. It was at that stage

that he was chosen as a member of the Faculty
of the newly established University of
Virginia. His selection appears to have
been based more on his reputation as a
writer than on his political distinction.

On his part, the prospect of more leisure
for literary pursuits was potent in the decision
to accept the offer of a professorship.
The School of Moral Philosophy was conceived
by Jefferson as an essential instrument
for the moral and political training
of future citizens. During his tenure of
office Tucker gave courses in a singular
variety of subjects: Ethics, Metaphysics,
Logic, Political Economy, Statistics, Belles-Lettres,
Rhetoric, and English Composition.
As there was no Professor of English
Literature until 1882, the original direction
and stimulation of competence in literary
communication was largely supplied
by Professor Tucker. Being the most mature
among generally youthful associates,
he was chosen the first Chairman of the
Faculty; and in facing the problems of the
formative period of the University, he

exerted a steadying and a discerning influence
on administration. His genial nature,
his good humor, his racy comments
made him perhaps the best liked of his associates.
He continued his writing during
this period—his productions thus far had a
wide range, embracing novels (his novel
The Valley of the Shenandoah had some
vogue in England as well as in the United
States, and his Voyage to the Moon anticipated
by some years Poe's Hans Pfaall)
and essays political, economic, and educational
—and in 1837 there was published
his two-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson.

To secure more complete freedom for
authorship, he resigned in 1845, at the age
of seventy, though this decision appears to
have been influenced also by the withdrawal
from the University of his friend and
kinsman, Henry St. George Tucker, who
had been from 1841 to 1845 Professor of
Law. George Tucker's last years were spent
mostly in Philadelphia, and proved a prolific
period for writing, including his Essays

Moral and Metaphysical, his Political Economy
for the People, and his four-volume
History of the United States. His health
continued to be remarkably vigorous; and
his death resulted from an accident received
in Mobile, Alabama, while he was
on an informatory tour. He was taken to
the home of his son-in-law, George Rives,
in Albemarle County, and he died there
on 10 April 1861, just on the outbreak of
the War Between the States.

He was married three times: in 1797 to
Mary Byrd Farley, who died two years
later; in 1802 to Maria Ball Carter, a granddaughter
of George Washington's sister,
who died in 1823; and in 1828, during his
residence at the University, to Louisa
Bowdoin Thompson, who died in 1859. At
the University he lived in Pavilion IX. It
is appropriate, especially since he was an
ancestor to several faculty families, that his
final resting place is in the University
Cemetery—where, however, his tombstone
incorrectly gives the date of his birth as 1
August instead of 20 August 1775.