University of Virginia Library

WILSON CARY NICHOLAS.

The ancestry of Wilson Cary Nicholas embraces several of the most
worthily represented families in the Old Dominion. The founder of the
distinguished Nicholas family of Virginia was Dr. George Nicholas,[6]

of County Lancaster, England, a surgeon in the British Navy, who
settled in the Colony about the beginning of the eighteenth century,
and married, about 1722, Elizabeth, widow of Major Nathaniel Burwell,
and daughter of Robert "King" Carter. Their issue was: Robert
Carter, born about 1723; John, married Martha, daughter of Colonel
Joshua Fry; and George Nicholas. Robert Carter Nicholas, statesman,
jurist, and patriot, familiarly known as Treasurer Nicholas in colonial
annals, from having long and honorably filled that important office,
married, in 1754, Anne, daughter of Colonel Wilson and Sarah (Blair
—grandniece of the Commissary) Cary (second in descent from Colonel
Myles Cary, the emigrant ancestor of the family in Virginia, who was
born in Bristol, England, in 1620; died in Virginia, June 10, 1667, and
was fourth in descent from William Cary, Mayor of Bristol in 1546, and
who lineally descended from Adam de Kari, Lord of Castle Cary, in
Somerset, in 1198).[7] Robert Carter and Anne (Cary) Nicholas had
issue five sons and three daughters: John, married Anne Lawson;
member of Congress 1793-1801, removed to Geneva, New York, where
he has numerous descendants; George, married the daughter of the
Hon. John Smith, of Baltimore, Maryland, and was the father of
Judge Samuel Smith Nicholas, who published a masterly plea for the
Habeas Corpus when it was suspended by President Lincoln, during our
late war; Wilson Cary, Lewis; and Philip Norborne Nicholas, many
years Attorney-General of Virginia, President of the Farmers' Bank of
Richmond, Member of the Virginia Convention of 1829-30, and a
Judge of the General Court of Virginia. He was associated with
William Wirt and George Hay in an able defence of James Thompson
Callender, who was tried in Richmond in May, 1800, before Judge
Samuel Chase, of the United States Supreme Court, for publishing a
pamphlet entitled "The Prospect before Us," in which the character of
President John Adams was infamously libelled. The prosecuting attorney
was Thomas Nelson, son of General Thomas Nelson, Jr., of the
Revolution. The zeal of Judge Chase in directing the prosecution subjected
him to the charge of having transcended his powers, and occasioned
his famous trial for impeachment before the United States Senate.
Judge Philip Norborne Nicholas was twice married; first, to Mary Spear,
of Baltimore, Maryland (and had issue three sons, of whom only one—
John Spear Nicholas, of Baltimore, survives); and, secondly, to Maria
Carter, daughter of Thomas Taylor and Mary Anne (daughter of
William Armistead) Byrd, of Clarke County, Virginia, and granddaughter
of the third Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, James River.
The issue of the second marriage of Judge Nicholas was Philip Cary
(a well known member of the bar of Richmond, and long the efficient
librarian of the State Law Library of Virginia), Sydney Smith, and
Miss Elizabeth Byrd Nicholas, an accomplished lady, foremost in the
art and literary circles of Richmond, and who was a leading originator
in the Colonial Court Ball, mentioned in the preceding sketch of Lord
Botetourt as having been held in Richmond, February 22, 1876, the
pecuniary proceeds of which were patriotically devoted to the furnishing
of the Virginia Room in the Mount Vernon mansion. Of the three
daughters of Robert Carter and Anne (Cary) Nicholas, Sarah, married
John Hatley Norton; Elizabeth, married Governor Edmund Randolph;
and Mary, died unmarried. Wilson Cary Nicholas, the subject of this
sketch, the third son of Robert Carter and Anne (Cary) Nicholas, was
born January 31, 1761, in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, which
continued to be the residence of his father until the opening of the
Revolutionary War in 1775, when he removed his family to a country
seat, called "The Retreat," in Hanover County, and at which he died
in 1780. The year following, Cornwallis, in the route of his invasion of
Virginia, stopped at "The Retreat." Mrs. Nicholas, being apprised of
the approach of the British troops, had taken the precaution to conceal
her plate and jewels in the chimney. One of her children betraying
the place of deposit, Lord Cornwallis begged, with a bland smile, that
she would give herself no uneasiness as to their fate, and indeed demeaned
himself with courtly consideration throughout his brief visit.
The visible apprehension of Mrs. Nicholas had a more serious cause of
excitement. Her maternal instincts were keenly upon the rack for the
fate of her eldest born, John, whose flight under hot chase by the
British dragoons, she witnessed through the open door with eager eyes
and tumultuous heart. Happily the superior fleetness of his horse enabled
him to escape his pursuers. After this intrusion, Mrs. Nicholas,
in her unprotected situation, deemed it prudent to remove her residence
to Albemarle County, where her husband had purchased an extensive
estate on James River. Wilson Cary Nicholas was a student at
William and Mary College, which he left in 1779, at the age of
eighteen, to enter the army. His gallantry met with deserved promotion,
and he was the commander of Washington's Life Guard until its
disbandment in 1783, when he returned to Albemarle County and
took possession of his estate there, called "Warren." In the same year
also he married Margaret, daughter of John Smith, of Baltimore, and
the sister of the wife of his brother George. It was a happy union, and
Mr. Nicholas was fortunate in the possession of a companion and helpmate
who united the gentle graces of womanhood with rare judgment and
fine intellectual powers. Sent from Baltimore in early girlhood to avoid
the dangers to which a seaport was necessarily subjected in time of war,
she was yet cognizant of many of the stirring events of the Revolution.
In her place of refuge in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, she was apprised of
the dangers daily incurred by her father as the active chairman of the
Committee of Ways and Means of the State of Maryland. She saw her
three brothers arm in defence of their beloved country, one of them to
return home to die from the effects of a severe winter campaign, and
another as the laurelled defender of Fort Mifflin—and whose subsequent
long, useful, and honored career is instantaneously identified in the historic
name of General Samuel Smith, defender of Baltimore in 1812, and
statesman. At Carlisle, too, in her father's family, was the accomplished
and hapless Major André domesticated, whilst a prisoner on
parole, and who engaged her childish affections by his many genial
graces, yet she was the patriot even to recognize the necessity of his stern
fate. In her, it is said, "love of country was no mere sentiment. It
was a principle inculcated in early childhood, and fixed by the study
and reflection of riper years. When at the age of eighty she was erroneously
informed that her son, Colonel Robert Carter Nicholas, of
Louisiana, had changed his politics, she rose from her chair, and raising
her hand, with her eyes brilliant as in youth, and her voice tremulous
with emotion, said, `Tell my son, as he values the blessing of his old
mother, never to forsake the faith of his Fathers!' " With such a mother,
such a wife, it is not to be wondered that the distinguishing trait in the
character of Mr. Nicholas was an intense devotion to his country. His
public services commenced in 1784, as the representative of Albemarle
County in the House of Delegates of Virginia. In first offering for their
suffrages he made the acquaintance of every freeholder in the county.
This was done by domiciliary visits which were never repeated, and he
rarely attended the county courts, the ordinary propitiatory hustings
of the aspiring politician. During the legislative sessions of 1784 and
1785 Mr. Nicholas, though so youthful and inexperienced, was zealous
and prominent in the advocacy of the bill securing religious freedom,
and in the suppression of parish vestries, and for the remandment of
the property of the Episcopal Church in glebes, to support of the poor
in the several counties. Drawn by domestic ties, Mr. Nicholas, at the
close of the session of 1785, returned to private life, from which he was
recalled by the strenuous opposition made to the adoption by Virginia
of the Federal Constitution. After a warm contest, he and his brother
George were returned to represent the county of Albemarle in the
Convention of 1788. Mr. Nicholas was conspicuous in his advocacy of
the adoption of the Constitution. He served in the House of Delegates
in 1789 and 1790, and again from 1794 to the autumn of 1799,
when he was elected by the Assembly to the United States Senate, in
which body he at once became a leader of the Republican party. In
1801, upon the accession of Mr. Jefferson as President, Mr. Nicholas,
who was his warm personal and confidential friend, zealously and ably
supported his administration. The questions brought before the Senate
at this period were highly important. The new organization of the

LADY SPOTSWOOD,

Wife of Governor Spotswood.

From the original in oil in the State Library of Virginia.

courts and of the financial system, the repeal of the bankrupt law, the
amendment of the Constitution as to the election of President and Vice-President,
the attempt to make war on Spain, together with many other
questions, all highly exciting, were not to be decided in a body where
parties were so nearly equally divided, without engendering intemperate
discussion and bitterness of feeling. Mr. Nicholas, however, passed
through the ordeal of this political cauldron most creditably, in the full
confidence of those with whom he acted, and winning the esteem and
respect of his opponents. All the measures projected by the Republican
party having been accomplished, and the dispute about the right of the
deposits at New Orleans adjusted without a war with Spain, by the acquisition
of Louisiana, Mr. Nicholas deemed that he might, without any
dereliction of duty, resign his seat in the Senate, which he did in 1804.
It was a step which the state of his private affairs imperatively demanded,
as he had become seriously embarrassed. To the reparation
of his fortunes he now devoted himself with great assiduity, his success
in agriculture bearing witness to the skill and energy with which his
operations were conducted. In 1806 he declined a special mission to
France, to ratify, under the auspices of Napoleon, the treaty with Spain.
But, in 1807, the necessity of a champion "whose talents and standing
taken together would have weight enough to give him the lead" in the
National Council, brought on him such urgent appeals to his political
convictions and patriotism, that he was forced to yield. He became a
candidate for Congress and was elected without opposition. "The
period was momentous and highly critical. The aggressions of England
in the attack on the `Chesapeake,' and the extension of the orders of the
King in council, and afterwards the application by France of the Berlin
and Milan decrees to our commerce, imposed upon us the necessity of
resistance. But pursuant to the pacific policy which had governed our
councils during a period of most unparalleled aggression on the part
of Great Britain, a period extending as far back as 1793, our government
proposed an embargo. The government was at that time in a
wholly defenceless state. We had but the skeleton of an army, few or
no ships in commission, no military stores, with an immense value of
property afloat, and our whole seaboard from north to south open to
attack." Under these circumstances, Mr. Nicholas united cordially in the
support of the embargo, being willing to try its efficacy for awhile as
a coercive measure, but relying on it more as giving us time to prepare
for other measures. In 1807 he assured his constituents that in the
event of the failure of the embargo to produce some speedy change in
the policy of France and Great Britain, the only alternative offered was
a base and abject submission or a determined resistance. In his printed
circular to them, as well as from his seat in Congress, he urged the necessity
of raising men and money, and the immediate provision of every
requisite of war. In the autumn of 1808 he wrote to Mr. Jefferson,
urging him, unless there was a certainty of a favorable change in the
affairs of the nation, before the meeting of Congress, to announce to
the body in his message, that the great object in laying the embargo
had been effected. That nothing more was to be expected from it, and
that it should be raised, and other measures which the vindication of
the national honor demanded, resorted to; that our people would not
much longer submit to the burdensome restrictions of the embargo, and
that we could not and ought not to think of abandoning the resistance
which we so solemnly pledged to make. In 1809 Mr. Nicholas was reelected
to Congress, and served in the spring session, during which the
agreement of our government with Mr. Erskine produced for a time a
delusive calm. In the autumn of the same year, on his way to Washington,
he experienced so violent an attack of rheumatism, that he was
compelled to resign his seat, and was closely confined to his room for a
period of four months. He was now so thoroughly convinced of the
impracticability of enforcing any commercial restrictions; of their demoralizing
influence on the people, and exhausting effect on the finances
of the country, that he frequently avowed his intention never again to
vote for any similar measure, except as preparatory to war, and for the
briefest duration. In the month of December, 1814, the gloomiest
period of the war, and when Virginia especially, but the remaining
States as well, were chiefly left to their own resources, Mr. Nicholas
was elected Governor of the State, an unthankful office, which yet his
patriotism would not allow him to decline. The happy announcement
of peace in the spring of the following year, gave but little opportunity
for the exhibition of administrative capacity, which emergency, with his
attested characteristics, would have enlisted. The defence of the State
depending chiefly upon the militia, who could not be kept constantly in
the field, an appropriation was made by the Assembly to enable him to
erect telegraphic stations, and to raise a corps of videttes to be so distributed
at his discretion, as to transmit his orders throughout the State
with the utmost dispatch possible. But peace rendered needless the
carrying into execution this well digested provision.

The great confidence reposed in Governor Nicholas by the State
Legislature, was evinced in their enactment, in great haste, at the close
of the spring session of 1815, of a statute for the raising of forces for
the defence of the State, the execution of which, in almost every particular,
was dependent on such instructions as the discretion of the
Governor might deem advisable. Loans, which were necessary to equip
and pay this force, were provided by the Governor, under terms the
most reasonable, with a just condition not originally specified by the
Legislature, but which that body, to its honor, duly authorized at its
next session. Peace having been declared, every duly audited claim
against the State was promptly paid. The militia were discharged in a

manner the most gratifying to them. They were fully paid for their
term of service, provision was made for their return home, and for the
care of the sick until they could be safely removed. All military stores
of a perishable nature were sold. The remaining supplies, including
tents and other camp equipages, sufficient for an army of ten thousand
men, were deposited in the State Arsenals. The closing of the accounts
for the expenses of the war, was pushed with all dispatch consistent
with the interest of the State, in their after adjustment at Washington
with the National Government. It had been the determination of the
Governor, in the event of the continuance of the war, to urge all men
of talent and ability with whom he might take the liberty, to offer for
election to the ensuing Assembly, that the State might have the benefit
of their counsel in her time of need. The return of peace did not prevent
this application, but the motive was different. Foreseeing that
the State would have command of considerable funds, he deemed it to
be important that an early effort should be made to induce the Assembly
to apply the proceeds to the great purposes of internal improvement
and education. This application, it is believed, was not without effect,
as in the two succeeding Assemblies there appeared many gentlemen of
conspicuous ability, who had not served in the body for some years
before. At the commencement of the autumn session of 1815, Governor
Nicholas zealously pressed these subjects upon their attention. They
were acted upon, and means severally placed at the disposal of the
Board of Public Works, and of the President and Directors of the Literary
Fund, to be devoted to the respective objects. The foundation was
thus laid of systems which have fostered and infused education, as well
as expanded the wealth and fructified the material prosperity of the
State. Upon a review of the messages of Governor Nicholas, it will be
found that most of the objects recommended by him were acted upon by
the Legislature, and that they are all strongly marked by an intimate
knowledge of the needs and capacity of Virginia. The first act of the
second term of the Governor, was an effort to adjust the claims of the
Commonwealth against the United States, all previous attempts having
proved abortive. After reflection, he devised a plan, which was finally
adopted by the Council, and an additional agent being appointed, a
speedy adjustment ensued. As the President of the Board of Public
Works and of the Literary Fund, Governor Nicholas displayed the industry
and wise foresight which uniformly characterized his administration
in every department of the Government. In every contract made
by him for the State, the utmost economy was observed, and every
caution used to protect and conserve the public interest. A remarkable
proof of this was given in the execution of a law providing for a complete
survey of the State within justifiable limits. This desirable accomplishment
he hesitated to authorize in a general contract, fearing
that the expense would exceed the provision contemplated. Finally,
under specific instructions to the several county courts of the State, the
survey was accomplished in districts at an aggregate cost by which
fully $100,000 was saved to the State. After the expiration of his
second term as Governor, Mr. Nicholas served for a few months as
President of the branch of the United States Bank at Richmond. In
the spring of 1819 he returned to "Warren," his country-seat.

His constitution had always been delicate, and the physical fatigue
and mental anxiety which he had undergone in his later years of public
service had seriously impaired his health. A journey on horseback was
advised as salutary by his physician. He accordingly thus set out
from home, but upon reaching "Montpelier," the residence of ex-President
Madison, in Orange County, he found himself too feeble to proceed,
and returned to "Tufton," the residence of his son-in-law, Thomas Jefferson
Randolph, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson. Here he lingered,
each day hoping to be well enough to return to his own home. Mr.
Jefferson and Mr. Madison (the latter being then on a visit at "Monticello"),
with both of whom his relations had always been of the warmest
personal friendship and confidence, visited him frequently, and all
was done which affection could suggest for his recovery, but without
avail. On the 10th of October, 1820, he suddenly expired whilst in
the act of dressing.

The popularity and success of Governor Nicholas were the just results
of intrinsic worth and of conscientious purpose. His style in conversation,
as well as on the hustings or in debate, was deliberate, sententious,
and impressive. It was effective through the justness of his conclusions
and the cogency of his reasoning, and borrowed nothing from the meretricious
arts of the popular orator, whose devices, indeed, he held in contempt.
Though ever ready, at the sacrifice of his private interests, to
serve his country, he was singularly modest in his personal claims, and
shunned instead of seeking political preferment. The successive positions
occupied by Mr. Monroe, previous to his election as President,
and which proved the stepping-stones to that exalted station, were all
declined by Mr. Nicholas before they were offered to Mr. Monroe. Mr.
Jefferson, his life-long friend, saw in the pecuniary embarassments in
which he became unfortunately involved, the only obstacle to his election
to the highest post in the gift of the country, and which, he maintained,
the wisdom, purity of purpose, and varied talents of Wilson
Cary Nicholas would have eminently adorned.