Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Henry St. George Tucker

(1780-1848)
Virginia

Source: Susan P. Lee, John Randolph Tucker
9 The G reen Bag 201-205, at 203 (1897)

Henry St. George Tucker was born in 1780 in Chesterfield County, Virginia and followed in the path of his father, St. George Tucker. He was a lawyer and dabbled in poetry. Tucker studied at the College of William and Mary where he graduated in 1801. He was admitted to the bar and began his legal practice in Winchester, Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia house and senate and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives where he served from 1815 to 1819. He was a superior court judge (1824-31), and was elected president of the Virginia Supreme Court in 1831. From 1841 to 1845 he was professor of law at the University of Virginia, before which he maintained a private law school. He was a soldier in the War of 1812 and author of both poetry and legal commentaries. His son, John Randolph Tucker (1823-1897), followed in his father's ways, as Henry St. George followed his father, St. George Tucker.

Tucker is buried at the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery in Lexington, Virginia.

Henry St. George Tucker
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Herny St. George Tucker
Wikipedia

The Winchester Law School, 1824-1831

Stone House Mansion

Writings

Henry St. George Tucker, A Few Lectures on Natural Law (Charlottesville, Virginia: J. Alexander, 1844)

___________________, Lectures on Government (Charlottesville: J. Alexander, 1844)

___________________, Lectures on Constitutional Law: For the Use of the Law Class at the University of Virginia (Richmond: Printed by Shepherd and Colin, 1843)

___________________, Introductory Lecture (Charlottesville: Magruder & Noel, 1841)(delivered by the professor of law in the University of Virginia at the opening of the Law School in September, 1841)

___________________, Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia, Comprising the Substance of a Course of Lectures Delivered to the Winchester Law School (Winchester, Virginia: Office of the Winchester Virginian, 1831)(2 vols.)(Union, New Jersey: Lawbook Exchange, 1997, with an introduction by David Cobin and Paul Finkelman)



Source: 17 Green Bag 538 (1905)

Research Resources

Tucker Family Papers
Washington and Lee
Lexington, Virginia

Tucker Papers
Rockbridge Historical Society Collection
Rockbridge, Virginia

Tucker Family Papers, 1790-1932
Manuscripts Department
Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Tucker-Coleman Papers
Swem Library, College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia