William Fitzhugh Gordon
Birth 13 Jan 1787
Orange County, Virginia, USA
Death 28 Aug 1858 (aged 71)
Albemarle County, Virginia, USA
Burial
Gordon Family Cemetery
Gordonsville, Orange County, Virginia, USA
US Congressman. Born on a Germanna plantation near Spotsylvania County, Virginia, he attended local country schools and then Spring Hill Academy where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar shortly thereafter and commenced to practicing law at Orange Court House in Virginia in 1808. A year later he moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, to continue his law practice and while in Charlottesville he was named to the position of Commonwealth Attorney beginning in 1812. During this time he served with the United States Army in the War of 1812 and was given the rank of Major General. He also served as a Member of the Virginia State House of Delegates from 1818 to 1829, and as a Delegate to the Virginia State Constitutional Convention from 1829 to 1830. A Jacksonian, he was elected to the Twenty-first Congress to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of United States Representative William Cabell Rives in 1829. He was then reelected to the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses and went onto serve Virginia's 10th and 12th Districts from 1830 to 1835. In 1834, he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-fourth Congress. After leaving office Gordon engaged in agricultural pursuits, but he later returned to politics when he was named as a Delegate to the Southern Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1850. He died at his plantation home in 1858 and was buried in the family burial ground.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/176481771/william-fitzhugh-gordon
