Goochland County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Pleasants, James 1769 - 1839
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Alice Warner http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00015.html#0003503 August 12, 2008, 5:04 pm

Author: James Grant Wilson and John Fiske

PLEASANTS, James, senator, b. in Goochland county, Va., 24 Oct., 1769; d. at his
residence, "Contention," Goochland county, Va., 9 Nov., 1839. He was a first
cousin of Thomas Jefferson. He was educated by private tutors, studied law, was
admitted to the bar of his native county, and enjoyed an extensive practice,
especially as an advocate. He was a member of the legislature in 1796, having
been elected as a Republican, clerk of the house in 1803-'11, and from the later
date till 1819 was in congress. He then became U.S. senator, served in 1819-'22,
when he resigned, and was governor of Virginia for the succeeding three years.
During his term of office, in 1824, Lafayette visited Virginia. He was a
delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention in 1829-'30 and subsequently
declined the appointment of judge of the circuit court and of the Virginia court
of appeals. The county of Pleasants, now W. Va., is named in his honor. John
Randolph of Roanoke said of him: "James Pleasants never made an enemy nor lost a
friend."

Additional Comments:
Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Biography, Vol. V Pickering-Sumter; 1900


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