Edmund Pendleton

Edmund Pendleton (September 9, 1721 – October 23, 1803) was an American planter, politician, lawyer, and judge. He served in the Virginia legislature before and during the American Revolutionary War, becoming the first speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates (which succeeded the House of Burgesses terminated by Virginia's last colonial Governor, Lord Dunmore). Pendleton attended the First Continental Congress as one of Virginia's delegates alongside George Washington and Patrick Henry, signed the Continental Association, and led the conventions both wherein Virginia declared independence (1776) and adopted the United States Constitution (1788). Unlike his sometime political rival Henry, Pendleton was a moderate who initially hoped for reconciliation rather than revolt. With Thomas Jefferson and George Wythe, Pendleton revised Virginia's legal code after the break with Britain. To contemporaries, Pendleton may have distinguished himself most as a judge, particularly in the appellate roles in which he spent his final 25 years, including leadership of what is now known as the Supreme Court of Virginia. On hearing of his death, Congress agreed to wear badges of mourning for 30 days and expressed "their regret that another star is fallen from the splendid constellation of virtue and talents which guided the people of the United States, in their struggle for independence". Early life Pendleton was born in Caroline County, Virginia, to Mary Bishop Taylor, whose young husband (and father of her six other children), Henry Pendleton, had died four months earlier. Pendleton's maternal grandfather, James Taylor, was a large landowner in nearby Rappahannock County and may have helped raise the children until the widow remarried Edward Watkins two years later. James Taylor was born near Winchester in Hampshire, England in 1671 and had emigrated to America as a child with his parents in 1679. Pendleton's paternal grandfather, Henry Pendleton was born in Basingstoke, England in 1656 and emigrated to America in 1673. When Edmund was 14 years old, he became apprenticed to Benjamin Robinson, clerk of the Caroline County Court, which is where he learned about political issues and soon began reading law books and learning legal procedures. In 1737, Pendleton was made clerk of the vestry of St. Mary's Parish in Caroline, which began his involvement with practical church-related matters which would continue throughout his life.