George Nicholas

George Nicholas ( 1754 – July 25, 1799) was an American lawyer, planter, patriot, military officer and politician who helped to write the first Kentucky constitution and became the first professor of law at Transylvania University. He also briefly served as Attorney General of Kentucky, and several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates. Early and family life Nicholas was born in Williamsburg in the Colony of Virginia in 1754. The firstborn son of prominent lawyer Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. and his wife Ann Cary was born into the First Families of Virginia, and named after an uncle who had served in the House of Burgesses, representing the College of William and Mary. He would have ten siblings (of whom seven reached adulthood). His somewhat younger brother John Nicholas (1756-1820) would serve as a Virginia legislator and U.S. Congressman before moving to New York, and Wilson Cary Nicholas (1761-1820) would serve alongside this man, but remained in Virginia and became its governor (after George's death). Their youngest brother, Philip Norborne Nicholas (1776-1849) would also serve as Virginia's attorney general (from 1800 to 1819) before becoming a Virginia judge. Only their brother Lewis Nicholas (1766-1840) failed to enter politics. Their eldest sister Sarah married John Hatley Norton of Winchester, Elizabeth Carter Nicholas (1753-1810) married Edmund Jennings Randolph (1753-1813) who became Governor of Virginia and U.S. Attorney General. However, their sisters Mary (1759-1796), Judith (b. 1765) and brother Robert (b. 1768) never reached adulthood. Military service