Robert Weakley (July 20, 1764February 4, 1845) was an American politician who represented

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

from 1809 to 1811.

Early life

Weakley was born in Halifax County in the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

on July 20, 1764, and he attended schools in

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

. He married Jane Locke, of Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1791. They had four children, Mary, Narcissa, Robert Locke and Jane Baird.

Career

Weakley joined the Revolutionary Army at the age of sixteen and served until the close of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

, fighting in the battles of Alamance and

Guilford Courthouse The Battle of Guilford Court House was fought on 15 March 1781 during the American Revolutionary War, near Greensboro, North Carolina. A 2,100-man British force under the command of Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis defeated Major General Na ...

. On April 18, 1782, Weakley left his home in Halifax County with a horse, bridle and saddle, and $1.75. He went to Rowan County, North Carolina to study surveying with General Griffith Rutherford. During the winter of 1783, he moved to the Cumberland settlements, and set up residence on Whites Creek in Davidson County. He moved to his estate in Nashville, "Lockeland", in 1800. Weakley was also a cofounder of the town of Jefferson in Rutherford County, Tennessee. He and Thomas Bedford, a fellow land speculator, were granted as assignees a North Carolina land grant and had laid out 102 town lots and a Public Square by 1803, at the junction of the East and West Forks of the Stones River. The town of Jefferson was the first county seat of government for Rutherford County, and contributed immensely to the early economic development of the area during the first decade after its formation. The Stones River provided for direct access for goods and commodities such as timber and other cash crops to be shipped by flat boat to the Cumberland River and Nashville and thereby to far away ports such as New Orleans, Pittsburg, and beyond. In 1819, Weakley, along with several other notable early Nashville residents such as Dr. John Shelby, petitioned the Tennessee Assembly for permission to establish the Nashville Bridge Company. Weakley and Shelby subsequently served as commissioners for the newly formed company. By 1823, the Nashville Bridge Company's first bridge project, which was also the first covered bridge to span the Cumberland River, was completed near the Public Square in Nashville at a cost of $75,000. This bridge was demolished in 1851 to allow for larger and taller steamboats to access the commercial wharfs at Nashville. In 1785, Weakley moved to the part of

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

that later became

and engaged in

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

pursuits. He was a member of the North Carolina convention that ratified the

Constitution of the United States The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

in 1789. In 1791 he was the brigade inspector of the militia of Mero District, in what was then the

Southwest Territory The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory or the old Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was ...

. In 1796 he was elected to the first

Tennessee House of Representatives The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Constitutional requirements According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...

. In 1798, he was a colonel in the 2nd Regiment of the Davidson County Militia. He served in the Tennessee Senate in 1799, 1803, 1807 and 1819. Weakley was elected as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

to the Eleventh Congress, which lasted from March 4, 1809 to March 3, 1811. In 1819, Weakley was appointed commissioner to treat with the Chickasaw Indians. He served as Speaker of the Tennessee Senate from 1819 to 1821 and from 1823 to 1825. He was a member of the state constitutional convention in 1834.

Death and legacy

Weakley died near

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

on February 4, 1845 (age 80 years, 199 days). He was

interred Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and object ...

in the family vault at "Lockeland," on his estate in what is now East Nashville. He was reinterred at Nashville's Mount Olivet Cemetery in 1947.

Weakley County, Tennessee Weakley County is a county located in the northwest of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 32,902. Its county seat is Dresden. Its largest city is Martin, the home of the University of Tennessee at Martin. Th ...

is named for him.

References

External links

* – original gravesite * {{DEFAULTSORT:Weakley, Robert 1764 births 1845 deaths Tennessee state senators Members of the Tennessee House of Representatives Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century members of the Tennessee General Assembly