Wilson Cary Nicholas
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Wilson Cary Nicholas (January 31, 1761October 10, 1820) was an American politician who served in the
U.S. Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...
from 1799 to 1804 and was the 19th Governor of Virginia from 1814 to 1816.


Early life

Nicholas was born in
Williamsburg Williamsburg may refer to: Places *Colonial Williamsburg, a living-history museum and private foundation in Virginia *Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood in New York City *Williamsburg, former name of Kernville (former town), California *Williams ...
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 January 31, 1761. The son of
Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. Robert Carter Nicholas (January 28, 1728-November 1780) was a Virginia lawyer, patriot, legislator and judge. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and its successor, the Virginia House of Delegates. He became the last treasurer of the C ...
and his wife Ann Cary was born into the
First Families of Virginia The First Families of Virginia, or FFV, are a group of early settler families who became a socially and politically dominant group in the British Colony of Virginia and later the Commonwealth of Virginia. They descend from European colonists who ...
and would have ten siblings (of whom seven reached adulthood). His eldest brother George Nicholas (1754–1799) became a Virginia legislator before moving to Kentucky, and his elder brother John Nicholas (1756–1820) would serve as a Virginia legislator and U.S. Congressman before moving to New York. Their youngest brother, Philip Norborne Nicholas (1776–1849), served as Virginia's attorney general from 1800 to 1819 before becoming a state judge. Only their brother Lewis Nicholas (1766–1840) failed to enter politics. Their eldest sister Sarah married John Hatley Norton of Winchester, and Elizabeth Carter Nicholas (1753–1810) married
Edmund Jennings Randolph Edmund Jennings Randolph (August 10, 1753 September 12, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States, attorney, and the seventh Governor of Virginia. As a delegate from Virginia, he attended the Constitutional Convention and helped to cre ...
(1753–1813), who preceded this man as Governor of Virginia. However, their sisters Mary (1759–1796), Judith (b. 1765), and brother Robert (b. 1768) never reached adulthood.


Education

As usual for his class, Nicholas received a private education and later attended the
College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...
. Nicholas studied law, probably with his father and possibly with
George Wythe George Wythe (; 1726 – June 8, 1806) was an American academic, scholar, and judge who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The first of the seven Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, signatories of the ...
.


Family

Nicholas married Margaret Smith (1765–1849) of Baltimore, and they had nine children. His brother George married Margaret's sister, Mary. Thus his brothers-in-law (the sisters' brother) were Samuel Smith and Robert Smith. Perhaps the most famous of their male descendants was Robert C. Nicholas, who moved to Louisiana and became a U.S. Senator, or Jane Hollins Nicholas (1798–1871), who became the wife of Thomas Jefferson's grandson
Thomas Jefferson Randolph Thomas Jefferson Randolph (September 12, 1792 – October 7, 1875) of Albemarle County was a Virginia enslaver, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, ...
(1792–1875), who spent years disentangling the financial arrears of his father-in-law's estate as mentioned below. Three of the children of Wilson Cary Nicholas and Margaret Smith Nicholas married Baltimore residents, including Mary Nicholas (who married John Patterson), Sarah (who married J. Howard McHenry), and John Nicholas (1800- ; who married Mary Jane Carr Hollins). Their brother Wilson Nicholas and sister Margaret died unmarried. Sidney Nicholas married Dabney Carr, and Cary Ann Nicholas married John Spear Smith, all of whom had children.


Revolutionary War

Nicholas served as a lieutenant in the
Albemarle County Albemarle County is a United States county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is Charlottesville, which is an independent city entirely surrounded by the county. Albemarle County is part of the Ch ...
Militia during the
American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
.


Career


Lawyer and planter

Nicholas was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1778 and returned to Albemarle County after the war. By 1794, he settled his family at a plantation along the
James River The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers in Botetourt County U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowli ...
, which he called "Mount Warren". Like his father and relatives, Nicholas farmed and operated his household using enslaved labor. Tobacco was the main crop in Albemarle County. Still, in the 1790s, Richmond merchant Robert Gamble convinced W.C. Nicholas to switch to wheat when everyone was aware of the damage erosion and tobacco's nutrient demands made to the local soil, and wheat prices had risen. However, Nicholas would have a longstanding feud with the Scott family over the location of the tobacco and wheat warehouses along the James River in Albemarle County. Nicholas temporarily won in 1789, as the town of Warren was established on his lands. Still, by 1817, the terminus of the Rockfish Gap turnpike became Scottsville. In the 1787 Virginia tax census, Nicholas enslaved 39 adults and 23 children, as well as 22 horses and 49 cattle and a four-wheeled phaeton in Albemarle County. In the final census in his lifetime, Nicholas enslaved 57 people in Albemarle County, of whom 32 worked in agriculture, including 9 girls and 8 boys under age 14, and 6 men and 6 women more than 45 years old.


Politician

Meanwhile, Albemarle County voters elected (and re-elected) Nicholas as one of their two members of the
Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...
several times, and he served in that part-time position from 1784 to 1785 and again from 1788 to 1789. Both he and his brother George (who served several times when W.C. Nicholas did not run) represented Albemarle County in the ratifying convention of 1788. They favored the adoption of the federal
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...
. During the convention's debates, on June 6, 1788, Wilson Cary Nicholas countered
Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 ld Style and New Style dates, O.S. May 18, 1736une 6, 1799) was an American politician, planter and orator who declared to the Virginia Conventions, Second Virginia Convention (1775): "Give me liberty or give m ...
's objection that correcting defects in the new national Constitution by way of the Article V convention would be challenging. Nicholas said, "The conventions which shall be so called will have their deliberations confined to a few points; no local interest to divert their attention; nothing but the necessary alterations. They will have many advantages over the last Convention. No experiments to devise; the general and fundamental regulations being already laid down." The Convention ultimately voted to ratify the federal Constitution, despite the opposition of most other representatives of Piedmont counties. The Nicholas family (and that of relative Edward Carter of Blenheim) remained Federalists for years, despite the popularity within the county of Thomas Jefferson. From 1794 to 1800, Nicholas again won election and several times on re-election as one of Albemarle County's two representatives in the House of Delegates. Fellow legislators elected Nicholas 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 U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
Henry Tazewell Henry Tazewell (November 27, 1753January 24, 1799) was an American politician who was instrumental in the early government of Virginia, and a US senator from Virginia. He was a slave owner, and served as President pro tempore of the United Stat ...
. Nicholas served as one of Virginia's senators from December 5, 1799, until May 22, 1804, when he resigned to become a port collector of
Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
1804–1807. Nicholas re-entered the public arena and won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the Tenth and Eleventh Congresses. He served from March 4, 1807, until his resignation on November 27, 1809. He was elected
Governor of Virginia The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the head of government of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. The Governor (United States), governor is head of the Government_of_Virginia#Executive_branch, executive branch ...
in 1814 and served until 1816, when he retired from office, as the state constitution forbade second terms.


Bank of the United States

Nicholas became president of the Richmond branch of the
Second Bank of the United States The Second Bank of the United States was the second federally authorized Second Report on Public Credit, Hamiltonian national bank in the United States. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bank was chartered from February 1816 to January ...
, charted by fellow Virginian and President
James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...
in 1816, after Nicholas' daughter Jane married
Thomas Jefferson Randolph Thomas Jefferson Randolph (September 12, 1792 – October 7, 1875) of Albemarle County was a Virginia enslaver, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, ...
, eldest and favorite grandson of Nicholas' longtime neighbor and friend,
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...
. The bank made several loans to the former president, who was beset with high expenses. However, Nicholas also speculated in western lands, which put him in serious debt during the
Panic of 1819 The Panic of 1819 was the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States that slowed westward expansion in the Cotton Belt and was followed by a general collapse of the American economy that persisted through 1821. The Panic ...
. Jefferson had endorsed two of Nicholas's notes for $10,000 each, believing that Nicholas' plantations were worth more than $350,000. However, after Nicholas' death, his lands were worth only a third of that amount, and the estate was insolvent, which indebtedness considerably worsened Jefferson's financial situation, as described below.


Death

He died on October 11, 1820, at Tufton, the plantation home of his daughter Jane and her husband, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, now part of Jefferson's Monticello near
Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...
. Nicholas was interred in the Jefferson burying ground at
Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary residence and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States. Jefferson began designing Monticello after inheriting l ...
, near Charlottesville. However, when Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, and an inventory was taken of his estate, debts attributable to Nicholas' insolvency far exceeded those incurred by Jefferson personally, which led to the sale of the furnishing and enslaved people of Monticello, and which was not finally extinguished by his descendants until 1878, following Jeff Randolph's death.


Legacy

The Virginia General Assembly named
Nicholas County, West Virginia Nicholas County is a county located in the central region of U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 24,604. Its county seat is Summersville. The county was created in 1818 by the Virginia General Assembly and ...
in his honor in 1818. Also named for him is a residence hall at William and Mary.


References


External links

* * Archival Records
A Guide to the Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas Executive Papers, 1814–1816
a
The Library of Virginia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholas, Wilson C 1761 births 1820 deaths Governors of Virginia United States senators from Virginia Virginia militiamen in the American Revolution Wilson Cary Nicholas College of William & Mary alumni Democratic-Republican Party United States senators Burials at Monticello Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia Democratic-Republican Party state governors of the United States Carter family (Virginia) Cary family (Virginia) 19th-century Virginia politicians 19th-century United States senators 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 18th-century United States senators 18th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly