William Gaston
William Gaston | |
---|---|
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 4th district | |
In office March 4, 1813 – March 3, 1817 | |
Preceded by | William Blackledge |
Succeeded by | Jesse Slocumb |
Personal details | |
Born | Federalist, Whig | September 19, 1778
Spouses | Susan Hay
(m. 1803; died 1804)Hannah McClure
(m. 1805; died 1813)Eliza Ann Worthington
(m. 1816; died 1819) |
Children | 5 |
Residence(s) | Coor-Gaston House Elmwood |
Education | Georgetown University |
Alma mater | Princeton University |
William J. Gaston (September 19, 1778 – January 23, 1844) was a jurist and
Early life
Gaston was born in New Bern, North Carolina, on September 19, 1778. He was the son of Dr. Alexander Gaston and Margaret Sharpe.[1]
He entered Georgetown Academy, a Roman Catholic school in Washington, D.C. in 1791 at the age of thirteen, becoming its first student. Due to illness shortly thereafter, he also became its first dropout. After Georgetown and some education in North Carolina, he studied law at the College of New Jersey (today Princeton University), graduating in 1796.
Career
Gaston was admitted to the bar in 1798 and commenced practice in New Bern. He was a member of the
Gaston did not run for Congress in 1816, returning to serve in the North Carolina Senate in 1818–1819. He again served in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1824, 1827, 1828, 1829, and 1831.[citation needed]
In 1832, Gaston delivered the annual graduation address at the University of North Carolina. Although he owned slaves,[4] his speech included what was the last public statement in North Carolina urging the abolition of slavery:
As your country grows in years, you must also cause it to grow in science, literature, arts and refinement. It will be for you to develope and multiply its resources, to check the faults of manners as they rise, and to advance the cause of industry, temperance, moderation, justice, morals and religion, all around you. On you too, will devolve the duty which has been too long neglected, but which cannot with impunity be neglected much longer, of providing for the mitigation, and (is it too much to hope for in North-Carolina?) for the ultimate extirpation of the worst evil that afflicts the Southern part of our Confederacy. Full well do you know to what I refer, for on this subject there is, with all of us, a morbid sensitiveness which gives warning even of an approach to it. Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is Slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprize—it is fatal to economy and providence—it discourages skill—impairs our strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain head. How this evil is to be encountered, how subdued, is indeed a difficult and delicate enquiry, which this is not the time to examine, nor the occasion to discuss. I felt, however, that I could not discharge my duty, without referring to this subject, as one which ought to engage the prudence moderation and firmness of those who, sooner or later, must act decisively upon it.[5][6]
Gaston was appointed to the
Gaston won elective office on several occasions, even though the Constitution of North Carolina before 1835 seemed to prohibit it, because Gaston was a
Personal life
Gaston married (first) on September 4, 1803 Susan Hay, who died in 1804. He married (second) on October 6, 1805 Hannah McClure, who died in 1813, and with whom he had three children:[12]
- Alexander Gaston (1807-1848), who married Eliza W. Jones and then Sarah Lauretta Murphy.[12]
- Susan Jane Gaston (1808-1866), who married Robert Donaldson Jr.[12]
- Hannah Margaret Gaston (1811-1835), who married Matthias E. Manly.[12]
Gaston married (third) on September 3, 1816 Eliza Ann Worthington, who died in 1819, and with whom he had two daughters:[12]
- Elizabeth Gaston (1817-1874), who married George W. Graham.[12]
- Catherine Jane Gaston (1819-1885), who did not marry.[12]
Gaston died at his office in Raleigh, North Carolina on January 23, 1844,[4] and was buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery, New Bern, N.C.[13] His home at New Bern, the Coor-Gaston House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.[14] Elmwood, his home at Raleigh, North Carolina, was listed in 1975.[14][15]
See also
- Thirteenth United States Congress
- Fourteenth United States Congress
References
- ^ Battle, Richard H. (1905). "William Gaston". In Ashe, Samuel A; Weeks, Stephen B.; Van Noppen, Charles L. (eds.). Biographical history of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present. Vol. 2. Greensboro, North Carolina: Charles L. Van Noppen. pp. 99–107.
- ^ American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
- ^ a b c Faulkner, Ronnie W. "William J. Gaston (1778-1844)". northcarolinahistory.org. North Carolina History Project. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- ^ Gaston, William (1832). Address delivered before the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies, at Chapel-Hill : June 20, 1832. This was the annual graduation address. Raleigh, North Carolina. p. 14.
- ^ Alfred L. Brophy, The Republics of Liberty and Letters: Progress, Union, and Constitutionalism at Graduation Addresses at the Antebellum University of North Carolina, North Carolina Law Review (2011).
- ^ Brophy, Alfred L. (June 2013). "The Nat Turner Trials". North Carolina Law Review. 91: 1817–1880.
- ^ Brophy, Alfred L. (2015). "Anti-Slavery Women and the Origins of American Jurisprudence" (PDF). Texas Law Review. 94: 115–145, at pp. 133–134.
- ^ Weeks, Stephen Beauregard (1893). "V". Church and State in North Carolina. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press.
- ^ Clarke, Richard Henry. "Rt. Rev. Andrew Byren, D.D.", Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States, Vol. 2, P. O'Shea, 1872, p. 265 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ "William Gaston". www.newadvent.org. Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g "William Gaston Papers, 1744-1950 (bulk 1791-1844)". finding-aids.lib.unc.edu. Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- ^ Survey Planning Unit Staff (September 1972). "Cedar Grove Cemetery" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ John Baxton Flowers, III & Mary Alice Hinson (July 1975). "Elmwood" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
External links
- United States Congress. "William Gaston (id: G000096)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- William Gaston Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Entry in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, William S. Powell, University of North Carolina Press.