Mercer, James, 1736-1793

<p>James Mercer (February 26, 1736 – October 31, 1793), was an Virginia lawyer, military officer, planter, jurist and politician.</p>

<p>Mercer was born in Stafford County, Virginia at his family's Marlborough plantation on February 26, 1736. His mother, the former Catherine Mason, was the youngest daughter of George Mason II, a prominent planter and his second wife Elizabeth Waugh, daughter of Rev. John Waugh (1630-1706). His father John Mercer had emigrated from Ireland and become a prominent lawyer, planter and land speculator. He married twice, although most of his children died before reaching legal age. James' mother Catherine bore ten children before her death in 1750 (when James was 14) and his stepmother Ann Roy (daughter of Dr. Mungo Roy of Essex County) bore nine children and survived her husband by two years.</p>

<p>Thus James Mercer was born into the First Families of Virginia and received a private education suitable to his class, as well as access to his father's library, if not the best, then one of the best in the area. At the time, Virginia had a primogeniture law so that landed estates passed to the firstborn son, clearly not James, as he knew in particular because his father was the guardian of and responsible for the education of his cousin George Mason, the firstborn son of George Mason III, who had died in a ferry accident. In 1753, John Mercer provided for James' future by apprenticing him to a master carpenter and builder, William Waite, and also bound with him four enslaved young Black men, so that at the end of the apprenticeship, Mercer would be able to build houses, churches, courthouses and other buildings in the region. Although Virginia did not abolish primogeniture until 1785, either the apprenticeship changed James' career path or his father reconsidered, for soon (like his two elder brothers who survived infancy and are discussed below), he traveled to Williamsburg for higher education under prominent lawyer George Wythe and others, and graduated from the College of William and Mary about 1755.</p>

<ul><b>RACES</b>
<li>12/31/1779 VA Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li>12/31/1778 VA Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
</ul>

MERCER, James, (Brother of John Francis Mercer), a Delegate from Virginia; born at ``Marlborough,'' Stafford County, Va., February 26, 1736; received private schooling at home; was graduated from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va.; served as a captain in the French and Indian War; commander of Fort Loudoun, Winchester, Va., in 1756; studied law and was admitted to the bar; active in pre-Revolutionary affairs; member of the Virginia House of Burgesses 1762-1775; member of the Virginia conventions of 1774, 1775, and 1776; member of the committee of public safety in 1775 and 1776; member of the State constitutional convention in May 1776; Member of the Continental Congress in 1779; served as a judge of the General Court of Virginia 1779-1789; trustee and president of the Fredericksburg Academy 1786-1790; judge of the first Virginia Court of Appeals from 1789 until his death in Richmond, Va., on October 31, 1793; interment in St. John's Church Cemetery.