By Claire Weaver
While he was building an addition to the governor’s palace in the mid 1750’s, Richard Taliaferro also found the time to design another brick house on the palace green for his daughter Elizabeth and her new husband, George Wythe (pronounced “with”). During the Revolutionary War, the Wythe home would also serve as a military headquarters for General George Washington as well as a residence for Thomas Jefferson when he came to Williamsburg as a Virginia General Assembly delegate in 1776.
George Wythe himself did a great deal for his colony’s independence besides donating the use of his home. Before the revolution, he drafted the 1764 protest to the Stamp Act. During the war, he contributed to the first Virginia constitution and co-designed the Virginia seal. He was also the first Virginian to sign the Declaration of Independence, which was drafted by his former law student, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson looked up to his mentor Wythe so much that he called him “the Cato of his country.”
In 1779, The College of William and Mary appointed Wythe to become the first American law professor. Wythe’s teaching style, which incorporated both theory and practice, remains influential in today’s law schools.
Claire Weaver, a student at The College of William and Mary, is a Colonial Williamsburg Foundation intern.
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