Edmund Pendleton (9 September 1721-23 October 1803) was Governor of Virginia from 16 August 1775 to 5 July 1776 (preceding Patrick Henry) and the Federalist Chief Justice of Virginia from 24 December 1788 to 23 October 1803 (preceding Peter Lyons).
Biography[]
Edmund Pendleton was born in Caroline County, Virginia in 1721, and he became a lawyer in 1741 and became a justice of the peace ten years later. A protege of John Robinson, Pendleton became a mentor to his nephews John Penn and John Taylor of Caroline, and he served in the House of Burgesses from 1752 to 1776. Pendleton served in the Continental Congress and was a conservative voice in Virginia politics on the eve of the American Revolutionary War, opposing Patrick Henry, George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Nelson's support for the arming of the Virginia militia to support Massachusetts against the British Army. He also succeeded in removing references to slavery from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, thus winning the support of slaveowners. Pendleton served as acting governor from 1775 to 1776 and thereafter as a judge, serving as Chief Justice of Virginia from 1788 until his death in 1803.