1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Washington, Bushrod

WASHINGTON, BUSHROD (1762-1829), American jurist, nephew of George Washington, was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 15th of June 1762. He graduated in 1778 at the College of William and Mary, where he was an original member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society; was a member of a volunteer cavalry troop in 1780; studied law in Philadelphia in 1781, and began practice in his native county. He served in the House of Delegates in 1787, and in the following year sat in the convention which ratified for Virginia the Federal Constitution. After living in Alexandria for a short time he removed to Richmond and in 1798 was appointed an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court by President John Adams. He was George Washington's literary executor, and supervised the preparation of John Marshall's Life of Washington (5 vols., 1804-1807); and on Mrs Washington's death in 1802 he inherited Mount Vernon and a part of the estate. He died in Philadelphia on the 26th of November 1829.