264
VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
pointed judge of the criminal court of
Adams county in 1822. in 1824 judge of the
supreme court of Mississippi, and in 1829
chief justice, which place he held until he
was superseded by the amended constitu-
tion of 1832. He was chancellor of the state
from 1834 till 1839, in 1840 was again elected
judge of the supreme court, and at the ex-
piration of his term in 1843 ^^*^s chosen to
the state senate. Judge Turner was ap-
pointed in 1815 by the legislature to prepare
a digest of the statute laws of the territory,
which was completed and adopted in 181 6.
This digest contains all the statutes in force
a: that period, and is entitled "Statutes of
the Mississippi Territory" (Xatchez. 181^)).
He died in Xatchez. Mississippi, May 2^,
i860.
Ashley, William H., born in Powhatan county. Virginia, about 1778. He received a public school education, and in 1808 located in Upper Louisiana (now Missouri), where he became brigadier-general of militia. He was an enterprising fur trader, and in 1822 organized a company of three hundred men which went to the Rocky Mountains, and made trading relations with the Indians, and he realized a handsome fortune therefrom. He was lieutenant-gov- ernor of Illinois in 1820, and a congress- man from Missouri, from 1831 to 1837. He died near Booneville, Missouri, March 26, 1838.
Brodnax, WUliam H., descended from Robert Brodnax, a goldsmith of London and a native of Godmersham, county Kent, England, and son of William Brodnax, who was a student at William and Mary College in 1761. He studied at Hampden-Sidney College, from which he received the honor-
ary degree of A. M. in 1830: studied law
under Judge Sterling RuflSn, of Xorth
Carolina; settled in Dinwiddie county, Vir-
ginia, and practiced in the counties of
Brunswick, Greensville. Dinwiddie and the
city of Petersburg. He was brigadier-gen-
eral of Virginia militia, and chief marshal
it Vorktown. when La Fayette visited there
in 1824; member of the Virginia legislature
for many years, and of the state conven-
tion of 1829-1830, favoring a bill in 1832 for
the gradual abolition of slavery: an active
member of the \'irginia African Coloniza-
tion Society: presidential elector in 1S25.
He died in Dinwiddie county. October 23.
1834. He married Ann Eliza, daughter of
Thomas Withers.
Forsyth, John, born in Frederick county, \'irginia, October 22. 1780, a son of an Eng- lishman who fought in the American army during the war of the revolution. He was four years of age when the family removed to Georgia, and after proper preparation was sent to Princeton, from which he was graduated in the class of 1799. He then took up the study of law, and was admitted to the bar at Augusta. Georgia, in 1802. In 1808 he was elected attorney-general, and was subsequently elected^to a seat in con- gress as a representative of the Democratic party, serving from 1813 until 1818. in which year he became United States sena- tor. He resigned this office in 1819, having been appointed minister to Spain, and con- ducted the negotiations which resulted in the cession of Florida to the United States. From 1823 to 1827 he again served in con- gress, was then elected governor of Georgia, , and in 1829 was again chosen United States senator to fill the vacancy caused by the re-
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