Early Life
Henderson was born in Hanover County, Virginia. In 1762, he moved to Granville County, North Carolina, studied law, was admitted to the bar, practiced law, and in 1769 was appointed judge of the Superior Court. He was the presiding judge who condemned captured tax resistors to death during the War of the Regulation. Viewed as a member of the gentry, he had been a target of Regulator violence. He was a member of a Church of England parish in Williamsboro during this time.
After the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the organization of the state government in North Carolina, he was re-elected judge, but was prevented from accepting that position by his participation in a scheme organized under the name of the Transylvania Land Company.
Read more about this topic: Richard Henderson (jurist)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“To suppose such a thing possible as a society, in which men, who are able and willing to work, cannot support their families, and ought, with a great part of the women, to be compelled to lead a life of celibacy, for fear of having children to be starved; to suppose such a thing possible is monstrous.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)