Early Life and Career
Westcott was born in Alexandria, Virginia where his father, James Sr., was transitioning from newspaper publisher to politician. James Jr.'s grandfather was a captain in the American Revolutionary War. When Westcott was young, his family moved to New Jersey where his father established a political career in the Assembly and as Secretary of State of New Jersey from 1830 to 1840. James Jr. married Rebecca Bacon Sibley on August 7, 1821. He studied law and was admitted to the bar while still in his early 20s. In 1830, he moved to the Florida Territory and was appointed territory secretary by Andrew Jackson. His duties sometimes included performing the duties of the governor when the governor was away — all while barely 30 years old.
Read more about this topic: James Westcott
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)