Notes
This contract was made between Patrick Henry and Judge James Wilson for multiple plots of land in Virginia and North Carolina, which was part of a lengthy debacle between the two.
Judge Wilson was a Founding Father, legal scholar, jurist and statesman who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, and was a major participant in drafting the U.S. Constitution.
Born near Leven, Fife, Scotland, Wilson emigrated to Philadelphia in 1766. As a member of the Continental Congress in 1776, Wilson was a firm advocate for independence. He was the principal architect of the executive branch of the federal government and was an outspoken supporter of greater participatory democracy, a strong national government, and proportional legislative representation based on population. Along with Roger Sherman and Charles Pinckney, he proposed the Three-fifths Compromise, which counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purposes of representation in the House of Representatives. While preferring the direct election of the president through a national popular vote, he proposed the use of an electoral college, which provided the basis of the Electoral College system ultimately adopted by the convention.
A leading legal theorist, he was one of the first four Associate Justices appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington. In his capacity as the first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania), he taught the first course on the new Constitution to President Washington and his Cabinet in 1789 and 1790. After a long and successful career as a politician, lawyer, and professor, Wilson suffered a stroke and died on August 21, 1798, becoming the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to die.
Henry Lee acted as land agent between Patrick Henry and James Wilson in their land dealings. Henry owned land in North Carolina and in Norfolk and Princess Anne County in Virginia which he sold to Wilson. In 1795, Henry and Wilson met up in Richmond, and eventually drew up this agreement.
In exchange for bonds (which this document pertains to), and a promise to pay, Henry gave Wilson a contract. Wilson was slow to pay after experiencing financial ruin in the Panic of 1796-1797 and was in fact sent to debtors' prison on two occasions. Henry eventually learned that the land Wilson acquired from him had been re-sold. £1,100 was due to Henry by Wilson. In a letter to Henry Lee on July 13, 1797, Henry called the whole adventure with Wilson "an unfortunate Business".
According to Mark Couvillon, a former employee at Red Hill, this document was available for purchase in the late 1980s, but funds were not available at that time. In November 2022, the document was put up for sale by Gray Collections Inventory and was purchased by PHMF on November 25, 2022.