Bartholomew Dandridge was an early American planter, lawyer and patriot.
17 Facts About Bartholomew Dandridge
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Bartholomew Dandridge represented New Kent County in the House of Burgesses, all five Virginia Revolutionary Conventions, and once in the Virginia House of Delegates before fellow legislators selected him as a judge of what later became known as the Virginia Supreme Court.
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Bartholomew Dandridge's son William Dandridge was an officer in the Royal Navy who emigrated to Virginia and became a merchant and planter by 1715, owning Elsing Green plantation in King William County after his marriage, as well as a wharf in Hampton and a merchant ship.
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Bartholomew Dandridge became a friend of Virginia governor Alexander Spottswood, who appointed him to the Governor's Council and commissioned him to survey the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina; one son and one daughter of each family married into the other.
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Meanwhile, this man's father, John Bartholomew Dandridge followed his brother to the Virginia colony and became clerk of New Kent County in 1730, which position he held until his death in 1756.
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John Bartholomew Dandridge served as an officer in the local militia and operated a plantation called Chestnut Grove about four miles away, using enslaved labor.
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John Spottswood, when Bartholomew Dandridge was 19 years old, just under legal age.
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That Bartolomeo Bartholomew Dandridge may have lived with 9 Blacks in 1810, and lived with four free Colored people in 1820.
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Bartholomew Dandridge studied law and quickly made an outstanding reputation, as well as operated his mother-in-law's and wife's estate using enslaved labor.
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Bartholomew Dandridge helped to draft both the resolution dissolving the relationship with Great Britain and the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
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Bartholomew Dandridge participated in Commonwealth v Caton wherein some judges enunciated the principle of judicial review, but Judge Dandridge declined to express an opinion on that issue.
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Judge Bartholomew Dandridge remained on the Court until his death in 1785.
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Bartholomew Dandridge's will left his Rockhock plantation to his wife Mary, and his eldest son John received land in Doctor's Swamp as well as a Mill and Grist Mill on Diascund Creek.
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Judge Bartholomew Dandridge provided for his mother and mother-in-law in his will.
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Judge Bartholomew Dandridge manumitted two slaves, gave his daughter Anna Claiborne one negro and another to his granddaughter Elizabeth Dandride Claiborne, and divided the rest of his slaves among his children by his wife Mary, who had a life estate in them.
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The problem was that the judge's slaves were mortgaged because Bartholomew Dandridge was financially embarrassed following the American Revolutionary War.
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John Bartholomew Dandridge would follow in his father's career path, including representing New Kent County in the Virginia House of Delegates beginning in 1788.