23 Facts About William Grayson

William Grayson was a planter, lawyer and statesman from Virginia.

William Grayson became the first member of the United States Congress to die while holding office.

William Grayson was born in 1742 to Benjamin and Susannah William Grayson at Belle Aire Plantation.

William Grayson's father had emigrated from Scotland to the confluence of the Potomac River and Quantico Creek which became Dumfries, Virginia.

William Grayson's father remarried, to another widow, Sarah Ball Ewell, who had children by prior marriage, but none in this marriage before her husband died in 1757.

However, William Grayson was well-provided for from the personal estate, especially compared to his future commander, George Washington.

One of the William Grayson plantations included a house on a hill above Dumfries that became known as "William Grayson's Hill" and later "Battery Hill".

William Grayson received his first schooling locally under Charles Tyler, and later became known for familiarity with Latin and Greek as well as English history.

William Grayson's guardian allowed his education in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, and William Grayson sailed to England.

When his brother and guardian Benjamin faced financial troubles in 1762, William Grayson returned home and as his need for a guardian ended, found that his spending abroad had diminished the capital he had inherited.

William Grayson became involved in the political prelude to the Revolution in Virginia.

William Grayson was on various Committees of Correspondence and military preparedness, as did nearby planters, including Richard Henry Lee with whom he would serve as the inaugural US Senators from Virginia.

In Scott's absence, Colonel William Grayson took temporary command of the brigade, which was in the vanguard of an assault as part of Charles Lee's Advance Guard.

In 1778, William Grayson served on a commission dealing with war prisoners.

In 1781 William Grayson returned to Dumfries and his legal practice.

William Grayson was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1780.

William Grayson replaced Arthur Lee and the following year would be replaced by the same man, who was then removed from office as disqualified by his federal office.

William Grayson had not stood for re-election because he was a delegate to the Confederation Congress from 1785 to 1787.

William Grayson experienced the inflation caused by Virginia and other states issuing paper fiat currency during the Revolutionary War.

William Grayson continued to believe that the Philadelphia Convention had struck precisely the wrong balance.

William Grayson was the first member of the United States Congress to die in office.

Rev Spence Grayson survived another eight years, and both are interred in the Grayson family vault, with the current address at 2338 W Longview Drive, Woodbridge.

William Grayson commanded a squadron of gunboats off Georgia, where he settled.