William Grayson (376)

William Grayson (1736–12 March 1790) was a lawyer, soldier, slaveholder and statesman, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1780. He was born in Virginia to a merchant family, and attended the College of Philadelphia, graduating in 1760. He likely followed by pursuing legal training at the University of Edinburgh because afterwards he returned to Virginia and began his own legal practice.. He entered public life at the Westmorland County meeting that adopted the Association of 1766, the first association of men committed to boycotting British goods. Greyson served in the Virginia convention in 1775 before becoming a colonel of infantry in the Virginia army the following year. Alongside Washington, Grayson fought at Valley Forge, and the battles of Long Island and White Plains. He became a regimented commander, then fought in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmoth before becoming a commissioner of the Board of War in 1779. His time in public office continued five years later when he joined the Virginia General Assembly. During his last decade in public office he supported the Northwest Ordinance, which notably banned slavery in the new territories (though his support for the ban had more to do with eradicating potential Northwestern tobacco market competitors for the benefit of slaveholding Virginians such as himself). During this time he also took up the anti-federalist mantle, earning the honor of being Virginia’s first senator in the process. He was not in his new office for long, however, as he died of gout in between sessions of the First Congress. In his will he freed the enslaved people working under him only if they were born after the Declaration of Independence. (ANB)