Our book for March is a true crime saga. For this is not only a whodunit, but it is a “who was he?” Who indeed was George Wythe?
George Whythe was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a Delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and America’s first Professor of law. A long-time mentor to Thomas Jefferson He was teacher and friend to George Washington, James Madison, John Marshall and Henry clay. The author recounts how the respected and beloved jurist with his two servants were poisoned by Wythe’s wastrel nephew. It reveals how the nephew got away with it due to the botched autopsy by three prominent physicians who were Wythe’s friends. It shows how the nephew escaped justice through the efforts of two top lawyers –a former and a future US Attorney General— who were also Wythe’s friends. It explains why the Virginia statutes drafted by Wythe himself led to the nephew’s acquittal.
More importantly, the book fills in a blank in the history books as to how so many of our highly-educated, founding fathers came out of the plantations of colonial Virginia to lead the new nation. The book gives an insight to the political, legal and social background of both Williamsburg and Richmond with their elitist and boomtown milieu. If you have or plan to visit Williamsburg, this is the book for you.
Bruce Chadwick spent 23 years as a journalist with the New York Daily News before earning a doctorate in American history in 1994 at Rutgers University, where he now teaches part time. He is an author of 28 books including a series on baseball and a series on the Civil War. His book, “Two American Presidents: Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, 1861 1865,” was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize.
I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation
Chadwick, Bruce. Read by Jake Williams. Reading time 10 hours 31 minutes.
U.S. History 2009.
Download I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation, DB70874
facilitated by Don Queen, Email: queens@pacbell.net
