James Herbert Gholson

James Herbert Gholson (1798 – July 2, 1848) was a congressman, planter, lawyer, and judge from Virginia. He was born in Gholsonville, Brunswick County, Virginia, to William Gholson and his wife Mary Saunders, into a family that was already prominent in local and state affairs. His uncle, Thomas Gholson Jr., had represented Brunswick County in the Virginia General Assembly and later in the United States House of Representatives, establishing a political tradition that James Herbert Gholson would later continue. He had at least one brother, Thomas Saunders Gholson, who would also become active in public life and later serve in the Second Confederate Congress.

Gholson received his early education from private tutors, reflecting the educational practices of Virginia’s planter class in the early nineteenth century. He later attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he pursued classical studies and prepared for a professional career. He graduated from Princeton in 1820, returning to Virginia to begin his legal training. On November 22, 1827, he married Charlotte L. Carey in Southampton, Virginia, further consolidating his ties within the region’s influential families.

After completing his legal studies, Gholson was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Percivals, Virginia. At the same time, he managed agricultural interests as a planter in Brunswick County. By 1830, census records indicate that his household included five white persons and twenty-five enslaved persons, illustrating both his economic position and his participation in the slaveholding society of antebellum Virginia. His legal practice and planting interests provided the foundation for his entry into public life, following the example set by his uncle.

Gholson’s political career began in the Virginia House of Delegates, where voters in Brunswick County elected him as one of their part-time representatives. He served in the House of Delegates from 1824 to 1828 and again from 1830 until 1833. During this period, he participated in legislative debates at a time when approximately sixty percent of Brunswick County’s population was enslaved, and he spoke in the Virginia General Assembly on matters related to Nat Turner and the Turner rebellion, which had occurred in nearby Southampton County in 1831. His service in the state legislature helped establish his reputation and prepared him for national office.

As a member of the Anti-Jacksonian Party representing Virginia, Gholson contributed to the legislative process during one term in the United States Congress. In 1833, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Congressman John Claiborne. Running as an Anti-Jacksonian, he won the seat with 37.62 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat George Coke Dromgoole and Independents William Osborne Goode and Alexander G. Knox. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, as the Second Party System was taking shape and national debates over executive power, economic policy, and sectional interests intensified. Gholson participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Virginia constituents as part of the broader Anti-Jacksonian, and emerging Whig, opposition to President Andrew Jackson.

Gholson sought reelection in 1834 but was defeated by George Coke Dromgoole, his sometime colleague in the Virginia House of Delegates and an unsuccessful opponent two years earlier. His 1835 loss to Dromgoole marked not only the end of his brief congressional career but also symbolized the decline of Anti-Jacksonian and Whig influence in Brunswick County. After leaving Congress, Gholson returned to Virginia and continued his public service in the judiciary. The Virginia General Assembly elected him as a judge of the circuit court for the Brunswick circuit, a position he held for many years. Late in his judicial career, in the year before his death, he became the subject of controversy over alleged partiality toward his brother, Thomas Saunders Gholson, though he remained on the bench.

James Herbert Gholson died in Brunswick County, Virginia, on July 2, 1848. He was buried at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, a resting place for many notable Virginians of the era. His life encompassed roles as planter, lawyer, state legislator, congressman, and circuit court judge, and he stood within a family network that exerted significant influence on Virginia’s political and legal institutions in the first half of the nineteenth century.