Spencer Roane
| Spencer Roane | |
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| Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals | |
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In office April 13, 1795 – September 4, 1822 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 4, 1762 Essex County, Virginia |
| Died | September 4, 1822 (aged 60) Bath County, Virginia |
| Spouse(s) | Anne Henry |
| Children | William H. Roane, Fayette Roane |
| Alma mater | College of William and Mary |
| Occupation | Lawyer, politician, judge |
Spencer Roane (April 4, 1762 – September 4, 1822) was a Virginia lawyer, politician and jurist. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates for six years and a year in the Commonwealth's small executive branch (Council of State). The majority of his public career was as a judge, first of the General Court and later (for 27 years) on the Court of Appeals (which later became the Supreme Court of Virginia).
Roane was born in Tappahannock on April 4, 1762. His grandfather, William Roane, of Scots-Irish descent, had emigrated from Ireland like his three brothers circa 1741 to Gloucester County, Virginia, and married a local woman, who bore him six children. The family moved slightly north to Tappahannock in what was then Rappahannock County and prospered: Spencer's father William (who owned plantations in what had become Essex County in 1692, as well as nearby King and Queen County) served in the House of Burgesses from 1769 to until the American Revolutionary War, as the prosecutor (deputy King's attorney) for Essex County, and as a colonel of the county militia during the American Revolutionary War. As discussed further below, William married Judith Ball, who gave birth to a son Thomas, and then Spencer, who was named after a maternal relation.
Spencer Roane received his initial schooling at home, under a Scottish tutor named Bradfute. He then entered the College of William and Mary aged 14, to study law under the tutelage of George Wythe, from whom he gained great appreciation of Edward Coke and the English system of property rights, as well as constitutional law, but disliked studying equity. Roane also became a member of the relatively new Phi Beta Kappa Society, then a literary and oratory association, along with future U.S. Supreme Court justices Bushrod Washington and John Marshall. After graduating in January, 1780, as the college temporarily closed so its buildings could house French and American soldiers during the final Yorktown campaign of the American Revolutionary War, Roane traveled to Philadelphia for two years of additional legal studies in the then-nation's capitol.
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