James Keith

James Keith (September 7, 1839 – January 2, 1918) was a Virginia lawyer, soldier, politician and judge, who served as the chief judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia (then called the Supreme Court of Appeals) from 1895 to 1916. Early and family life Born in Fauquier County, Virginia in 1839 to Circuit Judge Isham Keith (1798–1863) and his wife, the former Juliette Chilton, James Keith received his early education in local schools and studied law under Professor John B. Minor at the University of Virginia. His grandfather, Thomas Keith, fought in the American Revolutionary War. His father also owned a woolen mill at Waterloo. In 1860, Isham Keith owned 17 enslaved people, and his son James also may have owned at least one slave. In 1873, Keith married Lilias Gordon Morson (1848–1877) in Fauquier County. She was the daughter of Arthur Alexander Morson of Richmond and his Fauquier-born wife, Maria Scott. Ten years after her death, in 1887 the widower married her younger sister, Frances Backsdale Morson (1855–1908), who had a daughter and a son: Juliet Chilton Crockett (1888–1967) and Arthur Alexander Morson Keith (1891–1979). American Civil War