Thomas Saunders Gholson

Thomas Saunders Gholson (December 9, 1808 – December 12, 1868) was a Virginia lawyer, judge and Confederate politician. Early and family life He was born in Gholsonville, Brunswick County, Virginia to Major William Gholson (1775–1831) and his wife Mary Saunders (1776–1842), and was the younger brother of James H. Gholson (1798–1848). Their uncle Thomas Gholson, Jr. (1780–1816) had served in the Virginia General Assembly and as U.S. Congressman, before dying in Brunswick County, Virginia of the lingering effects of a wound received during the defense of Washington D.C. during the War of 1812. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1827. On May 14, 1829 Thomas Gholson married his cousin, the congressman's daughter Cary Ann Gholson (1808–1896), and they had two daughters and a son. Rev. John Yates Gholson (1830–1886) married in New Orleans and later moved to Alabama, and Georgiana F. Gholson Walker (1833–1904) married and moved to New York City. Career After reading law and being admitted to the Virginia bar, around 1836, Thomas Gholson also invested in the Brunswick Land Company, as did his elder and politically active brother and several other prominent local men (including Rev. Richard Kidder Meade). Each bought $1000 shares of the company, which bought, traded and speculated in lands in Texas. In 1847, the Virginia House of Delegates received a complaint against his brother Judge James H. Gholson, alleging favoritism towards Thomas Gholson, among others. When the complainant, R. H. Collier, who had also publicly assaulted one of the Gholsons, refused to testify under oath before the appointed committee, the legislative investigation was dropped, but his brother died the following year. Thomas Gholson was a legal and possibly legislative mentor to Hugh White Sheffey who served in the legislature and also became Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates during the American Civil War, and later a judge.