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Preferred Citation:

Tazewell Family Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

Acquisition Information:

Purchase

Biographical Information:

Littleton Waller Tazewell (December 17, 1774 - May 6, 1860) was a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator from and governor of Virginia.

Tazewell, son of Henry Tazewell, was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. He was privately tutored by John Wickham and later graduated from the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg in 1791. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1796 and commenced practice in James City County, Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1798 to 1800. He was elected to the Sixth United States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Marshall and served from November 26, 1800, to March 3, 1801.

He moved to Norfolk, Virginia in 1802. He held public office again in 1804 in the Virginia General Assembly until 1806. He again served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1816 to 1817. He was one of the commissioners of claims under the treaty with Spain ceding Florida in 1821.

Tazewell was elected in 1824 to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Taylor. He was reelected in 1829, and served from December 7, 1824, to July 16, 1832, when he resigned. While in the Senate, he was President pro tempore of the Senate during the Twenty-second United States Congress and chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He was Governor of Virginia from 1834 until 1836. He then retired from public life.

Politically, Tazewell was a Jackson Republican. he was elected to the U.S. House in 1800 to complete the term in the Sixth Congress when John Marshall resigned. He was senator from 1824 to 1832.

Tazewell died in Norfolk, Virginia, May 6, 1860. He was interred on his estate on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and reintered in 1866 in Elmwood Cemetery, Norfolk.

Tazewell, Virginia, Tazewell County, Virginia and Tazewell County, Illinois are named in honor of him and his father.

Tazewell was the maternal grandfather of Littleton Waller Tazewell Bradford (1848-1918), a prominent Virginia politician and a founder of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

Scope and Contents

Papers, 1797-1850, of the Tazewell family. Includes letter, 1797, written by Samuel H. Smith to Henry Tazewell concerning his paper, The Universal Gazette and discussing foreign affairs; and letters, 1804-1850, written by Henry S. Foote and William Nelson, Jr. to Littleton Waller Tazewell; and one anonymous letter addressed to Tazewell and John Tyler (1790-1862) concerning army promotions.

Related Material

See also the Mss. 92 T19 Tazewell Family Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary; and  Mss. 39.2 T25 Henry Tazewell Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• American periodicals--Virginia--History
• College of William and Mary--Alumni and alumnae
• Compromise of 1850
• Correspondence
• United States--Politics and Government
• United States. Army--Appointments, promotions, salaries, etc
• Virginia--Governors