William Gaston

For the 19th century Governor of Massachusetts, see

William Gaston (Massachusetts).
For the Dallas
landowner, see William H. Gaston.
William J. Gaston (September 19, 1778 January 23,

the State House of Commons from 1807 to 1809, and

as its speaker in 1808. He was again a member of the
State senate in 1812, 1818, and 1819, and was elected as
a Federalist to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses
(March 4, 1813 March 3, 1817). While in Congress,
he obtained a federal charter for Georgetown University.
In 1814 Gaston was elected a member of the American
Antiquarian Society.[2]
Gaston was not a candidate for renomination to Congress
in 1816. He again served in the State house of representatives in 1824, 1827, 1828, 1829, and 1831. In
1832 Gaston delivered a graduation address at the University of North Carolina, which emphasized the duties
of the graduates to themselves and their communities and
urged them to take action against slavery.[3] Three years
later he gave an address to the Princeton student literary societies.[4] Gaston was appointed judge of the North
Carolina Supreme Court in 1833, holding the position until his death. As a justice of the North Carolina Supreme
Court Gaston wrote a decision that limited the control
that slave-owners could exercise over enslaved humans.[5]
Interestingly, as a legislator, Gaston had introduced the
bill that established the state Supreme Court as a distinct
body in 1818. He was also a member of the State constitutional convention in 1835 and declined a nomination
for election to the United States Senate in 1840.
Gaston won elective oce on several occasions, even
though the Constitution of North Carolina before 1835
seemed to prohibit it, because Gaston was a Roman
Catholic.[6] He was largely responsible, as a member of
the constitutional convention of 1835, for removing ocial discrimination against Catholics from North Carolina
law. He died in Raleigh, North Carolina, on January 23,
1844, and was interred in Cedar Grove Cemetery, New
Bern, N.C.[7] His home at New Bern, the Coor-Gaston
House, was listed on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1972.[8] Elmwood, his home at Raleigh, North
Carolina, was listed in 1975.[8][9]

William Gaston.

1844) was a jurist and United States Representative from

North Carolina. Gaston is the author of the ocial state
song of North Carolina, The Old North State. Gaston
County, North Carolina is named after him, as are Lake
Gaston, the city of Gastonia, North Carolina, and Gaston
Hall at Georgetown University.

Biography

Gaston was born in New Bern, North Carolina, the

son of Dr. Alexander Gaston and Margaret (ne
Sharpe) Gaston.[1] He entered Georgetown College in
Washington, D.C., at the age of thirteen, becoming its
rst student. Due to illness shortly thereafter, he also became its rst dropout.

2 See also

After Georgetown and some education in North Carolina,

he graduated from Princeton University in 1796, where
he studied law. Gaston was admitted to the bar in 1798
and commenced practice in New Bern, North Carolina.
He was a member of the State senate in 1800, served in

Thirteenth United States Congress

Fourteenth United States Congress

1

References

[1] Biographical history of North Carolina, publisher: Charles

L. Van Noppen in Greensboro, N.C.,1905 and edited by
Samuel A'Court Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks and Charles L.
Van Noppen
[2] American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
[3] The Republics of Liberty and Letters: Progress, Union, and
Constitutionalism at Graduation Addresses at the Antebellum University of Alabama,
[4] Id.
[5] Alfred L. Brophy, The Nat Turner Trials, North Carolina Law Review (June 2013), volume 91: 1817-80.
[6] Weeks, Stephen Beauregard (1893). V. Church and
State in North Carolina. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press.
[7] Survey Planning Unit Sta (September 1972). Cedar
Grove Cemetery (pdf). National Register of Historic
Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State
Historic Preservation Oce. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
[8] National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-07-09.
[9] John Baxton Flowers, III, and Mary Alice Hinson (July
1975). Elmwood (pdf). National Register of Historic
Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State
Historic Preservation Oce. Retrieved 2015-05-01.

Sources
Schauinger, Joseph Herman. William Gaston, Carolinian (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1949).
William Gaston at the Biographical Directory of the
United States Congress
William Gaston at Find a Grave

External links
North Carolina History Project
Catholic Encyclopedia
William Gaston Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Entry in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, William S. Powell, University of North Carolina Press.

EXTERNAL LINKS

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