Francis T. Brooke

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Francis T. Brooke
4th Chief Justice of Virginia
In office 1823 – March 3, 1851
Preceded by	William Fleming
Succeeded by	Henry St. George Tucker, Sr.
Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court
In office March 4, 1811 – March 3, 1851
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates from the Essex County district
In office November 11, 1794 – November 8, 1796
Preceded by	George Williams Smith
Succeeded by	Humphrey B. Brooke
Member of the Virginia Senate from the Spotsylvania, Culpeper, Madison and Orange Counties district
In office July 3, 1799 – December 3, 1804
Preceded by	French Strother
Succeeded by	Robert Taylor
Personal details
Born	August 27, 1763 Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Died	March 3, 1851(1851-03-03) (aged 87) Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Spouse(s)	Mary Randolph Spotswood, Mary Champe Carter
Relatives	Robert Brooke (brother) Dabney Herndon Maury (cousin)
Profession	Lawyer, soldier, politician, judge
Military service
Allegiance	United States of AmericaVirginia
Branch/service	Virginia Militia
Years of service	1776-1810
Rank	lieutenant, major, colonel, brigadier general
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War

Francis Taliaferro Brooke (August 27, 1763 – March 3, 1851) was a Virginia lawyer, soldier, politician and judge. He served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly before fellow legislators elected him to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals (which later became the Supreme Court of Virginia), where he served decades and became that body's fourth President (now called Chief Justice).

Brooke was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. His parents were Richard Brooke of Smithfield and Ann Hay Taliaferro (of one of the First Families of Virginia). They were the uncle and aunt of Major General Dabney Herndon Maury. His elder brother Robert Brooke would become governor of Virginia, and another brother, Lawrence Brooke, was the surgeon of the Bon Homme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones. Like his brothers, Brooke received a private education from tutors and in private grammar schools in Fredericksburg.

During the American Revolution Brooke was active in the militia and served on General Greene's staff with the rank of lieutenant. At the end of the war he studied medicine for a year, but then decided to study law in his brother Robert’s office. Francis T. Brooke was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of Virginia.^[1]

After admission to the bar in 1788, Brooke traveled westward to the Ohio River and practiced in Monongalia and Harrison counties (in what after the American Civil War would become West Virginia). However, Brooke returned to the Chesapeake bay area and was elected Commonwealth’s Attorney (prosecutor) for Essex County, Virginia, where he also had a private legal practice and would be was elected to the House of Delegates in 1794. Two years later he moved nearer his family's home in Fredericksburg and won election to the State Senate in 1800.^[2]

After the Revolution, Brooke remained active in the Virginia militia and was promoted to the rank of major in 1796, lieutenant colonel in 1800 and brigadier general in 1802. He was an original member of the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati.

In 1811, fellow legislators elected Brooke a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, his fellow judges made his president of that court for eight years, from 1823 to 1831. The legislature re-elected Brooke as judge in 1831, and he continued in office until his death on March 3, 1851.

Judge Francis Brooke married twice, and survived his eldest son, who died in Macau. In 1791, Francis Brooke married Mary Randolph Spottswood Brooke (1775–1803) and their children who survived to adulthood included John Francis Brooke (1795–1849), Robert Spotswood Brooke (1800–1851) and Mary Randolph Spotswood Brooke Berkeley (1803–1875). The widower remarried in 1804, to Mary Champe Carter Brooke (1788–1846), who bore John Brooke (b. 1805), Francis Edward Brooke (1813–1874) and Helen Brooke Forman (1821–1899).^[3] Judge Brooke was buried at the Brooke family cemetery in Spotsylvania County, where he joined his first wife, and would be joined by other family members. His grandson, also Francis Taliaferro Brooke (1846-1913), would join the Confederate States Army as a private and survive the American Civil War, in which the family lost all their enslaved property.