September 12, 1776

On July 4, 1776, twenty-two-year-old Edmund Randolph became the first attorney general of Virginia. The influential Randolph family had experienced tumult during the first year and a half of the Revolutionary War. Edmund’s father, John, remained loyal to the king and left the colonies. Meanwhile, Peyton Randolph, Edmund’s uncle and John’s brother, served as president of the Continental Congress. He died suddenly in October 1775, and Edmund left his position as aide-de-camp to George Washington and returned to Virginia, where he served as executor for his uncle’s estate and became more involved in colonial politics. His father had been the king’s attorney for Virginia, but in the summer of 1776, Edmund became the attorney general for revolutionary Virginia, and later, in 1789, he became the first United States Attorney General.

In the summer of 1776, Edmund Randolph also got married, as announced in the Pennsylvania Evening Post. On August 29, he wed Elizabeth Nicholas, “Betsey” according to the newspaper, who was the daughter of Robert C. Nicholas, one of James City County’s representatives to the Virginia Convention. Edmund and Elizabeth had been born in Williamsburg in August 1753 within hours of each other and had grown up together.

The Pennsylvania Evening Post
Printed by Benjamin Towne

MARRIAGES.—In Virginia, Edmund Randolph, Esq; Attorney-General, to Miss Betsey Nicholas, second daughter of the Treasurer.