Robert Weakley

Robert Weakley ( -1845 was an American politician and a representative of Tennessee of the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Halifax County, Virginia on July 20, 1764, and he attended schools in Princeton, New Jersey. He joined the Revolutionary Army at the age of sixteen and served until the close of the Revolutionary War, fighting in the Battles of Alamance and Guilford Courthouse. [cite book|last=Vaughan|first=Virginia|coauthors=Charles Wann Crawford|title=Weakley County|publisher=Memphis State University Press|location=Memphis, TN|date=1983|pages=21|isbn=978-0-87870-188-9] In 1785 he moved to the part of North Carolina that later became Tennessee and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was a member of the North Carolina convention that ratified the Constitution of the United States in 1789.

In 1796 he was elected to the first Tennessee House of Representatives. He was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eleventh Congress, which lasted from March 4, 1809 to March 3, 1811. In 1819 he was appointed commissioner to treat with the Chickasaw Indians. In 1823 and 1824 he was a member of the Tennessee Senate, serving as its president in 1823. He was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1834.

Robert Weakley died near Nashville, Tennessee on February 4, 1845. He was interred in the family vault at "Lockland," on his estate in the suburbs of Nashville.

Weakley County, Tennessee is named for him. [cite book|title=Tennessee Blue Book|publisher=Tennessee Department of State|location=Nashville, TN|date=2007|volume=2007-2008|pages=513|url=http://www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/05-06/44-counties.pdf]

References

ources