Littleton Waller Tazewell (December 17, 1774May 6, 1860) was a Virginia lawyer, plantation owner, and politician who served as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator and the 26th Governor of Virginia, as well as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Early and family life Tazewell, son of Henry Tazewell (1753-1799) and his wife Dorothy Elizabeth Waller (1754–77), was born in Williamsburg in the Colony of Virginia shortly before Christmas, 1774. His father was a clerk of the revolutionary conventions during the next two years. Although his mother died when he was a child, his maternal grandfather, lawyer Benjamin Waller, taught him Latin. Tazewell was privately tutored by John Wickham; he later graduated from the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg in 1791. He married Ann Stratton Nivison Tazewell (1785-1858), and they had at least six daughters and two sons, although only four daughters would survive their mother. Career After studying law, Tazewell was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1796 and commenced practice in James City County, Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates (a part-time position) representing James City County from 1798 to 1800, when he resigned to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Marshall in the Sixth United States Congress, serving in the federal legislature from November 26, 1800, to March 4, 1801. Politically, Tazewell was a Jeffersonian Republican, and upon the fissure of that party he associated with the Jacksonian Democrats. Tazewell moved to Norfolk, Virginia in 1802. He represented Norfolk Borough in the General Assemblies of 1804–1805 and 1805–1806 but was replaced by William Newsum, Jr. in the Assembly of 1806-1806. Nonetheless, on July 5, 1807, he defused the impressment crisis involving the British HMS Leopard in Norfolk harbor and the USS Chesapeake and Norfolk mayor Richard E. Lee. Tazewell again represented James City County in the House of Delegates from 1809 until 1812. Norfolk voters elected him to represent the Borough again in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1816 to 1817. After the War of 1812, Tazewell, General Taylor, George Newton, and others also formed the Roanoke Commercial Company, designed to expand traffic through the Dismal Swamp Canal and allow goods from as far away as mountainous Bedford County to ship through Norfolk. Tazewell also served as one of the commissioners of claims under the treaty with Spain, which ceded Florida in 1821. Virginia legislators elected