Francis T. Anderson

Biography

A native of Botetourt County, Virginia, Anderson graduated from Washington and Lee, then known as Washington College, at the age of nineteen in 1827. He read law under Fleming B. Miller and Chancellor Creed Taylor and, at twenty-one, was admitted to the bar. He privately taught a small number of law students for several years, but the demands of his practice compelled him to cease giving private instruction. In 1855, he moved north to Rockbridge County, and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1861. However, due to poor health, he declined to stand for re-election in 1863.

Anderson resumed the practice of law in 1869 and, in 1870, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeals (today, the Supreme Court of Virginia). He remained on the bench until 1883, when he retired and resumed his private practice. From 1879 until his death in 1887, Anderson served as Rector of Washington and Lee University.