Chatham Judge George H. Gilmer (1810-1874)

Inside the Chatham Courthouse, a collection of oil paintings line the walls in honor of the various judges who presided over the courtroom long ago. Among those portraits, Judge George H. Gilmer is one with a deep connection to not only Pittsylvania County history but some of the first families of Virginia. Judge Gilmer was the son of Peachy Ridgeway Gilmer and former Miss Mary House. An uncle of Peachy Gilmer who shared the same name married an aunt of the great explorer Meriwether Lewis from Lewis & Clark fame. Judge Gilmer’s great-grandfather, Dr. Thomas Walker (born around 1715), made his home at Castle Hill in Albemarle County and was a close friend to Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Walker was an early explorer of Kentucky who surveyed with Gen. Joseph Martin and named the Cumberland Gap. His mother, former Miss Susanna Peachy, reveals the source of the unique name passed down the family. Furthermore, Dr. Walker married Miss Mildred Thornton (born around 1721), who had very close connections with two of George Washington’s younger brothers. Mildred’s brother Francis Thornton of Fall Hill had a daughter named Mildred Thornton (born 1736) who married Charles Washington. Her other brother, John Thornton, also had a daughter named Mildred Thornton (born 1741) who married Samuel Washington. The family tree can get quite confusing, but this means that Judge Gilmer had second cousins who were Washingtons. 

Judge Gilmer purchased an impressive home at the north end of town known as “The Oaks.” When he acquired the property, Chatham was known as Competition and the house sat outside of the town boundary. The main road was extended and later the curved driveway at the home became known as Gilmer Terrace. In 1845 he married Miss Jane Grace Preston, a daughter of Virginia’s 20th Governor James Patton Preston. In turn, Gov. Preston was a son of Col. William Preston, the owner of historic “Smithfield” near Blacksburg, Virginia. Census records from 1850 show that Judge Gilmer lived near the county clerk William H. Tunstall and Dr. Chesley Martin, whose homes still stand. Judge Gilmer’s wife, however, passed away at the age of thirty without children. In 1856, Judge Gilmer joined another deep-rooted Virginian family when he remarried to Miss Elizabeth C. Carrington. Her maternal grandfather William H. Cabell served as Virginia’s 14th Governor while her paternal grandfather was Judge Paul S. Carrington who practiced law between 1755 and 1807 throughout multiple counties in southern Virginia. His home “Mulberry Hill” still stands (with later additions) in Charlotte County, Virginia. Elizabeth and Judge Gilmer raised three children together. In 1860, the census listed George Gilmer as a judge of the circuit court.

Judge Gilmer’s children grew up to find their own interesting connections with historical figures. His daughter Louisa married Robert Holt Easley, first president of the Bank of Halifax and relative of the Stone family in eastern Pittsylvania County. Another daughter named Mary became the wife of John Wimbish Craddock Sr., owner of the Craddock-Terry Shoe Corporation in Lynchburg, Virginia. Lastly, Judge Gilmer’s only son George Harmer Gilmer was also heavily involved with Craddock-Terry in many capacities, from working as a traveling salesman to a company superintendent by the time of his death in 1944. George married Miss Marguerita F. Patton, a cousin to General George Patton III and a descendant of Brigadier General Hugh Mercer of Fredericksburg, who lost his life at the Battle of Princeton in 1777. Judge Gilmer’s brother named John Gilmer also married into the Patton family and served as a lawyer in Chatham throughout the second half of the 1800s. John’s son James Carrington Gilmer served very briefly as the postmaster of Dry Fork Depot for about a month in 1890. 

Judge Gilmer last appeared in census records in 1870 when he lived near dry goods merchant James A. Lovelace, circuit court clerk John L. Hurt, and Mrs. Mary A. Ragsdale, the widow of Daniel Coleman Ragsdale who was a tobacconist and early postmaster at Pittsylvania Court House. Judge Gilmer lived to be sixty-three years old and was buried at Chatham Burial Park in 1874. It is fascinating to see how many of the early administrators who served Pittsylvania County were also descendants of those who helped shape the nation before the American Revolution.