Background
James Heath was born on July 8, 1792, in Virginia, United States. He was the son of John Heath, first president of the Phi Beta Kappa society and a member of the Third and Fourth congresses, and his wife Sarah Ewell.
(Excerpt from Whigs and Democrats, or Love of No Politics:...)
Excerpt from Whigs and Democrats, or Love of No Politics: A Comedy in Three Acts Mrs. Roundtree. You're an obstinate, contrary man, Mr. Roundtree, - that you are. Our poor dear Kate has only been at home three days from school, and there's nothing but constant grumbling about the trifling expense of her edication. It is barbarous treatment in you - and so it is. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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James Heath was born on July 8, 1792, in Virginia, United States. He was the son of John Heath, first president of the Phi Beta Kappa society and a member of the Third and Fourth congresses, and his wife Sarah Ewell.
Elected to the legislature from Prince William County in 1814, during his third term James Heath became a member of the Privy Council and in 1819 was made state auditor, continuing in this office for thirty years and finding recreation in occasional excursions into literature. In 1828 Heath published anonymously Edgeley, or The Family of the Fitzroyals, a two-volume romance of plantation life in Virginia during the closing years of the Revolution, with an aristocratic and patriotic hero and an equally conventional love plot. Although Poe praised it and George Tucker ranked it with the novels of Cooper, Bird, and Kennedy, its circulation was disappointingly small.
Six years later, when its publisher, Thomas Woollaston White, determined to establish a monthly magazine in Richmond, he obtained, gratuitously, Heath’s advice and assistance through the better part of the Messenger’s birth year by representing the venture in a patriotic light. After eight numbers White announced that he had engaged “an Editor who would devote his whole attention to the work, ” but at various later times he had occasion to invoke Heath’s counsel. It is reasonable to assume that the Messenger would hardly have lasted out the year without some such supervision as Heath supplied, for White, who lacked education, was seldom sure of his own literary judgment unless the contributor chanced to be a friend. His last important public office was that of commissioner of pensions, 1850-1853, under President Fillmore.
(Excerpt from Whigs and Democrats, or Love of No Politics:...)
James Heath married, first, his cousin, Fannie, daughter of Parson Weems, and second, in 1820, Elizabeth Ann, daughter of Colonel William Hartwell Macon of New Kent County.