William Tracy Gould was an American lawyer and founder of the Augusta Law School, the first law school in the Deep S.
Background
Gould, son of Judge James Gould and Sally McCurdy Tracy, daughter of the Honorary Uriah Tracy, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, October 25, 1799, and entered Yale College at the very early age of thirteen. Immediately upon graduation he began to read law in his father"s school, Litchfield Law School, and was admitted to the bar on arriving at the age of 21.
Career
In 1821 he settled in Clinton, in the central part of Georgia, and in June, 1823, he removed to the city of Augusta, where the rest of his life was spent, and where he ranked for forty years with the best lawyers of the community. He declined to enter political life, but accepted in 1851 an election to the judgeship of the City Court of Augusta, and discharged the duties of that office for fifteen years. A severe fall several months before his death fractured a hip bone and confined him to a bed of suffering, until he died on the 18th of July, 1882, when he had nearly completed his 83rd year.
He was again marned, September 20, 1864, to Virginia H., daughter of Wimberly J. Hunter, Esq., of Savannah, who survived him with several children.
This article incorporates public domain material from the 1883 Yale Obituary Record.