Background
Born at the family estate "Clermont" in Stafford County, Virginia, in 1805 to one of the First Families of Virginia, Richard Cassius Lee Moncure was the great grandson of Review John Moncure, a Scottish Huguenot immigrant and longtime rector of Overwharton parish and friend of George Washington, George Mason and other founding fathers. His father and grandfather were both named John Moncure and active in the affairs of what was renamed Aquia Parish.
His mother Alice Peachy Gaskins (1774-1860) bore ten children, of whom Richard Cassius Lee was the seventh child and fourth son.
Career
He received his early education in the local schools and read extensively. They had thirteen children, eleven surviving to adulthood. After his admission to the bar in 1825, Moncure practiced in Fredericksburg and surrounding counties.
He was appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to replace Francis Taliaferro Brooke in 1851, but when the Virginia Constitution was changed that year, election to that court became required.
Moncure was one of the five judges elected under that new Constitution, and one of three judges elected under the Constitution of 1864, becoming that Court"s President in 1865. Before the American Civil War, Moncure was a relative moderate on the appellate court, vehemently dissenting from the decisions in "Bailey v.
Poindexter"s Executor," 55 Virginia. 132, 14 Gratton 132 (1858) and "Williamson v.
His tenure of office was temporarily suspended, however, during the Reconstruction period, from 1866 to 1869, when Major General John Schofield enforced a federal law prohibiting men with a record of service to the Confederate States of America to hold public office.
Judge Moncure was again elected to a twelve year term in 1870 with the adoption of the new constitution and again became the Court"s President. He remained on the Court of Appeals until his death at his home on August 26, 1882. He is buried in the estate"s graveyard, although further generations of his descendants are buried at Aquia Church cemetery.
