In his society he saw
Pendleton, Carrington, Roane, Fleming, and Lyons, who composed the Court
of Appeals at that day, and all of whom I heard him recall in living
colors a few months before his death. It was the custom of the judges of
the Court of Appeals to put up at the Swan, where they might easily
consult with Pendleton, their chief, whose injured limb prevented him
for the last thirty years of his life from going abroad. It was at the
Swan the judges kept their black cloth suits during the recess of the
courts; for in those days there were no public conveyances; and all the
judges, except Pendleton, who drove into Richmond from Caroline in a
slow lumbering vehicle, nicknamed, after the wild driver of the coursers
of the sun, a Phaeton, came into town on horseback, and were often clad
in the cloth of their own looms. I mention these details of the early
times of Mr. Tazewell, as they may serve to explain that stern
simplicity of manners, of taste, and of general living, to which he
resolutely adhered through life. Although fond of agriculture, and the
owner of large landed estates, as he did not reside on them he did not
require vehicles for the use of his family; and, at his residence in
Norfolk, I think I may say that, for the last forty years at least, he
never kept a carriage above the dignity of a gig, and I have doubts
whether during that time he even kept a gig.
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