William F. Gordon

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Admitted to the bar in 1808, Gordon began his legal career at Orange Court House. He moved to Charlottesville in Albemarle County in 1809. There he continued his practice and in 1812 won election as the city's commonwealth attorney.

Gordon served in the War of 1812, then continued to serve in the Virginia Militia, in 1829 accepting a commission as brigadier general from then-governor William B. Giles, and becoming major general of the Second Brigade in 1840.

Following the war, Albemarle County voters elected Gordon as one of their representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates, and re-elected him annually to that part-time position basically for a decade except for the 1821-1822 session. Thus, Gordon served from 1818 to 1821 alongside first Samuel Carr, then Thomas Mann Randolph until legislators elected him governor, then Charles Everett, and during those sessions helped established the University of Virginia in his district. After the hiatus in which Everett and Charles Cocke represented Albemarle County, Gordon again won re-election several times until 1829, serving first alongside William C. Rives as well as again with Thomas Mann Randolph, then Rice W. Wood, Charles Cocke and Hugh Nelson. In 1829, Gordon won election to the Virginia Senate, where he represented Albemarle County, as well as nearby Amherst, Nelson, Fluvanna and Goochland Counties. Gordon also represented Albemarle, Amherst, Nelson, Fluvanna and Goochland counties in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-1830 alongside James Pleasants, Lucas P. Thompson and Thomas Massie Jr. He proposed the "mixed basis" compromise ultimately adopted when western representatives complained about the overrepresentation of Tidewater planters in the Virginia General Assembly.

In 1830, Gordon resigned from the Virginia Senate to succeed William Cabell Rives in the United States House of Representatives, and won re-election as a Jacksonian, serving until 1835. He earned the nickname "Sub-Treasury Gordon" for helping to devise the Sub-Treasury Act in 1844, an act that separated the federal government from banks.

Gordon attended the Southern Convention in Nashville, Tennessee in 1850 as a delegate. He served as a Democrat.

After failing to win reelection in 1835, Gordon returned to farming and his legal practice. Gordon lived in a planter economy largely dependent upon slavery, and as a landholder, his plantation operated with enslaved labor. He owned 29 slaves in Albemarle County in 1820, 44 slaves in the 1830 federal census. In both the 1840 federal census. and the 1850 federal census, Gordon owned 54 slaves.

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