J.A. Leitch

James A. Leitch (Grand Master, 1855-1856). Courtesy of the Widow’s Sons’ Masonic Lodge, No. 60, accessed 29 March 2011.

Born in 1814, James A. Leitch was from Albemarle County, Virginia. He attended three sessions at the University of Virginia, the first in 1829-1830. He studied Chemistry, Medicine, and Anatomy & Surgery in the following session; took the next session off; and then repeated his second session courses in 1832-1833.1 He was described as a “wild young man—fond of all sorts of practical jokes—full of fun and merriment, as maturity came on he lost the wildness, but retained the light heart and generous merry disposition which made him exceedingly popular. He was a fine physician with a very large practice.”2

James A. Leitch grave marker, Maplewood Cemetery, Charlottesville. P.G.M. stands for Past Grand Master of the Masons.

Dr Leitch lived in downtown Charlottesville, first on Market Street and then in a home he had built at 115 East High Street, formerly Maiden Lane. He kept a tame bear that frequently escaped and bothered his neighbors.3 His first wife, Anne, died in 1842. She is buried next to him in Maplewood Cemetery and was the mother of his two older children.4In the 1850 census his household included his second wife, 30-year-old Louisiana, and an additional son and daughter.5 He was the owner of six slaves, from ages eight to 45, in 1850.6 Another son was born in the late 1850s.7

Given the reputation of Dr. Leitch for being wild as a young man it is ironic that he was the one known fee bill signer who agreed with the sentiment in a letter written to express opposition to a pardon for John S. Mosby for shooting George Turpin, “believing that an example should be made; he has been a very troublesome young man.”8 He was a prominent and enthusiastic Free Mason and the Grand Master of Masons in Virginia in 1855-1856. 9 Leitch was reportedly a Civil War surgeon who was at the first Battle of Bull Run.10 He died June 5, 1862, at his home on East High, after contracting pneumonia while serving in the Confederate Army.11

  1. University of Virginia, Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Virginia (1829-1830 – 1832-1833). [↩]
  2. Duke, Richard Thomas Walker, “Court Square 1863 Recalled by Richard Thomas Walker Duke, Jr.,” edited by Gayle M. Schulman, The Magazine of Albemarle County History 52 (1994): 120. [↩]
  3. Charles Brown, “Dr. Charles Brown’s Reminiscences of Early Albemarle,” reprinted with an introduction by Mary Rawlings and W. Edwin Hemphill, The Magazine of Albemarle County History 8 (1947-1948): 60; James Alexander, Early Charlottesville: Recollections of James Alexander, 1828-1874, reprinted from the Jeffersonian Republican by the Albemarle County Historical Society, edited by Mary Rawlings, 1963 notes and revisions by Velora Carver Thomson ([Charlottesville, Va.: The Michie Co., Printers], 1963), 81. [↩]
  4. Maplewood Cemetery, Charlottesville. [↩]
  5. U.S. Census: Albemarle, Virginia, 1850, accessed 29 March. [↩]
  6. Slave Schedule, 1850, Federal Census, Albemarle, Virginia (Charlottesville), accessed 23 March 2011. [↩]
  7. Maplewood Cemetery, Charlottesville. [↩]
  8. William M.E. Rachal, “Petitions Concerning the Pardon of John S. Mosby in 1853,” Papers of the Albemarle County Historical Society 9 (1948-1949): 29. [↩]
  9. Widow’s Sons’ Masonic Lodge No. 60, accessed 29 March 2011. [↩]
  10. Duke, 120. [↩]
  11. Widow’s Sons’ Masonic Lodge No. 60. [↩]