James Keith

James Keith (September 7, 1839 – January 2, 1918) was a Virginia lawyer, soldier, politician and judge, who served as the chief judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia (then called the Supreme Court of Appeals) from 1895 to 1916.

Early and family life Born in Fauquier County, Virginia on September 7, 1839, James Keith was born to Circuit Judge Isham Keith (1798–1863) and his wife, the former Julia Chilton. He was the great-great-grandson of William Randolph and a direct descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall. Keith received his early education in local schools and studied law under Professor John B. Minor at the University of Virginia. He graduated in 1860 and studied law in the office of John M. Forbes.

Keith was a cousin of judge R. Carter Scott and was related to General Scott Shipp. His grandfather, Thomas Keith, fought in the American Revolutionary War. His nephew was state senator Lucien Keith. His father also owned a woolen mill at Waterloo. In 1860, Isham Keith owned 17 enslaved people, and his son James also may have owned at least one slave.

In 1872, Keith married Lilias Gordon Morson, daughter of lawyer Arthur Alexander Morson, of Warrenton. She died in 1877 and in 1887, he married the sister of his first wife, Frances Barksdale Morson. They had two children, Juliet and Morson. James Keith was promoted to adjutant on December 7, 1863.

He was active in the United Confederate Veterans and presented a portrait of Fauquier County's General (and later U.S. Congressman and Senator Eppa Hunton to the Richmond chapter.

Death and legacy Keith died of pneumonia on January 2, 1918, at his home at Cathedral Place in Richmond. He was buried at Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery. The Virginia Historical Society has some Keith family papers, maintained by Fanny Scott, the wife of Virginia Attorney General Robert Taylor Scott, and who led the Black Horse Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy at Warrenton (the unit which had both sons of Judge Isham, and where that Judge Keith died and was buried).