William McGuire

William McGuire (1765–1820) was an American judge, one of the first three judges in the Mississippi Territory. He arrived in Mississippi in the fall of 1799, appointed as chief justice, to assist governor Winthrop Sargent as one of three judges who were to write up the set of laws for the new territory. However, McGuire went back to his home in Virginia after only a couple of weeks or months.

Career in Mississippi The Mississippi Organic Act of 1798 authorized president John Adams to appoint a governor and three judges for the Mississippi Territory. Governor Winthrop Sargent was to be assisted in setting up the laws for Mississippi with the assistance of judges Peter Bryan Bruin (untrained in law and likely an alcoholic), Daniel Tilton, and William McGuire, who were described as "representing varying degrees of incompetence". McGuire was nominated on 26 June 1798 as chief justice for the territory, and was confirmed in June 1798. governor Sargent was anxiously awaiting him early in 1799, because of McGuire's actual expertise with the law (in contrast to himself and the other two judges). However, he stayed only a few weeks or months and left in September 1799, signed but a few of the laws, and then went back to Virginia, claiming he couldn't live on the salary in Mississippi.

After Mississippi McGuire seems to have resigned his position in 1801. On his return to Winchester, Virginia, he practiced law until 1816, when he became superintendent for the Harpers Ferry Armory, an appointed position. He died there, in 1820, as a result of the wound he had received in 1781.