Francis Walker Gilmer was one of those individuals for whom the predictions of extraordinary achievements in many fields were justified but never fully realized. It was Thomas Jefferson, a critical judge, who best described the potential and growth of his friend with the chronically weak constitution. In 1815 he said that the young lawyer "will be in future whatever he pleases in either the State, or General Government" and in 1824 that Gilmer was "the best-educated subject we have raised since the Revolution, highly qualified in all the important branches of science, professing particularly that of law."

Francis, the tenth child of Dr. George Gilmer and Lucy Walker Gilmer, was born on 9 October 1790, at Pen Park, an estate across the river from Monticello. Christened Francis Thornton Gilmer, he assumed the name of his uncle Francis Walker after the latter's death in 1806. After his father's death in 1795, Gilmer remained in Albemarle...