Little is known of James Reid. Virginia poet, essayist, and satirist, save for his activities during the years 1768 and 1769. Undoubtedly born and educated in Scotland, where he was probably an Edinburgh classmate of the Scottish poet Thomas Blacklock, Reid eventually came to write and teach in the literate society of the Tidewater area of Virginia. His writings exhibit a range of reading unusual even for one trained under the Scottish Common Sense thinkers.

The date of Reid's arrival in America is unknown. By September 1768 he appears to have indentured himself to Col. Robert Ruffin, well-known neighbor of the Lees and George Washington in Tidewater Virginia, as a teacher to the Ruffin children. During 1768-1769 Ruffin moved from Dinwiddie to Sweet Hall, and the works signed Caledoniensis and attributed to Reid were first addressed from Mayfield (in the vicinity of Dinwiddie) and then Sweet Hall. Although he never alluded...