Heath, James E.

Born: 1792-07-08 Virginia

Died: 1862-06-28 Richmond, Virginia

James E. Heath was a politician, public auditor, author, editor, commissioner of pensions, and clerk. Most likely born in Northumberland County, Virginia, he served in the Virginia General Assembly for Prince William County from 1814 to 1817. He then became a state auditor in 1819 and remained in that position for the next thirty years. During that time, he also became a well-known and appreciated author and editor. He penned several novels and plays, including Edge Hill; or, The Family of the Fitzroyals and Whigs and Democrats; or, Love of No Politics, among others. He also worked as an editor and author for the periodical Southern Literary Messenger. He married twice, first to Fannie Weems, his cousin, and then to Elizabeth Ann Macon, with whom he had two children. By 1850, he was living with Elizabeth in Richmond, owned real estate valued at $2,000, and owned ten enslaved people—three women, one man, two teenage girls, and four young boys. From 1850 to 1853, he served in Millard Fillmore's administration as commissioner of pensions for the U. S. Department of the Interior. He lived and worked in Washington, DC throughout this appointment. By 1860, he was again living in Richmond, was working as a clerk, and owned five enslaved people—two teenage boys, one teenage girl, one man, and one sixty-year-old woman.

Mary-Ann Wimsatt, "Heath, James Ewell," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 10:472-73; Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1851 (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1851), 148; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Richmond, Henrico County, VA, 344; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedule, Richmond, Henrico County, VA, 525, 554; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Richmond, Henrico County, VA, 75; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedule, Ward 2, Richmond, Henrico County, VA, 43; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedule, Ward 3, Richmond, Henrico County, VA, 15; Virginia, U.S., Deaths and Burials Index, 1853-1917 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2011).