Harry Innes

Harry Innes (January 4, 1752 – September 20, 1816) was a Virginia lawyer and patriot during the American Revolutionary War who became a local judge and prosecutor as well as helped establish the state of Kentucky, before he accepted appointment as United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Kentucky and served until his death. Early and family life Born on January 4, 1752, in Caroline County, Colony of Virginia, British America, to the former Catherine Richards and the Rev. Robert Innes. His father had graduated from Oxford University before emigrating from Scotland to the Virginia colony, and accepted a position as rector (Anglican clergyman) in Caroline County. Innes received a private education locally at Donald Robertson's school, then traveled to the colonial capital, Williamsburg to attend the College of William & Mary, where he read law beginning in 1772 with George Wythe. His younger brother James Innes (1754-1798) would follow him at William and Mary, but would be dismissed from the college in 1775 for leading a band of students who blocked Governor Dunmore's agents from removing military stores to ships offshore. Career Admitted to the Virginia bar when he reached legal age in 1773, Innes moved westward to Bedford County and began a private legal practice on what was then the frontier, as well as farmed and speculated in land. Like his younger brother James Innes, Harry Innes supported independence of the United States and Virginia as tensions mounted between the Virginia General Assembly and successive royal governors, especially after Lord Dunmore's War, which led Governor Dunmore to dismiss the House of Burgesses in 1775. From 1776 to 1777, the local Virginia Committee of Safety employed Innes to manage the militarily crucial Chiswell lead mines on the New River, in what was then Fincastle (now Wythe) County, as well as to procure other necessary supplies for the Continental Army. Meanwhile, his brother James took up arms, received a commission as lieutenant colonel and became an aide to General George Washington, fighting at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth.