William Josiah Leake (September 20, 1843 - November 23, 1908) was a Virginia lawyer and judge, who served as a railroad president and president of The Virginia Bar Association.
Biography
Leake was born in Goochland County, Virginia, and was a great-grandson of William O. Callis.Grigsby, Hugh, et al. The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788. Virginia Historical Society (1891) He served four years in the Confederate Army. After the war, he was selected for a term as judge of the Virginia chancery court at Richmond, but declined to be re-elected.Tyler, Lyon Gardiner, ed., Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, v. 4, Lewis Historical Publishing (1915) (available on Google Books).
In 1891, Judge Leake decided the case of Bettie Thomas Lewis, concluding that she was entitled to her deceased father's property. The father had owned the mother of Ms. Lewis as a slave. The New York Times reported that this ruling made Ms. Lewis "the richest colored person in Virginia." In a detailed opinion, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed Judge Leake's decision.Thomas Adm'r v. Lewis, 89 Va. 1, 15 S.E. 389 (1892).
Leake was from 1889 general counsel and from 1905 to 1906 president of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Company.Seventy-Fourth Annual Report, Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Company (1906) (available on Google Books).
Leake was a charter member of the Virginia State Bar Association, beginning in 1890,Charter of the Virginia State Bar Association, Acts of Assembly 1889-1890, c. 376, published in Report of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Virginia State Bar Association (1893) (available on Google Books). and served as president of the Association for 1899–1900.
Judge Leake died at his home in Richmond.
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