Draft:George W. Paschal

Lorenzo Columbus George Washington Paschal (November 23, 1812 – February 16, 1878)^[1] was a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1843.

The successor to Judge Dickinson was George W. Paschal, who came to the state from Georgia about 1837 and settled at Van Buren. He brought with him his wife, a full-blooded Cherokee^[a], but a lady of beauty, refinement and cultivation. In 1842 he was elected a judge of the supreme court, but resigned on August 1, 1843, and removed to Texas. There he prepared Paschal's Digest of the Texas Reports—a meritorious work, which he rendered somewhat ridiculous by saying in the preface that it was more exhaustive than Lord Bacon's Abridgment. From Texas he went to Washington City, where he died in the enjoyment of a large practice. He was a small, dark man, who looked as if he had some Indian blood in his veins; nervous, energetic and laborious, of a rather vain disposition, and a good lawyer; but he did not remain upon the bench long enough to make any great impression upon our judicial history.^[2]

He was educated at Mercer Institute in Georgia—now Mercer University—where he supported himself by teaching minor classes. He read law under Colonel Joseph H. Lumpkin, later chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and an opponent of slavery. Paschal was admitted to the bar in 1832.^[1]

Notes

^ Sallie Ridge, daughter of Major Ridge

References

^ ^a ^b Dumas, Ernest (June 16, 2023). "George W. Paschal (1812–1878)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
^ Fay Hempstead, Historical Review of Arkansas (1911), p. 451.