The Wolf Law Library
banner
wolflawlibrary.bsky.social
The Wolf Law Library
@wolflawlibrary.bsky.social
The Wolf Law Library 🐺⚖️📚 at William & Mary 🤴👸 Law School, in Williamsburg, Virginia. Serving our students, faculty, and community by promoting the advancement of legal scholarship with access to the law and law-related resources in print, and online.
When the Wythe Room opened in 2015, the George Wythe Collection contained 329 titles, with 669 volumes. In the past 10 years, the collection has expanded to *374* titles, with *745* volumes: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Ge...
November 12, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Our George Wythe Room opened 10 years ago this week, on November 13, 2015. The space for a re-creation of Wythe's library was custom-built in what was previously the library's "Self Help" room: www.flickr.com/photos/wolfl... #WytheWednesday
November 12, 2025 at 8:16 PM
George Wythe signed on page two, in 1776! wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Ag...
November 11, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Homer was (by far) Wythe's favorite author: Wythe owned two separate sets of 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' in Greek and English, another in both Greek and Latin, as well as an additional 'Odyssey' in Greek, and another 'Iliad' in Greek and Latin: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Ca...
October 29, 2025 at 2:11 PM
The 1750 edition is extensively illustrated with original engravings. Please visit our Flickr page to see more (a lot more!): www.flickr.com/photos/wolfl...
October 29, 2025 at 2:11 PM
The library's newest acquisition for George Wythe's Library: a six-volume, 1750 set of Homer's 'Iliad,' translated by Alexander Pope, in contemporary binding. Wythe's copy of v.1 (with his bookplate) survives at the Jefferson Library at Monticello: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Il... #WytheWednesday
October 29, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Halloweenies! It's time for the Law Library's annual Halloween Cookout: Friday, October 31st. Free hot dogs (and veggie dogs for those so inclined) and soft drinks, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM (or while 'dogs last!) on the law school patio!
October 24, 2025 at 1:37 PM
The secret drawer was found! Huzzah! But it was EMPTY. Booo! The search for George Wythe's cufflinks must continue...
October 22, 2025 at 5:58 PM
#OTD in 1775, Peyton Randolph died suddenly in Philadelphia, while representing Virginia at the Second Continental Congress.

In late November, George Wythe was elected to replace Randolph at Virginia's Fourth Convention: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Vi...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgini...
October 22, 2025 at 5:51 PM
George Wythe and his wife Elizabeth (as well as Francis Lightfoot Lee and Thomas Nelson. Jr., and their wives) were inoculated against smallpox with the widely-used cowpox vaccine in Philadelphia, in September, 1775: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Vi...
October 20, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Wythepedia Investigates: The Case of George Wythe's Cufflinks. 🔎 Is there a pair of cufflinks which belonged to a Founding Father in a secret drawer in the W&M President's house? Did George Wythe wear shirts with French cuffs? Stay tuned! digital.libraries.wm.edu/node/347859 #WytheWednesday
October 15, 2025 at 6:49 PM
The author of the 1922 article was Robert Beverley Munford, Jr., the great-grandson of William Munford, one of George Wythe's pupils. "Bob" Munford was a long-time obituary editor for the Richmond 'News Leader': www.virginiachronicle.com?a=d&d=RNL195...
October 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM
#OTD in 1922, there appeared in the Richmond 'Times-Dispatch' an "Intimate Pen Picture of George Wythe," regretting 'that those who were qualified to produce a complete biography of this learned man and noble character have long since passed away.' wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/In... #WytheWednesday
October 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM
We have a late addition! "Wythe Urges Virginia to Ratify Constitution":
October 7, 2025 at 12:27 PM
The library's U.S. Supreme Court Justice bobblehead of John Blair (from 'The Green Bag' collection) is part of our "Nod to the Supreme Court: Books and Bobbles" exhibit, now in the library's Rare Book Room (through March, 2026).
October 1, 2025 at 4:13 PM
This handsome fellow is John Blair, Jr. (1732–1800). Blair was one of six justices appointed by George Washington to the first U.S. Supreme Court in 1789. He served alongside George Wythe as a judge for Virginia's High Court of Chancery from 1780–1788: www.oyez.org/justices/joh... #WytheWednesday
October 1, 2025 at 4:13 PM
"'[T]he extreme danger of dissolving the Union' makes ratification of the Constitution imperative." Also new are two envelopes issued in 1988, for the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. Visit our Wythe Ephemera collection in the 1st floor locker lounge, in the library behind the main stairs!
September 24, 2025 at 5:14 PM
New George Wythe ephemera! The library has a small collection of commemorative postcards, coins, trading cards, and even a miniature Wythe House. This postcard is from a series celebrating the 1976 bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Bi... #WytheWednesday
September 24, 2025 at 5:14 PM
We have a second copy in our Special Collections, which belonged to Thomas Ball (1836–1917), Texas state senator, assistant Texas attorney general, and special U. S. attorney, who defended the Kiowa war chiefs, Satanta and Big Tree, in 1871. catalog.libraries.wm.edu/permalink/01...
September 23, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Here's a profile we recognize! George Wythe, in a catalog for 'Loan Exhibition of Portraits of the Signers and Deputies to the Convention of 1787 and Signers of the Declaration of Independence' (1937). The original is owned by Colonial Williamsburg: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Lo... #WytheWednesday
September 17, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Ah-ha! But here we have a 1754 Wythe letter to Daniel Parke Custis (Martha Washington's first husband), signed fully: "George Wythe."
September 11, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Is this document a clever forgery? 'The only genuine Wythe autograph recalled by the writer to have been signed "George Wythe" (instead of the usual "G. Wythe") is that on the Declaration of Independence, which would be a counterfeiter's most available source.' wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Ge...
September 10, 2025 at 7:07 PM
#OTD in 1761: George Wythe summons witnesses to appear before him or "some other Justice" for Loudoun County, Virginia, regarding illegal gambling in a tavern. There is no other record of Wythe employed as a justice for Loudoun (established in 1757): wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Or... #WytheWednesday
September 10, 2025 at 7:07 PM
"[S]ome of the strongest testimony exhibited before the called court and before the grand jury, was kept back from the pettit jury. The reason is, that it was gleaned from the evidence of negroes, which is not permitted by our laws to go against a white man." Richmond 'Enquirer,' September 9, 1806:
September 3, 2025 at 1:38 PM
On Sept. 2, 1806, George Wythe Swinney was acquitted of the murders of his great-uncle, George Wythe, and Wythe's freedman protégé, Michael Brown. #OTD, Sept. 3, 1806, Swinney was charged with forgery, but was ultimately acquitted, as well: wythepedia.wm.edu/index.php/Ex... #WytheWednesday
September 3, 2025 at 1:38 PM