William Foushee (1749–1824), physician and public official, was a native of Virginia. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and by 1779 was practicing in Richmond. Foushee served in the militia during the Revolutionary War as a surgeon and apothecary. In 1799 he was licensed to administer smallpox vaccinations in Henrico County. Foushee was elected the first mayor of Richmond in 1782; represented the city in the Virginia House of Delegates for three sessions, 1791 and 1797–99; served on the Council of State, 1799–1806; and represented Henrico County in the House of Delegates for two more sessions, 1806–08. He supported the presidential campaign of James Madison in 1808, in which year he was also appointed postmaster of Richmond, a position he held until his death. Foushee was president of the James River Company, 1789–1818, the Mutual Assurance Society, 1795–1804, and the Virginia Medical Society, 1822–23. When he died in Richmond, he owned at least twelve slaves and real estate in Richmond and Henrico County (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 34 vols. description ends , esp. 26:95, 35:278–9; Wyndham B. Blanton, Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century [1931], 326–8, 404; List of Members, Laws, and Library-Catalogue, of the Medical Society of Edinburgh [Edinburgh, 1820]; Williamsburg Virginia Gazette [Dixon & Nicolson], 8 May 1779; Hamilton J. Eckenrode, Virginia Soldiers of the American Revolution [1912; repr. 1989], 1:169; Richmond Virginia Argus, 11 Oct. 1799, 25 Apr. 1804; CVSP description begins William P. Palmer and others, eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers … Preserved in the Capitol at Richmond, 1875–93, 11 vols. description ends , 3:222, 9:62, 480; William Asbury Christian, Richmond, Her Past and Present [1912], 22, 545; Leonard, General Assembly description begins Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619–January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Members, 1978 description ends , 185, 209, 213, 244, 248; Richmond Enquirer, 23 Jan. 1808, 24 Aug. 1824; DNA: RG 28, RAP; William F. Switzler, Treasury Department. Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States [1886], appendix, part 1, 11; Richard Love, Founded Upon Benevolence: A Bicentennial History of the Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia [1994], 7, 30; Medical Society of Virginia, Minutes, 21 Dec. 1822, 18 Jan. 1823 [CSmH: Robert A. Brock Collection (microfilm in Vi)]; Richmond City Hustings Court Will Book, 3:500–3, 4:180–3; gravestone inscription in Shockoe Hill Cemetery, Richmond).