Francis Corbin (ca. 1759–1821), planter and public official, was probably a native of King and Queen County. In 1773 he was sent to be educated in England, where he was admitted to the Inner Temple of the Inns of Court for legal training in 1777. He returned to Virginia after the Revolutionary War. Corbin represented Middlesex County in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1784–94, and at the state ratification convention of 1788, where he supported the new United States Constitution. He ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 1789, 1790, and 1793. Corbin lost a bid to serve in the United States Senate in 1792 and subsequently withdrew from public life to manage The Reeds, his large Caroline County estate. In 1817 he was named a director of the Richmond branch of the Second Bank of the United States, a position he held at his death (DVB description begins John T. Kneebone and others, eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography, 1998– , 3 vols. description ends ; 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. 30:286–7; numerous letters in DLC: Madison Papers; VMHB description begins Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1893–  description ends 30 [1922]: 315–8; 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 ; Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski, and others, eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution [1976– ], vols. 8–10; William P. Palmer and others, eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers [1875–93], 5:448; Norfolk American Beacon and Commercial Diary, 5 Feb. 1817; Richmond Enquirer, 1 June 1821; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 9 June 1821).

TJ’s father-in-law John Wayles (wales), Benjamin waller and Richard Corbin were named as trustees to Lucy Ludwell Paradise and the other daughters of Philip ludwell in 1767 (Archibald Bolling Shepperson, John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell of London and Williamsburg [1942], 34). The Virginia court of appeals upheld the confiscation of land from the heirs of Lord Fairfax in 1810 but the United States Supreme Court overturned the decision in 1813 and confirmed that judgment three years later (Va. Reports description begins Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Court of Appeals of Virginia, 1798–  (title varies; originally issued in distinct editions of separately numbered volumes with Va. Reports volume numbers retroactively assigned; original volume numbers here given parenthetically) description ends , 15 [1 Munford]: 218–38; U.S. Reports description begins Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, 1790–  (title varies; originally issued in distinct editions of separately numbered volumes with U.S. Reports volume numbers retroactively assigned; original volume numbers here given parenthetically) description ends , 11 [7 Cranch]: 603–32; Marshall, Papers description begins Herbert A. Johnson, Charles T. Cullen, Charles F. Hobson, and others, eds., The Papers of John Marshall, 1974–2006, 12 vols. description ends , 8:108–26).