James Lyle (1798–1850), planter, was born in Chesterfield County. He attended the College of William and Mary, 1815–16. Lyle lived in Richmond until at least 1830, then moved permanently to Whitby, his ancestral plantation in Chesterfield County. He owned nine slaves in 1820 and about seventy slaves as part of personal property worth $31,000 at his death (G. Brown Goode, Virginia Cousins: A Study of the Ancestry and Posterity of John Goode of Whitby [1887], 118–9, 229; William and Mary Provisional List description begins A Provisional List of Alumni, Grammar School Students, Members of the Faculty, and Members of the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary in Virginia. From 1693 to 1888, 1941 description ends , 26; DNA: RG 29, CS, Richmond, 1820, 1830, Chesterfield Co., 1840, 1850 slave schedules; Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser, 18 June 1850; Chesterfield Co. Will Book, 19:2–3, 88–95).

Tarlton saunders became Lyle’s stepfather when his mother, Sally Bland Goode Lyle, remarried after the death in 1806 of his namesake father (Goode, Virginia Cousins, 119). An administrator de bonis non cum testamento annexo (admr &c with the will annexed) is “An administrator appointed by the court to administer the decedent’s goods that were not administered by an earlier administrator or executor” when there was a will (Richmond Enquirer, 6 July 1821; Black’s Law Dictionary description begins Bryan A. Garner and others, eds., Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed., 1999 description ends ).