Daniel Mayo Railey (1796–1858), farmer, merchant, and public official, was born in Chesterfield County, attended Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), 1811–12, and served as a private in a volunteer unit during the War of 1812. He was a donor to Central College in 1817, elected to membership in the Agricultural Society of Albemarle in 1822, a county magistrate in 1830, and chosen secretary the following year of a meeting opposed to the reelection of President Andrew Jackson. Around 1832 Railey sold Woodbourne, his Albemarle County estate, and settled in Missouri, where in 1849 he was appointed postmaster for Weston, Platte County. He owned fifteen slaves in 1830, but none a decade later. Railey died in Weston (William McClung Paxton, Annals of Platte County, Missouri [1897], 268; Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 300, 378; Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, 1749–1888 [1888], 65; DNA: RG 94, CSRW1812; Central College Subscription List, [ca. 7 May 1817], document 4 in a group of documents on The Founding of the University of Virginia: Central College, 1816–1819, 5 May 1817; True, “Agricultural Society,” description begins Rodney H. True, “Minute Book of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918 (1921), 1:261–349 description ends 297; Richmond Constitutional Whig, 17 Nov. 1831, 13 Nov. 1832; DNA: RG 28, RAP; DNA: RG 29, CS, Albemarle Co., 1830, Mo., Platte Co., 1840, 1850; gravestone inscription in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Weston).

John M. Railey (d. ca. 1845), merchant, was a brother of Daniel M. Railey. He attended Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), 1818–19, was elected to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle in 1825, and supported Andrew Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1828 and 1832. Railey owned nine slaves in Albemarle County in 1830. At the time of his death he was living in Botetourt County and hiring out five slaves collectively valued at $1,400 (Washington and Lee University Catalogue, 73; Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 300; True, “Agricultural Society,” description begins Rodney H. True, “Minute Book of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918 (1921), 1:261–349 description ends 308, 310; Richmond Enquirer, 19 Jan. 1828, 30 Mar. 1832; DNA: RG 29, CS, Albemarle Co., 1830; Botetourt Co. Will Book, G:523–4, H:82–3).

John James Ormond (1795–1866), attorney and public official, was a native of England who came with his family to Virginia as a small child. He studied law in Staunton before settling in Milton by 1819 and gaining admission to the Charlottesville bar the following year. In 1823 Ormond served with TJ on a committee to choose books for the new Albemarle Library Society. He relocated by 1827 to Lawrence County, Alabama, where he practiced law and served one term in the state House of Representatives, 1832–33. Elected to the state supreme court in 1837, Ormond moved to Tuscaloosa, then the state capital, to take up his duties. He resigned his judgeship in 1848 and resumed his private law practice. Politically a Whig, Ormond was the lead compiler of the legal code of Alabama in 1852 and a Confederate presidential elector in 1861. He owned 9 slaves in 1830, 11 in 1840, 96 in 1850, and 148 in 1860. In that year Ormond’s real estate was valued at $122,800 and his personal property at $190,850. He died in Tuscaloosa (Thomas McAdory Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography [1921], 4:1303; John M. Martin, “John James Ormond,” Southern Law Journal 2 [1879]: 64–9; Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 103, 381; Edmund Bacon to TJ, 9 Apr. 1819; Journal of the Alabama House of Representatives [1832–33 sess.]; [1837 sess.]: 11; Ormond, Arthur P. Bagby, George Goldthwaite, and Henry C. Semple, The Code of Alabama [1852]; Memphis Daily Appeal, 3 Sept. 1861; DNA: RG 29, CS, Ala., Lawrence Co., 1830, Tuscaloosa, 1840–60, 1850, 1860 slave schedules; Tuscaloosa Co. Will Book, 3:194–5).

Horace Witherall Bramham (1798–1834), physician, was the son of TJ’s correspondent Nimrod Bramham. Born in Albemarle County, in 1821 he received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania with a thesis on dyspepsia. Bramham practiced medicine thereafter in Charlottesville. He was elected to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle in 1825. Along with Robley Dunglison, in 1828 he attended TJ’s son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph in his final days (Will J. Maxwell, comp., General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania [1917], 582; Catalogue of the Medical Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania [1836], 11; True, “Agricultural Society,” description begins Rodney H. True, “Minute Book of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918 (1921), 1:261–349 description ends 309–10; Samuel X. Radbill, ed., “The Autobiographical Ana of Robley Dunglison, M.D.,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 53 [1963]: 33; Daily Richmond Whig, 22 Nov. 1828; Richmond Enquirer, 22 Oct. 1830; Bramham to his siblings and a servant, 18 Mar. 1834 [ViHi: Correspondence and other papers of the Bramham and Bibb families]; Albemarle Co. Will Book, 12:419–26, 486–92).

George W. Nicholas was the son of TJ’s correspondent John Nicholas (ca. 1758–1836) (Madison, Papers description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, John C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, 1962– , 43 vols.: Congress. Ser., 17 vols.: Pres. Ser., 11 vols.: Retirement Ser., 3 vols.: Sec. of State Ser., 12 vols. description ends , Retirement Ser., 3:76–7, 95–6; MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , esp. 2:1384).

On this date the same committee invited James Madison to the event described above, which he declined on 29 June 1823 (Madison, Papers description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, John C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, 1962– , 43 vols.: Congress. Ser., 17 vols.: Pres. Ser., 11 vols.: Retirement Ser., 3 vols.: Sec. of State Ser., 12 vols. description ends , Retirement Ser., 3:78–9, 89). James Monroe also received and declined a similar invitation (Winn and others to Monroe, 23 June 1823 [RC in NN]; Monroe to TJ, 30 June 1823).