Attorney General: Felix Grundy

Felix Grundy was born in Berkeley County, Virginia, on September 11, 1777. His family moved to Pennsylvania in 1779 and then to Kentucky in 1780. He attended the Bardstown Academy and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1797. Grundy rose to early prominence as a delegate at the Kentucky Constitutional Convention in 1799, and from 1800 to 1806, was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives. In 1806, he was appointed a judge of the Kentucky Court of Errors and Appeals, and in 1807 became the court’s chief justice. Grundy was elected to the U.S. Congress as a Representative of western Tennessee in 1811, was reelected in 1813, and resigned in 1815. In 1819, he was elected to the Tennessee legislature, and the following year was named a commissioner to resolve the disputed boundary line between Kentucky and Tennessee. Grundy was reelected in 1820 and served to the end of the legislature’s session in 1823. In 1829, he was appointed to a vacancy in the U.S. Senate and was reelected in 1833.

President Martin Van Buren appointed Grundy as Attorney General of the United States on September 1, 1838. He served in that office a little over a year, resigning on December 1, 1839, to reenter the U.S. Senate. Grundy died in Nashville, Tennessee, on December 19, 1840.