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Miniature of
John Overton (c. 1790) |
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John
Overton was born in Louisa County, Virginia in 1766. Drawn to the
cheap fertile land in the western territories of the newly formed
United States, he traveled to Danville, Kentucky to apprentice with
an attorney at the age of 21. Primitive living conditions and tensions
with neighboring Indians made life in the West difficult and dangerous,
but Overton thrived as a law student. His penchant for learning
caused one of his colleagues to remark years later that he was a
man who “spent whole nights at the lamp” reading. In
1789, he relocated to the Mero District of the Southwest Territory
(present-day Nashville, Tennessee) to practice law.
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