Home County: St. Louis
Term of service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: September 1825 – May 1837
Judge Robert Wash was born November 29, 1790, in Louisa County, Virginia. He was educated at William and Mary College, graduating in 1808. He spent the following years studying law and was admitted to the bar.
At the end of the War of 1812, Wash settled in St. Louis, where he was elected to the city council. During his time with the St. Louis city council, Wash worked to promote road structure and improvement for the city, through sidewalks, proper road surfacing and grading. After service on the St. Louis city council, during President James Monroe’s administration, Wash was selected to serve as the United States district attorney for the district of St. Louis.
After the death of Judge Rufus Pettibone, Wash was appointed to the Supreme Court of Missouri. Taking his appointment in September 1825, Wash served with the Court until his resignation in May 1837. He lived among family and friends at his home in St. Louis for the rest of his life.
Walsh died in November 1856. He was approximately 66 years old.
Biographical information by Matt Orf, 2017, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri.
Sources used (please note a copy of each is located on file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library):
Jackson Independent, (Jackson, Missouri), Saturday, September 10, 1825, page 3, column 1. Information courtesy of the SHSMO Newspaper Database on the State Historical Society of Missouri website, accessed June 2017.
Louis Houck, ed., Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, from 1821 to 1827, Vol I (Belleville, IL: Kimball & Taylor, Printers, 1870), 295.
William Van Ness Bay, “Robert Wash,” Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, (St. Louis, MO: F.N. Thomas and Co., 1878), 244, 246.