George Nicholas (c. 1754 – July 25, 1799) was an American lawyer, planter, patriot, military officer and politician who helped to write the first Kentucky constitution and became the first professor of law at Transylvania University.
The firstborn son of prominent lawyer Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. and his wife Ann Cary was born into the First Families of Virginia, and named after an uncle who had served in the House of Burgesses, representing the College of William and Mary.
Congressman before moving to New York, and Wilson Cary Nicholas (1761–1820) would serve alongside this man, but remained in Virginia and became its governor (after George's death).
Their daughter Maria Nicholas married Col. Owings of Kentucky (two of their sons would die in battle), and Ann Nicholas married Lewis Saunders[3] George Nicholas read law under his father, and represented Williamsburg in the Assembly of 1778, succeeding fellow lawyer George Wythe, who became the first professor of law at the College of William and Mary and may have also helped with this man's legal education during this part-time legislative service.
[4][5] In his last Virginia legislative service, George and his brother Wilson Cary Nicholas represented Albemarle County in the ratifying convention of 1788.
[6] In the 1787 Virginia tax census, Nicholas owned 27 adult slaves and 16 enslaved children, as well as 21 horses and 31 cattle and a four-wheeled phaeton in Albemarle County.
In 1789, President Washington appointed Nicholas as the first United States Attorney for the District of Kentucky.