A member of the First Families of Virginia, this John Dandridge received an education appropriate to his class, then read law with his father's encouragement.
Their daughter Lucy would marry James Walker Murdaugh of Williamsburg,[6] who would serve in the House of Delegates representing Norfolk a decade after this man's death.
[9] One of the delicate cases Dandridge handled as a Virginia lawyer involved the estate of William Armistead, who had died in 1793, and had previously served as one of New Kent County's delegates.
During the Revolutionary War, Armistead had acted for several years as commissary, helping to provision Virginia's troops, for which service he had been promised 35,000 lbs of tobacco.
They had been at the New Kent County clerk's office, which burned down along with the nearby jail in 1783 during an escape attempt of John Price Posey, who had been steward of the White House plantation for the underage George Washington Parke Custis, and had been arrested and jailed there for stealing from the estate (rearrested and convicted on the testimony of his accomplice, Posey hanged in 1788).
[10] Dandridge submitted a petition to the Virginia General Assembly seeking compensation for his client, which succeeded in 1801 (after his death).