William H. Dennis (11 January 1801–5 August 1866), Speaker of the Senate of Virginia, was born in Charlotte County and was the son of John Dennis, a planter, and Martha Elliott Dennis. His education is undocumented, but most likely he studied law with a local attorney. On 3 January 1820 Dennis was sworn in as deputy clerk of the county, and on 3 February 1823 he was admitted to the bar. Like many other ambitious young men of his social class, he served as an officer in the county militia. A year after his appointment in 1824 to the rank of ensign, Dennis was promoted to lieutenant. Selected as a justice of the peace in June 1836, he took the oath of office in November of that year. On 22 November 1822 Dennis executed a marriage bond in Charlotte County and on that date or soon afterward married Ann M. Morton. Before her death early in the 1860s, they had four daughters and eight sons.

Dennis began accumulating land along Louse Creek in Charlotte County during the 1820s, and by 1830 he owned 670 acres of land and paid taxes on fifteen enslaved workers age twelve or older. Fifteen years later he held seventeen adolescent and adult bondsmen and owned more than 1,000 acres. Dennis sold this land in 1853, having the year before purchased Wards Neck, a 651-acre tract on the Staunton (Roanoke) River. In 1860, when his plantation produced 37,000 pounds of tobacco, he paid taxes on forty-five enslaved workers above the age of twelve and owned thirty-one younger children enumerated by the census taker.

During the Nullification Crisis, Dennis attended a Charlotte Court House meeting and served on a committee that approved resolutions protesting President Andrew Jackson's actions and supporting Virginia's states' rights position. He was a delegate to the 1835 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore and an alternate delegate to the 1848 convention.

In April 1842 Dennis defeated the Whig incumbent by about 60 votes out of almost 700 cast to win election representing Charlotte County in the House of Delegates. He sat on the Committees on Agriculture and Manufactures and to Examine the Executive Expenditures. Following the resignation in 1843 of the state senator from the district consisting of Charlotte, Lunenburg, Nottoway, and Prince Edward Counties, Dennis won the open seat in the April election. Appomattox County became part of the district after its formation in 1845, and Dennis was reelected to a full four-year term in that year and again in 1849. During his tenure in the Senate, he served most frequently on the Committees to Examine the Armory, of Internal Improvement, to Examine the Penitentiary (which he chaired for the 1846–1847 session), and to Examine the Treasurer's Accounts (which he chaired from 1847 to 1850). He voted for neither Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter nor James Murray Mason when the General Assembly elected the two states' rights Democrats to the United States Senate in January 1847.

In February 1845 Dennis attended the Virginia Democratic Legislative Convention and served on the committee charged with developing a plan to organize the counties in preparation for the spring elections. During the assembly session of 1848–1849 he became a regular substitute for the occasionally absent Speaker of the Senate, and on 4 February 1850, following the resignation of John Webb Tyler, he was unanimously elected to the office. In a brief acceptance speech Dennis twice pledged to fulfill his duties in a nonpartisan manner, a seemingly difficult task in an era characterized by intense rivalry between Whigs and Democrats.

When the Senate opened its next session on 2 December 1850, Dennis again won unanimous election to the Speakership. He was the last member to occupy the office, which ceased to exist when the Constitution of 1851, ratified in October, created the office of lieutenant governor and made the holder of that position presiding officer of the Senate. The constitution also redefined senatorial districts and mandated new elections. Dennis declined his party's nomination for the seat representing Charlotte and Mecklenburg Counties. A correspondent to the Richmond Enquirer noted that the nomination had been tendered despite the dissatisfaction Dennis had engendered among some of his fellow Democrats because he had canvassed the district in favor of state-funded internal improvements. These efforts had attracted the support of local Whigs, but Dennis did not wish to owe his election to members of the opposition party.

Dennis concentrated on farming during the 1850s. He neither held public office under the Confederate government nor served in the military during the Civil War. Because the value of his property exceeded $20,000 at the end of the war, he was required to apply for a presidential pardon, which he received on 13 July 1865. William H. Dennis died in the early morning hours of 5 August 1866, most likely at his Charlotte County home.

Sources Consulted:
Louis H. Manarin, Officers of the Senate of Virginia, 1776–1996 (1997), 73–74 (with otherwise undocumented middle name of Henry); United States Census Schedules, Charlotte Co., 1850, 1860, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C.; Charlotte Co. Marriage Bonds; Land Tax Returns and Personal Property Tax Returns, Charlotte Co., both Record Group 48, Library of Virginia; Charlotte Co. Deed Book, 28:281; Charlotte Co. Order Book, 22:202, 23:262, 30:39, 67; Richmond Enquirer, 9 Feb. 1833, 3 May 1842, 2 May 1843, 4 May 1849, 8 Feb., 6 Dec. 1850, 11 Nov. 1851; Virginia General Assembly, Senate, Journal of the Senate of Virginia (1849), 1848–1849 sess., 78, 274, 286, 304, 314, 1849–1850 sess., 74, 1850–1851 sess., 3; Virginia Case Files for United States Pardons (1865–1867), United States Office of the Adjutant General, Record Group 94, NARA; will and estate inventory in Charlotte Co. Circuit Court Will Book, 1:95–102; Charlotte Co. Circuit Court Deed Book, 34:158–160; obituary with birth and death dates and marriage date of 27 Nov. 1822 in Richmond Central Presbyterian, 19 Sept. 1866.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Jennifer R. Loux.

How to cite this page:
Jennifer R. Loux, "William H. Dennis (1801–1866)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2025 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Dennis_William_H, accessed [today's date]).

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