Document signed by Bazil Gordon. Stafford County, Virginia, 17 October 1845. 6 pages, folio, 7 7/8 x 12 1/4 in. on blue paper. With signed oath admitting the will into the probate court dated 10 May 1847, after Gordon's death.

The last will and testament of Bazil Gordon (1768-1847), widely considered to be America's first millionaire. Born in Scotland, he emigrated to Falmouth, Virginia, in 1786 and made his initial fortune in the tobacco trade. He purchased property, including Wakefield Manor in Rappahannock County, and invested extensively, as is abundantly evident in this will. 

He arranges for his wife Anna Cambell Knox Gordon (1747-1867) to receive a $4,000 annuity. He also designates that she use "my houses & lots in the Town of Falmouth + of any twelve of my slaves, not herein after specifically dispensed of which she may select." The 1840 Federal Census records that Gordon enslaved 19 individuals. Three enslaved individuals are named in the will, left to Gordon's daughter Annie Campbell Gordon (1819-1886): "Nancy Butler, Sucion Butler, Susan Butler & Libby Grant." 

To his other heirs, principally his son Douglas Hamilton Gordon and his son-in-law John H. Thomas (1813-1881, married to Annie Campbell Gordon), he left an extensive list of stocks and bonds (including railroads) accounting in the tens of thousands of dollars each. When the will was entered into probate, it notably included the remark: "Who made oath thereto and entered into acknowledged a bond in the penalty of million of dollars (no security being required of him, the testator directing by his will that no security shall be required)." 

We have never before encountered a will with such a magnitude of wealth. Perhaps one of the first times a "penalty of million of dollars" was used in American courts for individuals. 

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