Author: Matthew S. Gottlieb

Robert Norton, one of three brothers elected to the General Assembly, served in the House of Delegates (1869–1882) and chaired the Committee on Labor and the Poor during the 1881–1882 session. Norton and his brother Daniel M. Norton escaped slavery in the mid-1850s. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), Robert Norton settled in Yorktown and carved out a power base by leading the fraternal society Lone Star. He won his first election to the House of Delegates in 1869, serving all but one term through 1883. The rise of the Readjuster Party late in the 1870s enhanced Norton’s influence, and he gained notice for seconding party leader William Mahone‘s nomination for the U.S. Senate. Norton sat as a delegate to Republican and Readjuster national and state conventions, and campaigned unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives in 1874. Norton lost his bid for renomination to the House of Delegates in 1883. He was named to the board of visitors of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (later Virginia State University) in 1885 and held a gubernatorial appointment as a curator of the fund for Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University). Norton died by 1898.

F. S. Norton, one of three brothers elected to the General Assembly, served one term in the House of Delegates (1869–1871) and later sat on Williamsburg‘s city council (by 1879–1882). Born enslaved, he represented James City County and Williamsburg from 1869 until 1871, during which time he voted with the majority to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution as required by Congress before Virginia could be readmitted to the United States. Norton often differed politically from the Yorktown-based brothers, Daniel M. Norton and Robert Norton. He embraced Radical Republicanism in the 1860s while his brothers were more sympathetic with the Conservative Party. They all later joined the Readjuster Party, but he withdrew and supported the Republicans against his brothers. He identified himself as a Democrat in his later years. Norton died of unknown causes at his Williamsburg home in 1893.

Daniel M. Norton, one of three brothers elected to the General Assembly, was a physician who served in the Senate of Virginia (1871–1873, 1877–1887). Born enslaved, he escaped to New York in the mid-1850s. He learned the medical profession and by 1865 moved to Yorktown, where he quickly became a leader among the area’s freedpeople. The region’s voters elected him to the state Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868 and he later served for twelve years in the Senate of Virginia. Norton often clashed with the Republican Party‘s leadership and launched unsuccessful candidacies for the U.S. House of Representatives late in the 1860s and early in the 1870s. Norton aligned with the Readjuster Party in its early stages and played a key role in bringing African American voters into the short-lived, but powerful faction. He later clashed with political leader William Mahone, who engineered his removal from the Senate of Virginia. Norton owned considerable property in Yorktown, including the historic customs house. By 1910, he and his family were using the surname McNorton, although it is unclear why. He died in Hampton in 1918.

Armistead S. Nickens represented Lancaster County in the House of Delegates for two terms (1871–1875). Born into a free family, Nickens became prosperous enough by the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that the local agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau listed him as a respectable citizen capable of holding public office. Nickens won his first term in 1871, becoming the first African American elected official in county history. He gained a second term in 1873 by a scant twenty-nine votes. After his term in the assembly Nickens received an appointment as a special collector of delinquent taxes in Lancaster County. A landowner, according to local tradition Nickens advocated a bridge across the Rappahannock River that would connect Tappahannock and Richmond County. He died at home in 1906.

Frank Moss was a member of the Convention of 1867–1868, the Senate of Virginia (1869–1871), and the House of Delegates (1874–1875). Records of his early life do not exist, but he likely was born in Buckingham County sometime in the mid-1820s. Local tradition holds that he was born into a free family but evidence also exists that he was enslaved. In 1867, he won election as a delegate to the constitutional convention required in order for Virginia to gain admittance into the United States after the American Civil War (1861–1865). Described by an American general as “energetic and enterprising,” he supported radical reformers on all major issues. His speeches, however, were considered so divisive that the Freedman’s Bureau ordered him arrested. A charge of breaching the peace was later dropped. A Republican, Moss served in the Senate of Virginia and voted to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution and later was elected to the House of Delegates. Just after the election, in November 1873, he was arrested and tried for beating a man who voted against him, but the jury deadlocked. A national, pro-Republican newspaper denounced Moss as a laughingstock in 1875 and he lost reelection. In his later years, Moss supported the biracial Readjuster Party, although by 1883 he opposed its leader, Senator William Mahone. The circumstances of Moss’s death are unknown.