Christopher Gale

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Christopher Gale (1670–1735) was the first Chief Justice of the Colony of North Carolina. He was also briefly Attorney General and a customs collector for several North Carolina ports. Born in York, England, he was the son of the Reverend Miles Gale and Margaret Stone. Gale studied law in Lancashire and moved to Carolina in his early twenties, settling in Bath and making his fortune through trade with Native Americans. In 1702 he married Sarah Laker Harvey, the widow of Governor Thomas Harvey, and they had four children: Miles, Theophilus, Penelope, and Elizabeth. He lived at Kirby Grange near Bath and, in 1703, was made a Justice of the General Court, the colony’s supreme court, followed by his appointment as attorney general in 1704.

After Cary’s Rebellion in 1708, Gale was removed as Chief Justice by Governor William Glover. He traveled to London to appeal to the Lords Proprietors and was reinstated. He was set to join John Lawson and Baron Christoph de Graffenried on a 1711 expedition into Indian territory, but could not go due to his wife’s illness; some say her illness saved his life when Lawson was killed and the expedition was captured. Later in 1711, Governor Edward Hyde sent him to Charleston to secure military aid for the war against the Tuscarora. On the return voyage he was captured by the French and held briefly on Martinique. He finally arrived home in July 1712 and was re-appointed Chief Justice, a position he held (with brief interruptions) until 1731. During that time he also served as a customs collector at Beaufort, Currituck, and Roanoke, and briefly as the absentee Attorney General of the Bahamas.

In 1729 Gale was appointed to a commission to determine the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia, alongside Colonel John Lovick and William Little. His wife Sarah died in 1730, and around 1733 he married Sarah Catherine Ismay, widow of John Ismay. Gale died in 1735 in Edenton, North Carolina. His will expressed forgiveness and goodwill toward friends and enemies alike. Some of his letters are printed in John Nichols’s Illustrations.