Charles Lynch ( judge ) Charles Lynch ( 1736 - 1796 ) was a Virginia planter , politician , and American revolutionary who headed an irregular court in Virginia to punish Loyalist supporters of the British during the American Revolutionary War . The terms " lynching " and " lynch law " are said by some to derive from his name , but there is no evidence for this . Biography . Early years . Charles Lynch was born in 1736 at an estate known as Chestnut Hill on the banks of the James River in Virginia , a place at which his elder brother would later establish the town of Lynchburg . Lynch ' s father left his native Ireland and emigrated to the English Colony of Virginia in about 1725 as an indentured servant , called a " redemptioner " in the nomenclature of the day . Upon arrival in the new world , Lynch was sold to a wealthy planter living in Caroline County . Lynch remained with the planter for his fixed term of servitude , winning in the process not only his freedom but the hand of his daughter , Sarah Clark , in marriage . With the financial assistance of the elder Clark , the Lynches themselves became planters of tobacco on a large scale , farming well over 7 , 000 acres of Virginia land . Sometime between Charles ' birth in 1736 and the middle of the decade , Charles ' father died , leaving behind his Chestnut Hill estate to his eldest son , John . His mother joined the Quaker religious sect in 1750 , bringing her sons with her into that religion . Lynch married a fellow Quaker , the former Anne Terrell , on January 12 , 1755 . With Chestnut Hill occupied by his brother , the young couple set out to establish their new home on Virginia ' s western frontier on a more distant parcel of land granted to his father by King George II , in newly established Bedford County . Green Level , the Lynch estate where the couple would ultimately raise five children , was located at a place marked today by the town of Altavista . Lynch was instrumental in organizing a Quaker meeting in Bedford County and raising funds for a building to house it — the first public house of worship in the area . Lynch served for several years as the clerk of the meeting and as trustee of the group ' s meeting house . He was also a delegate to the Quaker Assembly in Virginia . Following the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 , the danger associated with life at the frontier greatly lessened and a flood of newcomers began to appear in Bedford County . Lynch ' s position as a landowner and leading citizen was by this time well - established . His farming of tobacco and raising of cattle had made him a wealthy man , the possessor of property and African slaves . Beginning in 1764 other property - owning white , male citizens began to approach Lynch to ask him to become a candidate for the Virginia Assembly . Lynch initially refused these entreaties , on the grounds that swearing the necessary oath of office was prohibited behavior for an adherent of the Quaker religion . Career . In 1767 Charles became a justice of the peace of Bedford County , Virginia , but was disowned by the Quakers for taking an oath of office , something Quakers were not permitted to do . Lynch served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Convention from 1769 until 1778 , when he became a militia colonel . After the Revolution , he served in the Virginia Senate from 1784 to 1789 . In several incidents in 1780 , Lynch and several other militia officers and justices of the peace rounded up suspects who were thought to be a part of a Loyalist uprising in southwestern Virginia . The suspects were given a summary trial at an informal court ; sentences handed down included whipping , property seizure , coerced pledges of allegiance , and conscription into the military . Lynch ' s extralegal actions were retroactively legitimized by the Virginia General Assembly in 1782 . " Lynch ' s Law " , referring to organized but unauthorized punishment of criminals , became a common phrase , as was used by Charles Lynch to describe his actions as early as 1782 . The Oxford English Dictionary , however , notes that " The origin of the expression has not been determined . " Variations of the term , such as " lynch law " , " judge lynch " and " lynching " , were standard entries in American and British English dictionaries by the 1850s . In 1811 , a man named Captain William Lynch claimed that the phrase , by then famous , actually came from a 1780 compact signed by him and his neighbors in Pittsylvania County , Virginia , to uphold their own brand of law independent of legal authority . The obscurity of the Pittsylvania County compact compared to the well - known actions of Charles Lynch casts doubt on it being the source of the phrase . Death and legacy . Charles Lynch died on October 29 , 1796 .