Richard Aylett Buckner

Who was Richard Aylett Buckner?

Richard Aylett Buckner was a United States Representative from Kentucky and the father of Aylette Buckner who was also a Representative from Kentucky. He was born in Fauquier County, Virginia and received a liberal education. He moved to Green County, Kentucky in 1803. He studied law and was admitted to the bar and also taught school. He moved to Greensburg, Kentucky in 1811 and practiced law and served as county attorney and Commonwealth’s attorney of Green County.

Buckner was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1813 and 1815. He was elected as an Adams-Clay Republican to the Eighteenth Congress and as an Adams candidate to the Nineteenth, and Twentieth Congresses. In Congress, he served as chairman, Committee on Private Land Claims but was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1828 to the Twenty-first Congress.

Buckner was appointed associate judge of the court of appeals December 31, 1831, but resigned shortly afterwards. He ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Kentucky in 1832 and then served again as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1837 to 1839. He was a presidential elector on the William Henry Harrison tickets in 1836 and 1840. Buckner was a professor at St. Louis University's law school and instrumental in the founding of that school. In addition, he served as a circuit judge in 1845 and a judge of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky. He died in Greensburg, Kentucky in 1847 and was buried in the family graveyard at the ancestral home, “Buckner’s Hill.”