USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 10
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WILLIAM H. CABELL.
The ancestry of William H. Cabell unites several of the worthiest of the families of the Old Dominion, whose qualities are avouched in an extensive connection which it is believed now links almost every family of prominence in the State, and numbers honored representatives through- out our Union. His paternal ancestor, William Cabell, born March 1, 1687, at Warminster, Wiltshire, England, of an ancient family (said to have been originally from Spain, and thus indicated in the family arms, and name, originally Caballos), was a surgeon in the British navy, and settled in Virginia about 1724, acquiring extensive landed possessions which enriched his descendants. Two brothers, the heads of an estimable family in Virginia, Joseph (founder of the historic seat "Powhatan," near Richmond), and William Mayo, of the family of Poulshot, England, who came to Virginia in 1728, after having made some stay at Bridge- town, Barbadoes, were near relatives of Dr. Cabell, their mothers being sisters. William Mayo ran the dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728, under Colonel William Byrd, laid out the cities of Richmond and Petersburg, and was the surveyor of Goochland County when it embraced both sides of James River to the Appomattox River, on the south, and from Henrico and Chesterfield counties, respectively, to the Blue Ridge. Of the issue of the first marriage of Dr. Cabell with Miss Elizabeth Birks, of one daughter and four sons, Nicholas, the youngest, of "Liberty Hall," born October, 1750, died August 18, 1806, was the father of the subject of the present sketch, who may be deemed to continue satisfactorily this narrative in a brief autobiography which has been kindly supplied the writer by his friend Alexander Brown, Esq., a worthy representative of the family: "I was born De- cember 16, 1772, at 'Boston Hill,' about five miles distant from Car- tersville, in Cumberland County, Virginia, the residence of my maternal
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grandfather, Colonel George Carrington, whose wife was Anne, daughter of William Mayo, of Powhatan County. I am the eldest son of Colonel Nicholas and Hannah (Carrington) Cabell. From the spring of 1782 to the spring of 1783 I attended school from my father's [Liberty Hall, Nelson County, Virginia, ] to George Lambert, a teacher of English. From March, 1784, to Christmas following, I went to school at my maternal grandfather's, in the county of Cumberland, to Mr. James Wilson, where I commenced the study of the Latin language. In Feb)- ruary, 1785, I entered Hampden-Sidney College, where I continued until September, 1789. In February, 1790, I entered William and Mary College, where I continued until July, 1793 [graduating, then, B. L.]. In the fall of 1793 I went to Richmond to complete the study of the law, and remained there till June 13, 1794, when, after examina- tion by Judges Joseph Prentis, James Henry, and William Nelson, I was licensed to practice law. On the 9th of April, 1795, I married [Rev. Mr. O'Neal officiating] Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Colonel William Cabell, of 'Union Hill' [his father's brother], in whose family I lived until his death in 1798, and afterwards with his widow, at 'Union Hill,' till the 29th of January, 1801, when I moved to my own home at 'Midway.' My first wife died November 5, 1801, and was buried at ' Union Hill.' Shortly after this I went to Charleston, South Carolina. I returned the following spring. I had been elected to the Assembly [from Amherst county] in the spring of 1796. I was also in the Assembly of 1798, and voted for the famous resolutions of that session. I was an elector at the first election of Mr. Jefferson, and filled the same office again [at his second election]. I was a member of the Assembly in the years 1802, 1803, 1804. On the 11th of March, 1805, I was married to Agnes Sarah Bell [born August 22, 1783; died February 15, 1863], eldest daughter of Col. Robert Gamble, of Richmond [a native of Augusta County, who having creditably served throughout the Revo- lution, particularly distinguishing himself as an officer with Lieutenant James Gibbon, in leading the memorable forlorn hope at Stony Point, settled, after the war, in Richmond, and amassed in mercantile pursuits a handsome competence. He was killed by a fall from his horse in the streets of Richmond, April 12, 1810, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. His tomb is in the churchyard of the venerable St. John's, at Richmond. The wife of Colonel Gamble was Catharine, a daughter of Major Robert Grattan, of the lineage of the celebrated leader of the Irish Parliament, and who built the first stone mill in the Shenandoah Valley, and from its manufacture contributed to the two hundred barrels of flour sent by the people of Augusta County to the distressed city of Boston, during the British siege of 1776. The second daughter of Colonel Gamble, Eliza- beth Washington, born January 30, 1784, became, in 1802, the second wife of the celebrated William Wirt, Attorney-General of the United States, etc. She was the author of Flora's Dictionary, published in
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Baltimore in 1829, and died at Annapolis, Maryland, January 24, 1857. The relations between Governor Cabell and William Wirt, thus closely established, were ever afterwards the most intimate, touching, and con- fidential. The commodious stuccoed residence of Colonel Gamble is still standing, unchanged in appearance, on the hill designated by his name in Richmond, and overlooks the famed Tredegar Iron Works]. In April, 1805, I was again elected to the Assembly, and attended as a member, but within a few days (December, 1805) after the commence- ment of the session, I was elected Governor, in which office I continued for three years, until December, 1808, when I was elected by the Legis- lature a Judge of the General Court, being commissioned by Governor John Tyler, December 15, 1808, which office I held till April, 1811, when I was elected a Judge of the Court of Appeals, being appointed March 21, 1811, by Governor Monroe and the Privy Council, and quali- fying April 3, 1811. I was elected also by the Legislature, December 7, 1811, and then commissioned by Governor George William Smith. After the adoption of the new constitution of Virginia [1830] I was again re- elected a Judge of the Court of Appeals, April 11, 1831, and commis- sioned by Governor John Floyd. And on the 18th of January, 1842, I .. was elected president of that court, and commissioned by Lieutenant- Governor John Rutherfoord, and qualified and took my seat January 20, 1842." It may be added that Judge Cabell continued to serve as President of the Court of Appeals until 1851, when he retired from the bench. He died at Richmond, January 12, 1853, widely revered for his virtues and deeply lamented, and was interred in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. At a called meeting of the Court of Appeals and bar of Virginia, held in Richmond, January 14, glowing resolutions in testi- mony of the singular purity of character and excellences of Judge Cabell were passed, which were published in the American Times of January 19, 1853. From thence the following is extracted :
"Resolved, That we cherish, and shall ever retain, a grateful remembrance of the signal excellence of the Honorable William H. Cabell, as well in his private as in his public life. There were no bounds to the esteem which he deserved and enjoyed. Of conspicuous ability, learning and diligence, there combined there- with a simplicity, uprightness and courtesy, which left nothing to be supplied to inspire and confirm confidence and respect. It was as natural to love and honor him; and both loved and honored was he by all who had an opportunity of observing his unwearied benignity or his conduct as a judge. In that capacity wherein he labored for forty years in our Supreme Court of Appeals, having pre- viously served the State as Governor and Circuit Judge, such was his uniform gentleness, application and ability ; so impartial, patient and just was he; of such remarkable clearness of perception and perspienity, precision and force in stating his convictions, that he was regarded with warmer feelings than those of merely official reference. To him is due much of the credit which may be claimed for our judicial system and its literature. It was an occasion of profound regret, when his infirmities of age, about two years since, required him to retire from the bench, and again are we reminded, by his death, of the irreparable loss sustained by the public and the profession."
FRINGE
ROBERT BROOKE, Governor of Virginia, 1794-6.
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The General Assembly of Virginia also passed a series of resolutions in testimony of the eminent worth of Judge Cabell, and eulogies deliv- ered in that body alike warmly exhibit the profound regard in which he was held.
It may be noted that it was during the incumbency of Judge Cabell as Governor of Virginia, that the serious disputes with England began, first in the wrangles on the subject of naturalization and protection of British seamen, which gave rise, in June, 1807, to the attack on the frigate " Chesapeake," by the British sloop-of-war " Leopard," one of the preliminary instigations to the war of 1812.
Another event in the administration of Governor Cabell served to make it memorable-the examination and trial of Aaron Burr, at Rich- mond, before Chief Justice John Marshall, in the spring and summer of 1807, for treason in an alleged design to found an empire in the western part of America. Messrs. John Wickham, Edmund Randolph, and Benjamin Botts, eminent lawyers, residents of Richmond, and the celebrated Luther Martin, of Maryland, were the counsel of Burr. Alexander McRae and George Hay, of Richmond, and the brilliant William Wirt, were associated with Cæsar Rodney, the Attorney-Gen- eral of the United States, in the prosecution. Colonel Edward Carring- ton, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution, was foreman of the jury which sat in the case, and which had been formed with much difficulty by repeated venires, summoned from all portions of the State.
So high had been the official position of the accused, and with so much interest was his character and alleged designs invested, and such was the legal talent engaged, that the trial attracted to Richmond dis- tinguished visitors from various portions of the Union, among them the future President, the famous Andrew Jackson, who journeyed from Tennessee on horseback. The result, as is well known, was the ac- quittal of Burr, but the suspicion of which he was prevailingly the sub- ject, seemed to attend him through the remainder of his life, and utterly blasted all of his cherished hopes for political preferment. He led a precarious existence henceforth, and died in squalor and neglect on Staten Island, New York, September 14, 1836, in the eighty-first year of his age.
By the first marriage of Judge Cabell he had issue three children : Nicholas Carrington, born February 9, 1796, lawyer, died October 13, 1821, unmarried; Louisa Elizabeth, born February 19, 1798, married, May 23, 1820, Harry Carrington, of Charlotte County, Va., died Janu- ary 8, 1865; Abraham Joseph, M.D., born April 24, 1800, died Octo- ber, 1831, in Florida, unmarried. Of the issue of his second marriage, Doctors Robert G., and J. Grattan Cabell, distinguished physicians, and
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Colonel Henry Coalter Cabell, a gallant officer of artillery in the Con- federate Army, in the late war, and a prominent member of the bar, are well-known citizens of Richmond. Another son, Edward Carrington Cabell, at one time a member of Congress, resides in the State of Missouri.
The county of Cabell, formed in 1809 from Kanawha County, was named in honor of Governor Cabell.
JOHN TYLER.
To the golden worth of the subject of the present sketch the great statesman, Henry Clay, publicly bore the following ardent testimony : "I knew the father of the President, Judge Tyler, of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and a purer patriot or a more honest man never breathed the breath of life. I am one of those who hold to the safety which flows from honest ancestors and the purity of blood" (Congres- sional Globe, Vol. VIII, p. 345). Some interesting communications re- garding early representatives of the name Tyler in England, and its curious etymological changes, are presented in a correspondence, held in 1852, between President John Tyler and Rev. William Tyler, of Massachusetts, as to their common lineage. It is conjectured there that the first of the name who settled in England was of Norman origin, and accompanied thither William the Conqueror, and assisted him to throw off the Saxon power which went down with Harold, and who was a beneficiary in the parceling out of lands in 1202, under the name of Gilbert de Tiler; which, in 1233, was rendered de Tyler, then le Tyler when the race became more numerous-being represented in Parliament by Thomas le Tyler in 1311-and finally Tyler, a numerous family, in- cluding Knights, Baronets, Admirals in the Navy, Members of Parlia- ment and distinguished Divines; but the subject of our sketch, regard- less of titles, was prouder of the tradition which declared him a veritable descendant of Wat Tyler, the great blacksmith of English history, who in the reign of Richard II., Jed the glorious rebellion which forced the reconfirmation of Magna Charta ; bearing testimony to his sincerity in the name of his first born son, Wat Henry, called after the two great- est rebels in English history, Wat Tyler and Patrick Henry. The received tradition is that the ancestor of the family in Virginia, Henry Tyler, was one of three brothers from Shropshire, England, the other two settling severally in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Henry Tyler first appears in the records of Virginia, January 7, 1652, as a patentce of lands in James City County, at " The Middle Plantations," where Williams- burg now stands. He was a man of station and influence. When, after the destruction of the State House at JJamestown by fire, Governor Nicholson, in 1699, removed the seat of government to Middle Planta- tions, the General Assembly by act laid off the city of Williamsburg, as
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the new capital, on the lands of Henry Tyler, " Gentleman." He was named with the Governor, Edmund Jenings, Philip Ludwell, Thomas Ballard, Lewis Burwell, Philip Ludwell, Jr., John Page, James Whaley and Benjamin Harrison, Jr., trustees and directors to carry the same into effect. He retained lands for the site of a residence for himself, ad- joining the Governor's " palace," and was on terms of friendship with Governor Nicholson. Henry Tyler served as sheriff of York County, and died in 1710, leaving with other issue two sons, Francis and John. The latter settled in James City County ; was a vestryman of Bruton parish : married Elizabeth Tyler, and died about 1737, leaving issue a daughter, Joanna, who married Dr. William Mckenzie, of an ancient Scotch family ; and three sons, John, Henry and William. Jolin Tyler, the eldest son, married Anne, daughter of Dr. Louis Contesse, a Hugue- not refugee from religious persecution, and a distinguished physician ; he was marshal of the Vice Admiralty Court, and died August 26, 1773, at his ancestral home in JJames City County, leaving issue : Elizabeth, who married John Greenhow; Rachel, who married, first, William Drummond, and secondly, Colonel Stith Hardyman, of Charles City County; Louis Contesse ; Anne Contesse, who married Dr. Anthony Tucker Dixon, and Joanna, who married Major Wood Boul- din, of Charlotte County. Of the above, John Tyler, the subject of this sketch, was born February 28, 1747. He entered the grammar school of William and Mary College, in the eighth year of his age, and graduated from the college in due course. He then studied law for five years in the office of Robert Carter Nicholas, in Williamsburg. Jefferson, four years his senior in age, was a student there, also, at the same time, with George Wythe. Alike devoted to popular right, and both lovers of the fiddle, as many other eminent Virginians have been, there was early cemented between these ardent youths a friendship which endured with their lives. Together they tested their musical skill, to the dis- comfiture of the future author of the Declaration of Independence, who so envied the bow arm of young Tyler, that he declared were that arm his own he would yield to no man living in the excellence of his per- formance. Together they listened to Patrick Henry, the "forest born Demosthenes," in his famous philippie against George III., with like en- kindling emotions. So earnestly were the sympathies of young Tyler enlisted in the cause of colonial rights, and so outspoken were his senti- ments, that they led him into contentions with his father, to whose loval sensibilities such utterances were all but impious. His remon- strances being futile, he would dubiously shake his head and depreciat- ingly say to his rebellious son: "Ah, John! they will hang you yet ! They will hang you vet !" Mr. Tyler, having been duly licensed, for a time practiced his profession in James City, but in 1772 removed to Charles City, probably as offering a less crowded field to a young aspir-
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ant, but there was another reason amply alluring. In a MS. volume of poetical essays by him, still extant, there are some lines, dated 1774, in which the charms of a daughter of the " County of Presidents," are glowingly portrayed. This lady, Mary, the daughter of Robert Armi- stead (a descendant from William D'Armstadt of Hesse, who settled in Virginia about 1650), at the age of sixteen became the wife of John Tyler, in 1776, at " Weyanoke," the seat of Colonel Samuel Harwood, on James River. The mother of Mrs. Tyler was the daughter of Colonel Samuel Shield, a worthy representative of a family of sterling virtues.
At a meeting of the freeholders of Charles City County, held December 17, 1774, Benjamin Harrison was appointed chairman of a committee consisting of John Tyler, William Acrill, Francis Eppes, Samuel Harwood, David Minge, John Edloe and some others, who were charged with the duty of looking to the observance of the regulations of an association lately recommended to Congress, to prevent the use of merchandise shipped from Great Britain and Ireland. The march in April, 1775, of Patrick Henry, to recover the powder removed by Dun- more from the magazine at Williamsburg, kindled the martial spirit of the colonists to fiercest heat. They were everywhere eager to rush to the standard of Henry. Tyler, at the head of a company from Charles City County, was among the first to thus organize, but the ready indem- nity offered by the terrified Dunmore, gave him no opportunity for immediate service. On September 11th following, deputies from the district of which Charles City was a county, assembled at Williamsburg, to take into consideration the military aspect of affairs. A battalion was resolved on with the following officers : Colonel, Champion Travis ; Lieutenant-Colonel, Hugh Nelson ; Major, Samuel Harwood; and of one of two companies from Charles City, John Tyler was made captain. But the abilities of Mr. Tyler were needed in another sphere. He was appointed by the Virginia Convention, July 5, 1776, one of the judges of the High Court of Admiralty. In the spring of 1778, he was called by the voice of Charles City, to represent it in the House of Delegates, of which body he was Speaker from 1781 to 1786. In this body also he moved, and secured the passage of the bill which convened the famous Assembly at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786, and which, not having a quorum from the several States, adjourned to meet at Philadelphia the year following, and there framed the new Federal Constitution.
In the year 1780 he was appointed a member of the Council of State. A reminiscence of his experience in this station, which would have aptly illustrated the preceding sketch of Patrick Henry, still deserves preservation here. In May, 1781, Mr. Tyler was in at- tendance upon the Assembly, which, as already narrated in the sketch of Thomas Jefferson, had adjourned before British pursuit to Charlottes- ville. Thither the noted Colonel Tarleton followed them with his regi-
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ment, with the intention of capturing the leading members. Receiving through one Jewett, by dint of hard riding, the appalling intelligence, the fugitive legislators hetook themselves again to their saddles. Late in the day Patrick Henry, John Tyler, Benjamin Harrison, and Colonel William Christian, who had fled together, fatigued and hungry, stopped their horses at the door of a small hut in a gorge of the Blue Ridge, and asked for refreshments. A woman, the sole occupant of the hut, inquired of them who they were, and where from. "We are members of the Legislature," said Mr. Henry, "and have just been compelled to leave Charlottesville on account of the approach of the enemy." "Ride on, then, ye cowardly knaves," replied the old woman, violently indignant; "here my husband and sons have just gone to Charlottes- ville to fight for ye, and you are running away with all your might. Clear out; ye shall have nothing here." "But," Mr. Henry rejoined, in an expostulating tone, "we were obliged to fly. It would not do for the Legislature to be broken up by the enemy. Here is Mr. Speaker Harrison; you don't think he would have fled had it not been neces- sary ?" "I always thought a great deal of Mr. Harrison till now," the old woman answered; "but he'd no business to run from the enemy," and she was about to shut the door in their faces. "Wait a moment, my good woman," again interposed Mr. Henry; "you would hardly believe that Mr. Tyler or Colonel Christian would take to flight if there were not good cause for so doing?" "No, indeed, that I wouldn't," she replied. "But Mr. Tyler and Colonel Christian are here," said he. "They here! Well, I never could have thought it," and she stood a moment as if in doubt, but finally added, "No matter; we love those gentlemen, and I didn't suppose they would ever run from the British; but since they have, they shall have nothing to eat in my house. You may ride along." As a last resort, Mr. Tyler then stepped forward and said: "What would you say, my good woman, if I would tell you that Patrick Henry fled with the rest of us?" "Patrick Henry! I would tell ye that there wasn't a word of truth in it," she answered, angrily; "Patrick Henry would never do such a cowardly thing." "But this is Mr. Henry," rejoined Mr. Tyler, pointing him out. The old woman was manifestly astounded. After a moment's consideration, and a convulsive twitch or two at her apron string, by way of recovering her scattered thoughts, she said: "Well, then, if that's Patrick Henry, it must be all right. Come in, and ye shall have the best I have in the house."
Perhaps, says Abeel, in his life of President Tyler, from which the above is extracted, no higher compliment was ever paid to the patriot- ism of Patrick Henry than this simple tribute, expressive of the senti- ment with which he was regarded by the people of Virginia. Through- out the Revolution Mr. Tyler devoted himself unceasingly and untiringly
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to its success. A bold, free, and elegant speaker, his voice was never silent when it could avail aught for the great cause in which he was enlisted. In 1786 Mr. Tyler was again appointed a Judge of the Court of Admiralty, and was consequently a member of the first Court of Appeals of the State. He was appointed a Judge of the General Court in 1788, and served in this capacity until December 1, 1808, when he was elected Governor of Virginia. From the last station he was called, by the appointment of Mr. Madison, to the judgeship of the District Court of the United States for Virginia; which office he held until his death at his seat, "Greenway," in Charles City County, January 6, 1813 -the period of the second war with Great Britain. As a judge, the first prize case-the capture of the privateer Globe-was passed upon by him, and so ardent was his individuality as a Republican, that his re- peated utterance on the fatal bed of sickness is memorable : " My only regret," he would feebly say, "is, that I can not live long enough to see that proud English nation once more humbled by American arms." The eminent Daniel Call, in his Reports (Vol. IV, p. 23), says of Mr. Tyler: "In all his public situations he maintained an independence of character which was highly honorable to him. * * * He was very attentive to young lawyers upon their first coming to the bar; and did every thing in his power to put them at ease and inspire them with confidence. His conversation was familiar, his heart benevolent, and his friendship sincere."
Mr. Tyler left three sons, Wat Henry, a skilled and popular physi- cian of Hanover County, Virginia; John, 10th President of the United States; and William; and five daughters, Anne Contesse, married the learned James Semple, long the Judge of the General Court of Vir- ginia, and Professor of Law at William and Mary College; Elizabeth, married John Clayton Pryor, of Gloucester county; Maria Henry, married John Boswell Seawell, of Gloucester county; Martha Jefferson, married Thomas Gunols Waggaman, of Maryland, a brother of United States Senator Waggaman, of Louisiana, and Christiana, who became the wife of Dr. Henry Curtis, an accomplished and highly successful physician and surgeon of "Puccoon," Hanover County, Virginia, who was of the same lineage as the distinguished New England family of that name, both deriving from Sir Henry Curtis of England.
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