Joseph Carrington Cabell was born on December 28, 1778 in Amherst (now Nelson) County, in Virginia, United States to which colony his grandfather, Dr. William Cabell, had emigrated from England in the early eighteenth century. He was the son of Col. Nicholas and Hannah (Carrington) Cabell, both of them of stock socially and politically distinguished in the colony, and was the brother of William H. Cabell.
After graduating from William and Mary College (1798) and studying law, he resided abroad for more than three years, during which he attended lectures under famous scholars and sojourned at a half-dozen leading universities.
He won the friendship of Robert Fulton and Washington Allston, traveled with Washington Irving, and enjoyed the acquaintance of Cuvier, Pestalozzi, Volney, Kosciusko, and William Godwin.
An early adherent to Jefferson’s party and well-traveled for his day–having completed a tour of Europe November 1802-May 1806–Cabell had opportunities to serve in the administrations of Presidents Madison and Monroe. He declined even to run for a congressional seat, preferring Richmond to Washington. He served for decades in the Virginia General Assembly not because he was incapable of attaining a higher station, but because his service there well-positioned him to advance his two great interests, the University of Virginia and the James River & Kanawha Canal.
Thomas Jefferson recruited Cabell’s aid in the earliest stages of planning for the University of Virginia. Jefferson first raised the issue with his friend in a letter of 5 January 1815, and Cabell thereafter served as the University’s most faithful advocate in the state legislature. He was the prime mover first behind the incorporation of Central College in 1817 and second behind the selection of Central College as the official state university in 1819. In that year, Cabell joined Jefferson, his best friend John Hartwell Cocke, and several other of the Commonwealth’s most distinguished citizens on the University’s first Board of Visitors. When Cabell’s energy faded and he considered resigning his post in the state legislature, Jefferson begged his friend in the strongest possible terms not to abandon his post as the institution’s most capable friend in Richmond. Cabell found some hidden reserve of energy and served the University of Virginia longer than any of its original founders, as a Board member until his death in 1856 and as a member of the General Assembly until 1835.
In addition to his remarkable contributions to the University, Cabell spearheaded the drive for internal improvements in the state of Virginia. He doggedly pursued his goal of connecting the James and Kanawha Rivers–thereby linking the Chesapeake watershed and the Mississippi River–and demonstrated perseverance and political acumen that even his opponents admired. Editor of the Richmond Whig, John Hampden Pleasants, marveled in 1842 at Cabell’s ability to keep the project afloat despite the disapprobation of a majority of his fellow citizens.
Cabell died at his Nelson County estate, “Edgewood, ” in February of 1856, survived by his wife of forty-nine years, Mary Walker Carter Cabell. Cabell left no children to mourn his passing, but the Faculty and Visitors of the University each passed resolutions honoring him. His grateful successors on the Board further commemorated his sacrifices on their behalf by naming the University’s new academic center Cabell Hall in 1895.
He used his powers to extend to both sexes general opportunities for modern primary and secondary instruction; won the title of "the De Witt Clinton of Virginia" for his services as pioneer and president of the James River & Kanawha Canal Company; and, himself a progressive and large-scale plantation owner, supported before the Assembly all bills to improve agricultural conditions in the state.
Quotations:
His personal and political creed is epitomized by his own comment: "I think the greatest service a man can render is to speak the truth and to show that is his only object. "
“Nature will not give you a second life wherein to atone for the omissions of this. Pray then, dear and very dear sir, do not think of deserting us, ” he pined in January 1821.
“To keep this majority passive, and not merely passive, but to impel them into active co-operation, ” he wrote, “argues a great knowledge of mankind, and a great talent for influencing them. ”
He was a member of the House of Delegates and of the Virginia Senate.
Although he held no office of national importance, he won more than sectional recognition for his conspicuous talents, his persuasive oratory, his sense of integrity and justice, his dignity, amenity, conscientiousness, and honor.
He was peculiarly and emphatically "the Virginia statesman, " for without thought of self he dedicated deliberately his entire life to his commonwealth, declining the diplomatic posts which Jefferson tendered him, refusing to stand for the governorship or the federal congress though repeatedly solicited, and rejecting cabinet seats probably under Madison and certainly under Monroe.
On January 1, 1807, he married Mary Walker Carter, of Lancaster, Virginia, granddaughter of Sir Peyton Skipwith, but had no issue.
