Mann Page was an American planter and lawyer. He served as a delegate for Virginia to the Continental Congress in 1777.
Background
Mann Page was born about 1691 in Rosewell, Virginia, United States. He was the grandson of John Page, who emigrated from England about 1650, became the progenitor of the Page family in Virginia, and established his house firmly in lands and public regard and the son of Matthew Page who was active in public and private affairs of the colony. He inherited large possessions from his father while his mother, Mary (Mann) Page, the sole heiress of John and Mary Mann of "Timberneck, " Gloucester County, had brought to her husband and children broad acres. Both parents died before he was sixteen years old.
Education
In 1709 Mann was sent abroad to Eton College. In 1709 he entered St. John's College, Oxford.
Career
On February 6, 1713/1714, Mann Page became a member of the Council of Virginia on the recommendation of the governor of the colony, who described him as a man of culture and influence. His associates were the important men of the colony. By inheritance and by patents taken in his own right he became, according to tradition, the second largest land owner in Virginia. His father-in-law, "King" Carter, associated Page with him in organizing the Frying Pan Company to mine copper on the boundary of the present counties of Fairfax and Loudoun, where they held a tract of some 27, 000 acres and reopened an old Indian trail from Tidewater to the mine on Frying Pan Run. At his death when he was still a relatively young man, Page owned land in Frederick, Prince William, Spotsylvania, Gloucester, Essex, James City, Hanover and King William counties.
His most lasting monument was his home, "Rosewell, " begun in 1725 on the right bank of Carter's Creek in Gloucester County, near the junction with the York River. It was barely completed before his death. The years have wrapped about this house many traditions. Built of brick, three stories high, with marble casements, carved mahogany finishings, and a lead roof, it was probably the largest home of an eighteenth-century colonial planter in Virginia. With the wings it had a frontage of 232 feet and something like thirty-five rooms. So severe a drain was the financing of such a structure in planter economy that Page's heirs were embarrassed by the debts that devolved upon them and had to sell lands to realize money to discharge the obligation. At the council board, acquiring and administering his huge tracts of land, stretching wide the patrimony for his rapidly increasing family, he was a typical gentleman of his age. When his surviving widow came to write his epitaph she declared, "His publick Trust he faithfully Discharged with Candour and Discretion Truth and Justice. Nor was he less eminent in his private Behaviour. "
Achievements
Mann Page was a distinguished planter and wealthy landholder in Virginia. Page was a council of this Collony of Virginia. He owned nearly 70, 000 acres in Frederick County, Prince William County, and Spotsylvania County. Page built the famous colonial mansion "Rosewell".
Connections
Mann Page was married twice. First, in 1712, to Judith, the daughter of Ralph Wormeley, the secretary of Virginia, by whom he had two sons and a daughter, and second, in 1718, to Judith, the daughter of Robert Carter, 1663-1732, by whom he had five sons and a daughter.
