William Cabell

Background

William Cabell was born on March 13, 1729; the son of William and Elizabeth (Burks) Cabell. The elder William Cabell, of Bugley near Warminster, in Wiltshire, England, was of ancient lineage and trained in surgery.

Education

Tradition but no evidence makes the younger William Cabell a student in William and Mary.

Career

He continuously served in successive assemblies until Lord Dunmore suppressed that legislative body just before the American Revolutionary War. Cabell joined the Albermarle County militia in 1756 and two years later became a commissioner for arranging military claims concerning the French and Indian War, hence his honorific, Colonel.

In 1761, the House of Burgesses created Amherst County from part of Albermarle County. The following year, William Cabell received 1, 785 acres of his inheritance early, and began establishing what would become his "Union Hill" plantation. Beginning in 1765, Amherst County voters then elected Col. Cabell as their delegate to all legislative assemblies until 1789, including serving on the local Committee of Safety during the revolutionary struggle. William Cabell served as the presiding justice for Amherst County beginning in 1777, and became the first state senator for what was then the 8th district.

In 1788 Amherst County voters overwhelmingly elected Col. Cabell and his eldest son Samuel J. Cabell to represent them in the Virginia Ratification Convention (with 327 and 317 votes respectively, the next candidate receiving 23 votes), where both Cabells voted against the proposed United States Constitution, although the convention as a whole ratified it. William Cabell then became a member of the committee that drew up the Declaration of Rights of January 7, 1789. Col. Cabell also served as one of the presidential electors who voted for George Washington as the first President of the United States, and as trustee of Hampden–Sydney College where his sons studied.

William Cabell Sr. died in 1798 and was buried at Union Hill.

Achievements

• He began his political career as a delegate in the House of Burgesses.

Membership

He was a member of the Committee of Safety, a member of the committee which prepared a Declaration of Rights and a form of government for Virginia; a member of the Committee of Propositions and Grievances; and a member of the Virginian Convention.

Personality

Six feet high, corpulent, with capacious forehead, he was of superior brain, strikingly liberal in mind and pocket, of ceaseless energy and infinite capacity for work.

Connections

His wife, Margaret Jordan Cabell (married, 1756), four sons, and three daughters survived him.

Father:

William Cabell

Mother:

Elizabeth (Burks) Cabell

Spouse:

Margaret Jordan Cabell

References

• The Cabells and Their Kin; A Memorial Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy