History of Hanover County Virginia United States of America

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Richard Clough Anderson, soldier, was born in Hanover county, Va., Jan. 12, 1750. At the breaking out of the revolutionary war he entered the service as captain of the 5th Virginia continentals, and throughout the war he served bravely and efficiently, especially at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. At Trenton, Dec. 24, 1776, he crossed the Delaware river in advance of the main army, forming the advance outpost of the continental troops, and forced back the Hessians. He then served in the south, entering Charleston, S.C., with Pulaski's army in 1779, and aided in the defence of that City. He was also at Savannah, Ga., in October of the same year, and was on board the Wasp when Pulaski was taken north to be treated for the wound he received. He attended the gallant Pole in his last hours and received from him his sword as an evidence of friendship. At the end of the war he received the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and removed to Kentucky, then a wilderness infested by hostile Indians. Here he distinguished himself by his bravery and resolution in fighting the savages. In 1788 he was a member of the state convention, and in 1793 a presidential elector. The first cargo of produce ever shipped directly from Kentucky to Europe was sent in a vessel constructed by him and despatched by way of the Mississippi river and New Orleans in 1797. He was married in 1785 to Elizabeth, sister to George Rogers Clark. They had three sons, Richard Clough, Larz, and Robert. Their home near Louisville was known as "Soldiers' Retreat." He died Oct. 16, 1826.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Richard Henderson, pioneer, was born in Hanover county, Va., April 20, 1735; son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Williams) Henderson. His paternal grandparents came from Scotland and his maternal grandparents from Wales. His father was born in Hanover county, Va., March 17, 1700. Richard removed with his father to North Carolina about 1745 and acquired his education without instructors, after he had reached manhood. He was constable and under-sheriff in Granville county, N.C., his father being high-sheriff of the same county. He was admitted to the bar, and in 1769 was appointed associate judge of the superior court by Governor Tryon. His persistence in enforcing the law caused the displeasure of the opponents to the tax laws and on one occasion, in September, 1770, the Regulators drove him from the bench. When a state government was organized in 1776 he was reelected, but declined to serve, being interested in the Transylvania Land company. He made the Treaty of Watauga with the Cherokee Indians in 1775, twelve hundred savages being present, by which the company became proprietors of 18,000 acres of territory for ?10,000 worth of goods, an extent of territory comprising over half the area of the present state of Kentucky and the adjacent part of Tennessee. A government was organized at Boonesborough and Henderson was made president of the proposed state of Transylvania. The first legislature assembled under an elm tree near the walls of the fort in February, 1775, and of the members, the names of Daniel and Squire Boone, Richard Calloway, Azariah Davis, Isaac Hire, William Coke, Samuel Henderson, John Todd, Richard Moore, John Lythe, James Douglass, Nathan Hammond, Alexander Dandridge, Samuel Wood, Matthew Jewit, Valentine Harmon, Thomas Slayter, John Floyd and James Harrod appeared. A liberal government was instituted, but the purchase made by Henderson was annulled by the state legislature of Virginia and as a compensation the state granted to the company a tract of land twelve miles square on the Ohio below the mouth of the Green river. Judge Henderson was a boundary line commissioner in 1779. He removed to Nashville, Tenn., the same year and practised law there one year. Afterward he settled on his large plantation near Williamsborough, N.C., where he engaged in farming. The town, village and county of Henderson, N.C., were named in his honor. He was married to Elizabeth Keeling. He died in Hillsborough, N.C., Jan. 30, 1785.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Thomas Nelson Page, author, was born at Oakland, Hanover county, Va., April 23, 1853; son of Maj. John and Elizabeth Burwell (Nelson) Page; grandson of Francis and Susan (Nelson) Page, and of Thomas and Judith Nelson, and a descendant of Col. John and Alice (Luckin) Page of the county of York in Virginia. He was brought up on the family plantation, attended Washington and Lee university for three sessions, taught school in Kentucky for one year and was graduated at the University of Virginia, LL.B., in 1874. He practised law at Richmond, 1875-93, when he removed to Washington, D.C. He received the honorary degree of Litt. D. from Washington and Lee university in 1887, of LL.D. from Tulane university in 1899, and of Litt. D. from Yale in 1901. He was married in 1886 to Anne Seddon Bruce, who died in 1888; and secondly, in 1893, to Florence Lathrop, widow of Henry Field of Chicago, Ill. He devoted his leisure to literary work, and is the author of: in Ole Virginia, Marse Chan and Other Stories (1887); Two Little Confederates (1888); Befo: De War (with Armistead C. Gordon, (1890); On Newfound River (1891); Among the Camps (1891); Elsket and Other Stories (1891); The Old South: Essays, Social and Historical (1892); Pastime Stories (1894); The Burial of the Guns (1895); The OldGentleman of the Black Stock (1896); Social Life in Old Virginia (1897); Two Prisoners (1898); Red Rock (1898); Santa Claus' Partner (1899), and Gordon Keith (1903).

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Henry Clay, statesman, was born in Hanover county, Va., April 12, 1777; son of the Rev. John and Elizabeth (Hudson) Clay, and fourth in descent from Thomas Clay, who, with his brothers Charles and Henry, immigrated to America with Sir Walter Raleigh and settled on the James river. His father was a Baptist preacher who died in 1781. His mother was a daughter of George Hudson, a man of considerable repute in Virginia, and when she was left a widow with no income, save what could be earned from the cultivation of a small farm, she set out to support and educate her son, sending him to the district school and encouraging him to industry in laboring on the farm and contributing as he could to their support. The neighborhood in which they lived was known as "The Slashes," and the boy's journeying to and from the mill on horseback with corn to be ground into flour, gave him his subsequent sobriquet, "The millboy of the Slashes." His mother was married to Captain Henry Watkins of Richmond and removed to Kentucky about 1792. The stepfather had previously secured for Henry a situation in a store in Richmond, Va., but before leaving the boy dependent upon his own resources found for him more congenial employment in the office of the clerk of the high court of chancery, then filled by Peter Tinsley. The attention of Chancellor Wythe was attracted to the boy and he made him his private secretary and directed his efforts toward improving his education. His progress was rapid and in 1796 he entered, as a law student, the office of Robert Brooke, attorney-general of Virginia. Upon being admitted to practice in 1797, by the Virginia court of appeals, he removed to Lexington, Ky., in November, where he opened a law office and continued a practice of debating, begun in Richmond, by joining a class of the young barristers of Lexington, of which club he soon became the acknowledged leader. His law practice included capital criminal cases and numerous land claim suits. His eloquence directed public attention to him as an available political leader, and his advocacy of gradual emancipation as a feature of the proposed state constitution, and his denunciation of the alien and sedition laws commanded immediate attention. He was married in April, 1799, to Lucretia, daughter of Col. Thomas Hart, a prominent Kentuckian, and made for himself a home on 600 acres of land near Lexington, thereafter known as "Ashland." His fortune grew with his popularity as a lawyer and advocate, and in 1803 he was elected a member of the lower house of the state legislature, where his eloquence attracted general attention, it being said that when Clay spoke in the house the senate became empty. He further distinguished himself by fighting a duel with Colonel Davies, U.S. attorney for Kentucky. In 1806 Aaron Burr was arrested in Kentucky and employed Mr. Clay to defend him before the courts, which Clay did so effectually as to secure his release. This, however, brought no credit to the young barrister and he afterward acknowledged his mistake, claiming to have supposed Burr a persecuted and innocent man, at the time he undertook his defence. In December, 1806, upon the resignation of John Adair as U.S. senator, Mr. Clay was appointed to fill the unexpired term, and took his seat in the senate December 29, although constitutionally ineligible by reason of nonage. He became prominent in debate, in the committee rooms, and as the champion of important legislative measures. His two months in the senate demonstrated his ability as a statesman, and his advocacy of internal improvements, especially of a bridge across the Potomac at Washington, and a canal around the falls of the Ohio at Louisville, made for him many friends. Upon his return home after March 3, 1807, he was returned to the state legislature and elected speaker of the house. When a bill was introduced to prohibit the use of British decisions and jurisprudence authorities in the Kentucky courts, he defeated the act, and in the same legislature defended the embargo measures of President Jefferson. He also introduced a measure forbidding legislators to wear any clothes not the product of domestic manufactures. The debate on this measure led to a duel with Humphrey Marshall, in which both combatants were slightly wounded. In December, 1809, Mr. Clay was again appointed a U.S. senator, this time to fill the unexpired term of Buckner Thurston, who had resigned his seat. In the senate he continued his advocacy of internal improvements, the encouragement of home industries, the right of preemption to purchasers of public lands, and the preservation of peace with the Indians, through trade and intercourse. He sustained the occupation of West Florida in a powerful speech, and opposed the re-charter of the United States bank, on constitutional grounds. After the expiration of his senatorial term, on March 3, 1811, he was elected a representative in the 12th congress and took his seat Nov. 4, 1811. He was at once made speaker of the house, and contrary to precedent, often left the chair to take part in the general debate. He was the leader of the war party and advocated the enlistment of a volunteer army and the building of an efficient navy. Although opposed by the conservative administration the young Americans, under the leadership of Clay, so fanned the war spark that in June, 1812, war was declared against Great Britain. Despite the want of success in the prosecution of the war, Clay vigorously sustained the administration, and his speeches, which were widely circulated, kept alive the war spirit, despite the opposition of the Federalists. In 1813 he was returned to the 13th congress and was again elected speaker May 23, 1814, on the meeting of the congress in extra session to take measures for the vigorous prosecution of the war. He resigned the speakership, Jan. 19, 1814, in order that he might accompany John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Jonathan Russell and Albert Gallatin to Ghent to meet the commissioners of Great Britain, with a view to negotiating for peace. During the five months of conference Mr. Clay persistently opposed granting to the British the right to navigate the Mississippi river, and interfering with the rights of the Indians on U.S. territory. The treaty was signed Dec. 24, 1814, and the American commissioners repaired to Paris whence, after they had learned of the victory of Gen. Jackson at New Orleans, Clay, Adams and Gallatin went to London and negotiated a treaty of commerce. President Monroe, on organizing his administration, offered to Mr. Clay the position of U.S. minister to Russia, which he declined as he also did the war portfolio. During his absence in Europe his constituents had re-elected him a representative in congress and he was again elected speaker of the house, Dec. 4, 1815. Throughout the 14th congress he was the leader of the new Republican party and favored the continuation of direct taxation, as imposed during the war, the building of public roads and canals, and the protection of home industries by a tariff. His opposition to the United States bank in 1811 he now controverted by advocating the establishment of one as a fiscal agent of the government, which measure he now declared to be both expedient and constitutional. His advocacy of an increase in the pay of representatives almost cost him the support of his constituents. He was, however, returned to the 15th congress by a small [p.245] majority. On Dec. 1, 1817, he was again elected to the speakership by an almost unanimous vote. President Monroe's veto of the internal improvement appropriation bill incurred the opposition of Mr. Clay, whose charges against the administration were attributed by some to disappointment at not receiving the portfolio of state. In 1818 he interested himself in behalf of the South American nations, then contending for independence, and in congress he demanded that the neutrality law of 1817 be repealed, and a minister be sent to the united provinces of Rio de la Plata, rather than commissioners, as proposed by the President. He criticized General Jackson's conduct of the Florida war, and in a strong speech in the house denounced as in human Jackson's wholesale execution of Indians. This had the effect of making a bitter enemy of Jackson, who was the nation's military hero, and marks the beginning of the decline in Clay's popularity. In 1819 he was returned to congress and to the speakership and in this, the 16th congress, continued his aggressive warfare against the administration, censuring it for giving up Texas, which he claimed to belong to the United States by reason of the Louisiana purchase; and further urging the recognition of the independence of the South American republics. He supported Senator Thomas's Missouri compromise, which provided for the admission of the state with slavery but excluded slavery from all territory acquired by the Louisiana purchase north of 36?, 30'. When Missouri asked for admittance with a constitution which should recognize slavery and also prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming into the state, the house of representatives, on motion of Mr. Clay, referred the subject to a committee of which he was made chairman. This committee, conjointly with one from the senate, reported a resolution, conditioning the admission of the state on a provision that no law be made preventing settlers of any description from coming into the state who might then or thereafter become citizens of the United States. This was Mr. Clay's part in the Missouri compromise, which gained for him the cognomen, "the great pacificator." Mr. Clay, on retiring from congress at the close of the first session, May 15, 1820, announced that his financial affairs demanded his presence in Kentucky, and when congress reassembled, Nov. 13, 1820, Representative John W. Taylor of New York was elected speaker ad interim. Mr. Clay took the chair Jan. 16, 1821, and at the adjournment of congress, March 3, 1821, he resumed his law practice and his duties as counsel in Ohio and Kentucky for the United States bank. In 1822 he was again elected representative in congress and on the assembling of the 18th congress, Dec. 1, 1823, he was chosen speaker. He advocated a tariff law, internal improvements and a liberal construction of constitutional power, even going so far as to advocate the sending of a commissioner to the struggling people of Greece. In 1824 he was the candidate of the new Republican party for president and in the electoral college he received thirty-seven votes for president and two for vice-president. The election being thrown into the house of representatives, Mr. Clay gave his influence to John Quincy Adams, who was elected. In making up his cabinet, Mr. Adams made Clay his secretary of state and this led to the charge of "bargain and corruption," by the supporters of Jackson and Crawford. The controversy led to a bloodless duel between Clay and John Randolph, April 8, 1826. As secretary of state he arranged favorable treaties with Great Britain and the various European and South American governments, and at the close of the administration, March 3, 1829, he retired to his farm at Ashland and visited several southern and western states, where he addressed the people on current political questions. In 1831 he was elected to the United States senate for a full term and took his seat in the 22nd congress, Dec. 5, 1831. During the same month he was nominated by the Republican National convention as its candidate for the presidency, with John Sergeant of Pennsylvania for vice-president. In the senate Mr. Clay supported the "American system" of tariff for protection, in spite of the general opinion that the rapid reduction of the public debt justified a radical reduction in the tariff. He favored distributing the proceeds from the sale of public lands among the states, and pressed the bill renewing the charter of the United States bank through both houses, but it was vetoed by the President. In the election of November, 1832, Mr. Clay was defeated, receiving only forty-nine electoral votes against 219 for Jackson. On Feb. 12, 1833, he introduced in the senate a compromise bill providing for a gradual reduction of the tariff, which passed both houses and was signed by the President. On the passage of the bill South Carolina repealed her act of 1832, which had declared the tariff laws null and void. When the President ordered the removal of the government deposits from the United States bank, Mr. Clay presented to the senate resolutions censuring him for "assuming a power not conferred by the constitution and laws." These resolutions, with a few modifications, were adopted and called from the President an indignant protest, which was met by a forcible denunciation from Mr. Clay of the President's course, and the resolutions were sustained. In the 23rd congress, Senator Clay continued his attacks on the measures of the administration; prevented the President from making reprisals upon French property because of the non-payment by that government of indemnity due the United States; and employed every means to restrict the removals from office for political reasons and to repeal the Presidential tenure of office act. In the 24th congress he favored the reception of anti-slavery petitions against the exclusion of anti-slavery literature from the mails, but opposed the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. He was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, and when Texas applied for admission as a state he delayed action. The 25th congress met in extra session, Sept. 4, 1837, to provide some relief to the country from the existing financial crisis, and upon the introduction of President Van Buren's sub-treasury plan Mr. Clay opposed it as calculated to "unite the power of the purse with the power of the sword," and urged the restoration of the United States bank. He succeeded in putting off the adoption of the measure for three sessions. In 1840 he was disappointed at not receiving the nomination to the presidency and upon the election of General Harrison he declined the portfolio of state. Upon the accession of John Tyler to the presidency Clay opposed his administration, and in the 27th congress secured the repeal of the sub-treasury act and caused to be passed two bills providing for the incorporation of a new United States bank, which were vetoed by the President. He offered three amendments to the constitution, one limiting the veto power of the President, another providing for the appointment of the secretary of the treasury and the U.S. treasurer by congress, and a third forbidding the appointment of members of congress, when in office, to executive positions. On March 31, 1842, he resigned his seat in the senate, eleven months before the end of his term, and was succeeded by John J. Crittenden. He at once made a tour of the states and was received by his admirers with great enthusiasm. His appearance before the people and his eloquent speeches won for him the Whig nomination in 1844. He had written a letter declaring his opposition to the admission of Texas, and the Democratic party, in nominating James K. Polk, made the Texas question an issue. This brought from Mr. Clay another letter stating that he had no personal objection to its admission, but New York refused her support and Clay was again defeated, receiving 105 electoral votes to 170 for Polk. His favorite son had been killed in the war with Mexico, falling at Buena Vista, and this, added to financial troubles, greatly embittered his life. Mr. Clay had previously warned the country against the danger of giving place to the ambition of conquest, and now declared that the war had been waged only to fix the boundaries of Texas, and not to acquire foreign territory for the purpose of the propagation of slavery. In 1848 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Whig nomination and his disappointment prevented his taking any part in the campaign. In December, 1848, he was unanimously re-elected to the U.S. senate and took his seat, Dec. 3, 1849. He recommended to the state convention, which met to amend the constitution of Kentucky, a provision for the gradual emancipation of the slaves. On Jan. 29, 1850, Senator Clay proposed his "comprehensive scheme of compromise," which resulted in the compromise of 1850. This gave him renown as a statesman and for a time restored quiet to the country, but it failed to satisfy the demands of the radicals, north or south. To make the measure more effective, forty-four senators and representatives, led by Senator Clay, issued a manifesto in January, 1851, declaring that they would not support any man for political office who would not pledge himself against disturbing the matters settled by the compromise. In February, 1851, the capture of Burns, the fugitive slave, in Boston, called from Mr. Clay a proposition to confer upon the President extraordinary powers in order that the fugitive slave law could be enforced. After the adjournment of the 31st congress, Mr. Clay's health began to fail. He journeyed to Cuba and on his return to Ashland importuned his friends not to present his name as a presidential candidate at the coming convention. He went to Washington to take his seat in the senate, Dec. 1, 1851, but his illness prevented and only once during the session of the 32nd congress was he in his seat, and then only for a short time. He received Kossuth in his room and made a short speech to the patriot. Before his death he learned that both great political parties had accepted at their national conventions in 1852, his compromise measure of 1850 as the final settlement of the slavery question. George D. Prentice wrote a "Life of Henry Clay" (1831). His speeches were collected and published by R. Chambers in 1842. James B. Swain published "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay" (1843); Epes Sargent's "Life of Henry Clay," published in 1843, was edited and completed by Horace Greeley in 1852; D. Mallery wrote "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay," 1844: new edition 1857; the Rev. Calvin Colton prepared "Life and Times of Henry Clay," published in six volumes and including his speeches and correspondence (1846-57). This work was revised in 1864. His name was given a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, in October, 1900, in Class M, with John Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington and Webster. He died in Washington, D. C., June 29, 1852.[p.247]

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Hanover County Virginia

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