Samuel I. Cabell
Samuel J. Cabell | |
---|---|
Born | 1802 U.S. |
Died | |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | plantation owner |
Known for | murder victim, possibly because of interracial marriage; plantation became West Virginia State University |
Samuel I. Cabell (1802 - July 18, 1865) was a wealthy Virginia plantation owner in the Kanawha River valley who may have been murdered for marrying one of his former slaves and providing for their descendants. Although seven white men were acquitted of crime, his will was honored and his descendants went on to lead productive lives. Part of his former plantation approximately nine miles west of what soon became the new state capital at Charleston, West Virginia became West Virginia State University, a historically black college.[1]
Early life
While little is known about his ancestry and or roots, his death record indicates birth in Georgia, though some thought he was from England and many that he was related to the Cabell family, one of the
Randolph W. Cabell, the most recent of Cabell family genealogists[2] believes the West Virginia Cabells descended from Col. John Cabell (1735-1815), who served in the Virginia General Assembly and shared the same British emigrant grandfather as that Col. S. J. Cabell, as well as married Paulina Jordan in 1761. Records concerning his descendants were destroyed in a fire at the Buckingham County courthouse, but his will was discovered in the mid-1970s. Col. John Cabell would have two additional wives, raising an unnamed son of his second wife Elizabeth Brierton Jones, and having at least Alexander A Cabell and Napoleon Bonaparte Cabell with his third wife (the former Frances Johnson). Col. John Cabell's son by his first wife, Samuel Jordan Cabell (1776-1854) lived most of his life in Monroe County (which became West Virginia during the American Civil War) before moving westward and dying in Green County, Kentucky. Though both tributaries of the James River and New River (which flows into the Ohio River) drain Monroe County, his twin sons Samuel R. Cabell and Frederick Cabell were born in 1814.
His slightly elder brother Dr. John J. Cabell (1772-1834) lived mostly in
Slaveowner in Kanawha County
This Cabell settled in near Malden in Kanawha County, Virginia, as did his friend Napoleon Bonaparte Cabell, who became responsible for Kanawha salt sales and collections in the Ohio River watershed between Louisville, Kentucky and Cairo, Illinois for Ruffner, Donnally & Company in the 1850s.[12] In his various wills found after his murder, Samuel Cabell always named Napoleon Bonaparte Cabell as one of the trustees responsible for his children. After the American Civil War, N.B. Cabell's sons ran the West Virginia Colliery Company.[13] "Samuel J. Cabbel" first shows in the 1830 U.S. Census as a slaveholder of between 20 and 30 years old, living with a free black woman of between 25 and 35 years of age and 11 enslaved black males and two black females (including one girl and one boy).[14]
In 1853, Cabell first became a landowner in the area, purchasing 967 acres (3.91 km2) which once belonged to George Washington.[15]
Personal life
Cabell took one of his slaves, Mary Barnes, as his lifelong mate and fathered thirteen children (Elizabeth, Sam, Lucy, Mary Jane, Sidney Ann, Soula, Eunice, Alice, Marina (or Bobby), Braxton, Betty, William Clifford and James B.) whom he cared for, and eventually in his wills granted freedom from slavery. He sent some of them to private school in Ohio (since educating blacks was illegal in Virginia).
Death and legacy
Samuel I. Cabell was murdered at his home on July 18, 1865. A week later, a weekly pro-Union Charlestown newspaper reported his death, and the arrest of Allen Spradling, Andrew Jackson Spradling, Mark L. Spradling, Stark B. Whittington, Lawrence Whittington, William Whittington and Christopher Williams. Local papers were opinionated and contradictory, some blaming the Union League and other denying such and mentioning the victim's rebel sympathies. Several trials were held, but transcripts not made or not found. Clerk office records simply indicate that each of the accused was found innocent.[16]
Cabell did not file a will at the Kanawha County courthouse during his lifetime (perhaps because it did not permit precautionary storage), although the clerk's office later acquired at least four wills, all manumitting Mary Barnes and their children. The first will was dated November 24, 1851. The last will dated September 12, 1863 specifically denied manumission for slaves who fled during the Civil War or were taken by Union troops. The number of wills reflects Cabell's growing family, as well as Virginia state laws and legal decisions in the 1850s which made manumission more difficult.[17]
In December 1865, the Kanawha County Commissioners found all the wills valid, and in 1869 allowed Mary and her children to change their surnames to "Cabell". Napoleon Bonaparte Cabell had been named the legal guardian of the six youngest children in late 1865, and the commissioners divided the estate among Mary and the children in 1870 and 1871. Although some of Samuel Cabell's descendants moved from the area, the town that developed on the former plantation became a haven in a sometimes racist environment, surviving despite petitions in the 1870s to ban all Negroes from Kanawha County.
When the federal government passed a law which would deny funds to states which refused higher education to black children, West Virginia purchased 30 acres of what had been Cabell's land from his daughter Marina (who may have become the first black postmistress in the state) and developed the "West Virginia Colored Institute" (which became
References
- ^ Haught, James A. (January 1971). "Institute: It Springs from Epic Love Story". West Virginia History. 32 (2): 101–107. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
- ^ Alexander Brown, The Cabells and their Kin (preface to 1994 edition)
- ^ see talk page note
- ^ John E. Stealey III, The Antebellum Kanawha Salt Business (University of Kentucky Press pp. 26-27
- ^ "History of Kanawha Salt | Kanawha Salines Foundation".
- ^ "E-WV | Kanawha Salines".
- ^ Stealey p. 27
- ^ Stealey p. 29
- ^ Stealey p. 33-34
- ^ Stealey p. 84-85
- ^ "History of Kanawha Salt | Kanawha Salines Foundation".
- ^ Stealey p. 171
- ^ W. S. Laidley, History of Charleston and Kanawha County West Virginia and Representative Citizens p. 947
- ^ 1830 U.S. Federal Census for Kanawha County, Virginia, pp. 17 and 18 of 84, the spelling reflecting local pronunciation
- ^ Haught, James A. (January 1971). "Institute: It Springs from Epic Love Story". West Virginia History. 32 (2): 101–107. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
- ^ Haught, James A. (January 1971). "Institute: It Springs from Epic Love Story". West Virginia History. 32 (2): 101–107. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
- ^ c.f. Katherine Wisnosky, The Will of the Master: Testamentary Manumission in Virginia 1800-1858 available at://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3507&context=thesesdissertations
- ^ http://kanawhasalinesfoundation.com/history-of-kanawha-salt//kanawhasalinesfoundation.com/history-of-kanawha-salt/ [dead link]
- ^ "Home". jqdsalt.com.
See also
- "Cabell Cemetery". WV GenWeb Project. Retrieved December 15, 2015.