Samuel Jordan Cabell

Samuel Jordan Cabell (December 15, 1756August 4, 1818) was an American Revolutionary War officer, planter and Virginia politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates (from 1785 to 1793) and at the Virginia Ratification Convention of 1788 as an Anti-Federalist and in the United States House of Representatives aligned with the Democratic-Republican (from 1795 to 1803). Early life and education Cabell was born in what was then Albemarle County in the Colony of Virginia, the son of prominent planter William Cabell and his wife. His grandfather, also William Cabell, had emigrated from Warminister, England to the new world, possibly after visiting the Virginia colony during his service with the Royal Navy as a ship's surgeon (although he had no medical degree, medical schools having been formed in the era). In addition to his medical practice, his grandfather became a local undersheriff in Henrico County, then surveyor and coroner slightly to the west upstream along the James River in Gooochland County as he began operating plantations using enslaved labor, and kept moving westward in Virginia, finally dying at a plantation he left his youngest son (this man's uncle) in what ultimately became Nelson County. The Virginia General Assembly split Goochland County into Albemarle County in 1844, during his father's and grandfathers' lifetimes, and split Albemarle County several times during his childhood and early adulthood. Young Cabell received a private education suitable to his class, then was sent to the former capital at Williamsburg for higher studies at The College of William & Mary. Military service The American Revolutionary War interrupted his studies, in part as the College of William & Mary closed during much of the conflict and troops occupied the campus. His father William Cabell was familiar with the college and Williamsburg through his service in the Virginia House of Burgessess, first representing Albemarle County and then Amherst County after its creation in 1760. The elder Cabells sided with patriots and against royal authority, which had led Lord Dunmore to suspend the legislature, after which William Cabell represented Amherst County at four of the five Virginia Conventions as the American Revolutionary War began. Samuel Cabell and his younger brother William Cabell Jr. joined the Revolutionary Army in 1775.