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.
[12] Meanwhile, in 1817, John J. Cabell was one of the original 20 investors in the Kanawha Salt Company, which purchased the interests of seven entities then manufacturing salt from brine in the 10 mile stretch sometimes called the Great Buffalo Lick along the Great Kanawha River (south of what became Charleston, West Virginia long after Dr. John J. Cabell's death).
[16] However, their group never managed to enlist all the producers, and some non-participants even unsuccessfully petitioned the Virginia General Assembly to make capping a brine well a felony (citing a Kentucky statute as model).
[19] The Kanawha Salt Association ultimately collapsed, and production reached its highest level (exceeding 4 million bushels) in the early 1850s.
[20] Although the Kanawha salines remained the country's largest producer of that vital commodity for curing meat and other uses until the American Civil War, other salines came into production along the Ohio River, as well as rock salt mines in New York state and Michigan (the Michigan Salt Association attempted a similar output pool arrangement in 1868).
In addition to entrusting his children to Napoleon B. Cabell, he named his maternal uncle Nathan Reid of Patrick County, Virginia as an executor for his estate.
Local papers were opinionated and contradictory, some blaming the Union League and other denying such and mentioning the victim's rebel sympathies.
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.
[27] 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".
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.
The college acquired further acreage from the former plantation, and owns the family graveyard, which includes his tombstone spelling his surname "Cabble" and where his widow was buried in 1900.