William Cabell (American Revolution)

Their firstborn, Samuel Jordan Cabell, was born the year of their marriage and would like his father become a planter and politician, serving in the U.S. Congress as well as Virginia House of Delegates.

Amherst County voters re-elected him as their (part-time) representative to successive assemblies until Lord Dunmore suppressed that legislative body just before the American Revolutionary War.

[3] In 1764, Cabell was one of the first subscribers to the James River Canal Company (although it would not be formally incorporated by the legislature until January 5, 1785), and in 1772 began the first of several terms as treasurer of Amherst County.

He gave William Cabell 1,785 acres of his inheritance early (although he had been living on the acreage bounded by the Fluvanna River since 1752), and began establishing what would become his first and core plantation, "Union Hill".

A decade earlier, in 1753, William Cabell had received his first land patent (claim) for 2700 acres on the east side of Tobacco Row Mountain, for which he paid the colony's government 12 pounds and 15 shillings in cash.

In 1760, this William Cabell patented land on both sides of Findlay Creek adjoining the acreage he received from his father, and in 1764 he added another 579 acres -- and would build a house and continue to add to the plantation for years.

As the presiding justice for Amherst County beginning in 1777, he in effect continued as the area's chief executive officer, in addition to performing judicial duties.

As one of his last political acts in his long career, William Cabell served as one of the presidential electors who voted for George Washington as the first President of the United States.

Many Cabell family papers are held by the University of Virginia libraries, including this man's journals and a 1996 monograph about newly discovered correspondence between his parents during his childhood.