Prince George County Virginia USGenWeb Archives History - Books .....Prince George County History From Historical Collections Of Virginia By Henry Howe 1845
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Alice Warner http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00015.html#0003503 April 1, 2008, 12:12 am

Book Title: Historical Collections Of Virginia By Henry Howe, 1845

Prince George: P. 439-441.

Prince George was formed in 1702, from Charles City. Its average length is about
21, and its breadth about 11 miles. The James forms its NE., and the Appomattox
its boundary Pop. in 1840, whites 2,692, slaves 4,004, free colored 469; total,
7,175. The C.H. is situated near the centre of the county, 28 miles
southeasterly from Richmond. 

City Point is on the James, at the junction of the Appomattox, and although a
small village -- containing 1 Episcopal and 1 Methodist church, and about 25
dwellings -- is a place of considerable importance, being the outport of
Richmond and Petersburg. At City Poin are several wharves projecting into the
James, within a short distance of which ships of the largest class can float.
"Not only is a large foreign shipping business done here, but the white sails of
domestic commerce daily gladden the eye, as it passes and repasses this port,
freighted, in its progress upwards with the wealth, and productions, and exports
of every clime, while its return carries to every port of our happy Union the
produce of our soil and our mines." Besides the ordinary shipping, steam,
freight, tow, and passage-boats stop here on their way up and down the river.
City Point is a much better site for a commecial town than Richmond, and, it is
said, would have been the seat of government, had not its owner, a Dutchman,
refused to sell on any terms. A rail-road also connects this place with
Petersburg. The Appomattox has latterly been discovered to be navigable for the
vessels of considerable size as far up as Waltham's Landing, half way to
Petersburg, at which there is a short branch rail-road, lately constructed,
connecting with the Petersburg and Richmond rail-road.

John Randolph of Roanoke, there is good reason to suppose, was born at Cawson's,
in this county, the family seat of his maternal grandfather, Theodorick Bland,
Sen. The years of his boyhood were passed at Matoax, near Petersburg.

---

George Keith Taylor was, we believe, a native of this county. He was a member of
the legislature in '98 and '99, during the famous discussion of the alien and
sedition laws, in the advocacy of which he bore a conspicuous part. He was a
leader of the federal party, and a confederate of John Marshall, whose sister he
married. As an advocate in criminal cases he was distinguished: his oratorical
powers have been described as little inferior to those of Patrick Henry; and
like him, his manner on commencing was unprepossessing. In Gilmer's "Sketches
and Essays" there is a note which says that "Mr. Taylor was one of the most
eminent lawyers of his state -- acute, profound, logical, and persuasive; of
fine wit, of exquisite humor, of brilliant fancy, and of the most amiable
disposition."

---

Col. Theodoric Bland Jun., a worthy patriot and statesman, and a descendant of
Pocahontas, was born in this county about the year 1742. In 1753, when about 11
year of age, he was sent to England to be educated, and in 1761 he repaired to
Edinburgh to study medicine. He was among the first persons from Virginia that
devoted themselves to the study of medicine -- a profession in that day but
little cultivated in the colongy, and in the improvement of which, from his
diligence, he is entitled to the merit of having been one of its earliest
pioneers. After an absence of about 12 years from America, he returned to
Virginia, and entered upon the practice of his profession. but he was not an
indifferent spectatior of the political commotions of the day. In December,
1774, in writing to a mercantile friend in England, he says "I should have
vested the small proceeds in goods, but the present political disputes between
these colonies and the mother country, which threaten us with a deprivation of
our liberties, forbid such a step, and induce us to exert every nerve to imitate
the silkworm, and spin from our own bowels, although the web should be our
winding-sheet." The battle of Lexington was the subject of a patriotic poetical
effusion by him. On the 24th of June 1775, Dr. Bland was one of a party of 24
gentlemen who, shortly after the flight of Dunmore, removed certain arms from
the governor's palace at Williamsburg. In the following December he wrote,
apparently for publication, certain philippies against Dunmore, in picted the
blackest hues. In June, 1776, he was captain of the first troop of Virginia
cavalry. He was subsequently appointed lieutenant-colonel of horse, and in
September, 1777, joined the main army. From a letter, it would appear that
towards the close of this year he was a member of the senate of Va. "While in
the army, he frequently signalized himself by brilliant actions." [* Sketch of
Col. Bland, in the History of Va. by J.W. Campbell.] In November, 1778, he
superintended the march of the British troops of convention-made prisoners at
Saratoga, to Virginia; and on their arrival, or shortly after, was appointed by
Washington to the command of the post at Charlottesville. From 1780 to '83, he
was a member of Congress. In 1781, Farmingdale, his residence in Va., was
plundered by the enemy. While in Congress he manifested his usual spirit and
industry in the public cause, particularly in the financial department. In 1785,
he was appointed, by Gov. Henry, lieutenant of this county. He was in that
minority in the convention of Va., convened to consult upon the adoption of the
federal constitution, that believed it repugnant to the interests of the
country, and therefore voted against its ratification. On its adoption, however,
he acquiesced in the will of the majority, and was elected to represent his
district in the first Congress held under the constitution. While serving in
that capacity he died at New York, June 1st, 1790, aged 48. "In person, Col.
Bland was tall -- in his latter days corpulent -- and of a noble countenance.
His manners were marked by ease, dignity, and well-bred repose. In character he
was virtuous and enlightened, of exemplary purity of manners and integrity of
conduct, estimable for his private worth, and respectable for his public
services. His career was distingushed rather by the usefulness of plain,
practical qualifications, than by any extraordinary exhibitions of genius.
Animated, from his childhood, by a profound love of country, and with him
patriotism was not an impulse but principle. In style, he is fluent and correct,
and if sometimes too florid or diffuse, he is at others wanting neither in
energy of thought nor in elegance of diction. Moderation and good temper pervade
his correspondence, and it is nowhere sullied by profanity or indelicacy." [*
The foregoing memoir is abridged from that in the introduction of "The Bland
Papers, being a selection from the manuscripts of Col. Theodorick Bland, Jr.,
etc. etc., " edited by Charles Campbell, of Petersburg, and published there, in
1840, by Edmund and Julian C. Ruffin -- an octavo volume of about 300 pages, and
composed principally of an interesting collection of letters written by the
first personages in the country during the revolutionary era.]

---

Richard Bland was another of the many prominent Virginians who acted on the
theatre of the revolution. Wirt, in speaking of him before the war, says he "was
one of the most enlightened men of the colony. He was a man of finished
education, and of the most unbending habits of application. His perfect mastery
of every fact connected with the settlement and progress of the colony, had
given him the name of the Virginian antiquary. He was also a politician of the
first class; a profound logician, and was also considered as the first writer in
the colony;" but he was a most ungraceful speaker in debate. "He wrote the first
pamphlet on the nature of the connection with Great Britain, which had and
pretension to accuracy of view on that subject; but it was a singluar one: he
would set out on sound principles, pursue them logically, till he found them
leading to the precipice which we had to leap; start back, alarmed; then resume
his ground, go over it in another direction, be led again by the correctness of
his reasoning to the same place, and again tack about and try other processes to
reconcile right and wrong; but left his reader and himself bewildered between
the steady index of the compass in their hand, and the phantasm to which it
seemed to point. Still there was more sound matter in this pamphlet, than in the
celebrated Farmer's Letters, which were really but an ignus fatuus, misleading
us from true princple." Mr. Bland was a member of Congress from 1774 to 1776; he
dired in 1778.

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