Robert RIVES

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  General Notes:

Robert Rives, born March 11, 1764, in Sussex County, Va., joined the army in 1781, and served as a private at Yorktown; after the war he entered the store of Col. Richard Baker at South Quay. The late Hon. Sterling Clai­borne, of Amherst, used to say that this was done against his mother's wishes, but her old friend and legal adviser, Col. Augustine Claiborne, told her to let him alone, as he felt sure that he was amply able, not only to make his own way in the world, but to achieve fortune and fame also.

In the course of a few years he entered the store of Blow & Barksdale, at Charlotte Court House. Here he is said to have worked very faithfully and energetically, laying the foundation of his commercial education.

In the autumn of 1789, Mr. Alexander Donald (the friend of Jefferson), of the firm of Donald & Burton, Lon­don, England, spent some time at "Union Hill." He was very favorably impressed with the tobacco grown in this section for shipping purposes, and induced Col. William Cabell, Sr., to arrange to have all the good tobacco that came to Warminster warehouse bought up for him. Mr. Rives married Col. Cabell's daughter in January 1790. Prior to May 27 following, Col. Cabell turned this valuable agency over to him, and wrote a letter of recommendation to which Mr. Donald replied from Richmond on June 18: "I think as you do of Mr. Rives, and as you have promised your friendly assistance to him, I cannot doubt of his conduct answering my expectations."

The house of Donald & Burton was one of the largest commission houses in London.

Mr. Rives had commenced business on his own account at Warminster before his marriage. After accepting this agency he located stores, from time to time, as the oppor­tunity presented itself, all over this shipping tobacco sec­tion, wherever there was a public warehouse for the in­spection of tobacco. At Warminster, at New Market (now Norwood station), at Diuguidsville (now Bent Creek, near Bolton station), at Lynchburg, at Milton in Albemarle, at Ca Ira in Cumberland, etc. Prior to 1794, these stores were conducted on his individual account; but after this the business increased so rapidly and was so scat­tered that partners were taken in from time to time. The object was "to kill two birds with one stone": to buy the tobacco and pay for it in merchandise as far as possible, to obtain the English commission on the tobacco pur­chased, and a profit on the goods sold.

The warehouse at New Market belonged to Col. Wil­liam Cabell, the elder. In 1794, Mr. Rives bought 720 hogsheads of the tobacco sold there, and, on September 27, he paid Col. Cabell £54 for the warehouse charges thereon. In the same year, Mr. Rives bought as much more tobacco at each of five other warehouses, and his purchases increased from year to year, until his partners and himself virtually controlled the tobacco trade of all this section.

He transacted a great deal of business with Mr. James Brown, of Richmond, from 1790, both being agents in Virginia for the house of Donald & Burton, London, and they afterwards became partners, under the style Brown & Rives, in one of the foremost commission houses in the State.

Mr. Burton, of the London firm, died about 1807, which made necessary a full adjustment of all accounts in the Rives branch in America, and the settlement was satisfac­tory to all parties.

The firm was doing an especially large business about 1809-1812, owning or employing many ships in trade with the West Indies, England, Scotland, and Spain. The mem­bers in Virginia were Thomas Higginbotham, James Brown, and Robert Rives.

On February 14, 1812, the General Assembly of Vir­ginia incorporated "The Nelson and Albemarle Union Factory, for the laudable purpose of manufacturing wool and cotton." Mr. Rives was much interested in this enter­prise. In May following, himself and others bought of Col. William Cabell, Jr., the present Variety Mills estate, on which Col. Cabell had already a corn-mill, a tannery, and a shoe-maker's shop, and to which the company soon added a large flour-mill, a saw-mill, a store and the "Union Factory for wool and cotton." In the course of time Mr. Rives bought up the shares of the others and became the owner of the whole plant.

During the Peninsular war (about 1813, I think), James Brown made a large shipment of flour on his own account to Cadiz in Spain, which was lost, and caused his failure. In settling the business of Brown and Rives, a great law­suit arose between the parties. Mr. Chapman Johnson and his son, William C. Rives (then a young man), attended to the suit for Mr. Rives, and gained it after great alarm, the amount involved being over $100,000, a large sum in those days.

After this suit, and after the death of his wife, he gradu­ally retired from active commercial affairs, and began to devote himself more and more to his farms; but during life he retained an interest in (furnished funds to partners in) the country stores at Bent Creek, Variety Mills, and possi­bly elsewhere, and in the commission business in Rich­mond, of Rives, Clarke & Co., to the retirement of Mr. Clarke, then Rives & Ferguson to the death of Mr. Ferguson in 1833, and then Rives & Harris to the death of Mr. Rives in 1845.

Mr. Rives was a communicant of the Protestant Episco­pal Church, and in 1833 or 1834 he built a brick church for that denomination on land given by him just west of Oak Ridge. It was long called Rives Church, and it should have been preserved as a memorial to him. It is now called "Trinity Church."

"He was a small man about 5 feet 9 inches high, well set; very neat in dress; very inquisitive and talkative; very polite; very hospitable; very much respected by all who knew him; and very much beloved by his slaves, of whom he owned a large number."

In the division of his father's estate after the death of his mother early in the present century, he received a good many slaves, and their advent in this region was an event in colored society. In many respects the low-country ne­groes differed from those of the mountains, and these were long designated in the county as "Sussex negroes;" indeed, the grandson of one of them living near me is even now known as "Sussex George."

Mr. Rives owned a large estate in Albemarle, of which I know but little. He also owned between 10,000 and 15,­000 acres of land in Nelson, all of which, I believe, has passed out of the hands of his descendants, and of these I am the only one now living in the county which was for so long his home.

He was one of the first justices, and was for many years the presiding magistrate of the county. Although remark­ably well versed in political information, and an ardent politician, he yet never would allow himself to be a can­didate for a political office, and the magistracy was almost the only public office held by him. Many thought, how­ever, that he would have been as successful in the political arena as he was as a merchant and farmer. Many of the old people have told me that they thought he would have been more successful in politics even than his son William. This was the opinion of his contemporaries.

The following obituary notice of him appeared soon after his death:

"On Sunday the 9th of March 1845, at Oak Ridge, his residence in the county of Nelson, Robert Rives, Esq., in the 81st year of his age. All who knew this venerable and remarkable man (and he was well known personally or by reputation throughout the State) will unite in the sentiment that few, if any, in their day and generation, have led more useful and honorable lives, or left behind them more enduring testimonials of the high moral and intellectual qualities, which distinguished his career on Earth. Bred in the school of strenuous and self-denying virtue, which ushered in the era of our Revolutionary struggle, in the closing scene of which he was just old enough to take a part as a volunteer on the plains of Yorktown, he moved forward in the paths of life with that firm and undeviating step, and with that resolute energy of will and purpose, which enabled him always to reach the goal he aimed at. Throwing himself at an unusually early period of life, with a manly self-reliance, on the resources of his own in­dustry and genius, he engaged, while yet a youth, in com­mercial pursuits, which he continued to prosecute for many years on a scale of extended enterprise, amid the vicissitudes and hazards of the unsettled state of the com­mercial world which attended the period of the wars of the French Revolution, and with a skill, sagacity, judg­ment, and success, which placed him deservingly in the first rank of American Merchants.

"Retiring from the more active scenes of commercial adventure, while his faculties of mind and body were yet in full vigor, he devoted the last thirty years of his life mainly to the care and improvement of a large landed estate, in which the same perseverance, guided by intelli­gence, liberality, and taste, was crowned with like success. His country seat, which he loved to beautify and surround with every useful and tasteful improvement, was the abode of an elegant and munificent hospitality. Nowhere were its rites administered with a more genuine and warm- hearted Virginia Welcome, as the many who have re­ceived and enjoyed that Welcome, can testify.

"But the crowning grace of his life was that which gilded with a heavenly sunset its closing scenes. In the midst of the blessings, with which he was surrounded, he recognized the bountiful Hand, from which they all pro­ceeded. He professed the religion of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and 'the peace, which passeth all understanding' was brightly and abundantly manifested in the serenity, elevated composure, and divinely inspired hopes and faith of his last moments. Surrounded by his numerous family, and bestowing his blessing on each and all of them, he was gently gathered, like the Patriarchs of old, to his fathers, in favor with God, and in charity with all the world."

He was a son of William Rives, of Sussex County, Va. (by his wife, Lucy Shands), who died about 1775. He was of the same family as Hon. Francis E. Rives, M. C. Their ancestors came in the cavalier emigration of 1649­-1659 from Blandford in England, and settled first at or near Blandford in Surry County, Va.; from thence they went to Sussex, Prince George, and Brunswick counties, Va., and to Granville County, N. C., owning many thou­sand acres of land by purchase and by patent. There is a good pedigree of the English branch of the family in Hutchins "History of Dorset," 3d edition, vol. iv. pp. 96, 97, to which I have added somewhat from other sources. Mary Rives married William Eaton, a vestryman of old Blandford church near Petersburg, and they removed in 1725, with other members of their families, to North Caro­lina, where Eaton became a very prominent man. Their son, Hon. Thomas Eaton, married Anna Bland, a sister of Frances Bland, who married (first) John Randolph (and became the mother of John Randolph of Roanoke), and (second) Judge St. George Tucker, and became the mother of judges Henry St. George and Nathaniel Bever­ley Tucker.

Lucy Shands (the wife of William Rives), born Jan­uary 9/20, 1740/41, was a daughter of William and Priscilla Shands, of Sussex County, Va. "The first Shands came from England, a young man, to Va. with his Uncle the Rev. James Minge." The lands of the Rives and Shands families lying east and southeast of Petersburg were battle­grounds during the late war. One of them writes: "When I returned to my farm after the war, there was not a house, not a tree, scarcely a bush on the place. Almost the only wood to be found was the pieces of plank at the head of Federal graves." Margaret Jordan Cabell and Robert Rives had issue:

Robert married Margaret CABELL, daughter of William CABELL II and Margaret JORDAN.