Thomas Frederick VENABLE

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  General Notes:

THOMAS FREDERICK VENABLE, b. Feb. 24, 1812, at "Haymarket," Prince Edward Co., Va.; d. Dec. 25, 1881, at "Kinderton," Lake Co., Fla., near Leesburg. He married at "Longwood," Prince Edward Co., Va., July 16, 1834, Mary Priscilla Venable, b. Oct. 8, 1815; d. Oct. 1'4, 1881, daughter of Nathaniel E. Venable of "Longwood," Prince Edward Co., Va., and Mary Embry Scott, his wife.

He was educated under private tutors, at Hampden-Sidney College and the University of Virginia. He was impractical, idealistic, sensitive and romantic and, to the day of his death, was a student. He read and reread his Shakespeare, completing all the volumes each year. He was a serious student of botany, as his twelve volume herbarium, filled with specimens gathered from every southern state, attests. He was a musician of taste and talent, a performer on the flute, and was an amateur artist of unusual skill. His old-fashioned album with its prim delicate paintings is even yet treasured by his descendants. Several poems and plays still preserved, reflect credit on him as a writer.

As a sportsman he loved riding and hunting and fishing and fencing. His foils are now in the possession of one of his grandchildren.

The following is an extract from an account of him published in the Hampden-Sidney Kaleidoscope for 1900:
MR. "V."
By Rev. T. W. Hooper, D.D.

"Mr. V." is not his whole name, but the abbreviated form, and was applied by his wife, who was a cousin with the same name, but who intended to avoid the Yankee custom of a wife's calling her husband "George," or "William," or "Sam." And thus it came about' that everybody called him "Mr. V.," and he responded as naturally as if it had exhausted the whole alphabet. When I first knew him, it had been long enough since he was a Freshman for his eldest son to be a member of that verdant class, a class to which I also was added in 1850; and strung along from this eldest son, there was the patriarchal number of children, about equally divided, male and female.

Ah, me! nearly half a century has gone since those Freshman days, and how quickly the mind, like a huge flashlight, sends its rays along the intervening years! And how the boys and girls, who made things lively in those bright days of new life to the college, have been scattered far and wide! and how many, alas! are gone!

Rev. L. W. Green, D.D., had just entered upon his brilliant career as president, and the newly introduced scholarship system had brought new students from far and near. The region round about was in a high state of cultivation under the old slave system, where master and servant were on the best of terms. And there, peace and plenty reigned supreme and old-time hospitality made an earthly paradise.

Mr. V. had a plantation near Farmville, but so many "olive plants" adorned his dwelling, that for the sake of economy, he moved his family to "The Hill," at Hampden-Sidney College, where Mrs. V. lived in the house now occupied by Professor Thornton. The boys were entered in College with William, the oldest son, as my classmate; the younger ones being "Preps," then taught by a tutor in the "Steward's Hall." And, as the years glided by, the older boys, one by one, entered college, and later on, the girls fell into my hands, as a kind of private tutor.

After the fashion of those days, Mr. V. came over only on Saturday night for the week-end. The rest of the time he spent at the old home, keeping bachelor's hall, and surrounded by hospitable neighbors, most of them relatives. Here he exercised, a general supervision of the overseers while the crops were growing, but, when these were gathered and housed, he moved to Hampden-Sidney, and kept the table supplied with wild turkeys.

But he enjoyed the society of the professors, both of the College and Seminary; and among the students of the latter was an Irishman, who was a perpetual source of amusement to him. He loved to hear his rich Irish brogue, and used to get him to read Hebrew to him, and insisted that Hebrew in Irish brogue was the richest language ever spoken!

My seminary course, I began in New York, but was tolled away, by various unconscious and co-operating causes. Among these, I was invited to live a few miles here in the country, to teach a young girl Latin, and a horse was furnished for me to ride over to recitations at Hampden-Sydney College.

But one of those unforeseen circumstances that will change the current of our lives, led to my return to residence at "The Hill." Mrs. V. concocted a scheme for me to hear her oldest daughter's Latin lessons. When she went off to boarding-school in Richmond, Mrs. V. had me hear the younger girls recite. Then, when these required the services of a governess, I asked her in triumph, "Now, will I not be allowed to pay board?" (Every home in Hampden-Sidney was opened to the boys and to a large extent these took the place of dormitories.) But with gentleness and firmness, she replied, "I have told you over and over again, you should never pay me a cent. You ask a blessing at the table, and you help to keep the boys straight, and you shall never pay me a cent." That ended it so far as she was concerned; but I never see one of those children, or hear of them, that I do not recall the kindness of that dear, generous woman.

One of her children married a native missionary of Brazil, another married a judge in Florida. But strange to say, when I was pastor in Selma, Ala., a Mr. S. D. Holt moved there, and became an elder in my church, and one of these little pupils of mine was his wife. But for years I could not get her fixed in my memory, until some one said, "Catty is one of your flock, now." Then as the unknown "Kate" vanished, I recognized my little "Catty," and went back to the old parlor recitation-room at Mr. Vs.

Ah, me! When I float back in memory to those golden college days, how young I feel, and how the boys and girls come fairy-like, to welcome me from that dim mist of the days that are gone! When I meet one of the old residents of "The Hill" who sprang from that family, I am back again sitting on the grassy yard, cracking jokes with Mr. V., or listening to him spinning yarns with Professor Holladay as they were busily engaged in fixing their accoutrements for a turkey hunt. . . .

His childhood years were spent in Kentucky with his aunt, Frances (Watkins) Walton (widow of Gen. Mathew Walton, brother of the Georgia "Signer") who married, second, Hon. J. Pope, Governor of Kentucky. There he became acquainted with his cousin, the celebrated Octavia Walton Le Vert, with whom he corresponded many years.

It might be well here to give a description of him-he was tall and thin and had black eyes and dark brown hair and in manner was a true representative of the leisurely, affable, care-free gentlemen of the "Old South." He was small, scarcely over five feet five, and had blue eyes and soft light brown hair, and a faultless clear complexion.

MARRIAGE BOND OF THOMAS F. VENABLE and MARY P. VENABLE
Farmville, July 9th, 1834.

This is to certify that I, Nath'l. E. Venable of the County of Prince Edward have consented and do consent to the marriage of Thomas F. Venable to my daughter Mary P. Venable, and this is to authorize the Clerk of the County to give the proper license.
Nat'1. E. Venable.
Witness:
Thomas Watkins
Robert F. Lester
10 July 1834, proved by
Thos. Watkins B. J. Worsham, C. C.

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS. That we Thos. F. Venable and Thos. Watkins are held and firmly bound unto L. W. Tazewell, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the just and full sum of one hundred and fifty Dollars, current money, to be paid to the said Governor for the time being, and his successors in office; to which payment well and truly to be made, we do bind ourselves, and each of us, our heirs, executors and administrators, jointly and severally, firmly by these presents. Sealed with our seals, and dated this 10th day of July 1834.

THE CONDITION OF THE ABOVE OBLIGATION is SUCH, That whereas there is a marriage shortly intended to be had and solemnized between the above named Thos. F. Venable and Mary P. Venable daughter of N. E. Venable of this County; Now, if there be no lawful cause to obstruct the said Marriage, then the above obligation to be void, else to remain in force.
Thos. F. Venable (Seal).
Thos. Watkins (Seal).
Sealed and delivered in the presence of
B. J. Worsham
A copy Teste
Horace Adams, Clerk.

On the 1880 census for Farmville, Prince Edward County, VA, (p.275A) were:

VENABLE, Thomas F., married, W male, 68, b. VA, farmer; father & mother b. VA Mary P., wife, married, W, b. VA, keeping house, father & mother b VA; Freddy, dau., single, W female, 22, b. VA, at home; "
LAWRANCE, James, other, single W male, 17, b. ENG, laborer, parents b. ENG
MORTON, Mary, other, single, B female, 7, b. VA, parents b. VA

Thomas married Mary Pricilla VENABLE, daughter of Nathaniel E. VENABLE and Mary Embry SCOTT, on 16 Jul 1834. (Mary Pricilla VENABLE was born on 8 Oct 1815 in Slate Hill, Prince Edward County, Virginia, USA and died on 14 Oct 1881 in Scott-Greene, Prince Edward County, Virginia, USA.)