Samuel Woodson VENABLE

   User ID: P00051880.

  General Notes:

Samuel Woodson Venable, of Prince Ed­ward County, born September 19, 1756, was ensign of the Hampden Sidney Academy Company in 1776, and was afterwards a student at Princeton, N. J. Early in 1781, he was an officer in Capt. Thomas Watkins company of Prince Edward dragoons, in which the famous Peter Fran­cisco was a private, which company distinguished itself on March 16, in the battle of Guilford Court House. On August 15, 1781, he married Mary, the oldest daughter of Judge Paul Carrington, the elder.

In 1782, he was a trustee of Hampden Sidney Academy, and, in 1783, of Hampden Sidney College. He was re­garded as one of the main founders of the college. I have several letters from him to his brother-in-law, Col. Wil­liam Cabell, Jr., of Union Hill; they relate mainly to lands in Kentucky given them by Judge Carrington, and attend­ed to by John Breckinridge. "Dr. Archibald Alexander was accustomed to speak of him as the most remarkable instance of wisdom matured by experience and observation that he had ever known; in which respect he was fond of comparing him to Franklin." He died September 7, 1821, at the Sweet Springs, Va., leaving twelve children, all of whom married and left is­sue.

Notes for ANNE CARRINGTON:
Her marriage bond given November 20, 1780, was witnessed by a rejected suitor, S. W. Venable, who it would seam courted her before he paid his addresses to her elder sister, Mary, whom he married the following year. Col. Thomas Reade of "Ingleside" was William Cabell's security.

There exists an amusing account of this wedding in a rather racy letter, written by Mr. S. W. Venable to his friend John Witherspoon of Philadelphia, dated Jan. 31, 1781, Prince Edward Co., Va.:

"The wedding was a private one, but my old flame invited me to see her married. I accepted her invitation and acted as bride's man on that occasion. This office required that I should undress the groom and fit him to enjoy what I had been deprived.

It was highly agreeable to be at this wedding because all were much pleased and I was as perfectly satisfied as any in the company. Mary was a little frightened, poor Nancy was scarcely capable of standing, and old Paul not much less affected in that way than his daughters. A proof of this I will give you: he sat while the ceremony was performing, arose when it was ended, and wished me joy instead of Cabell, or, at least, he was beginning to speak when I turned from him. What a mortification if I had really been a disappointed lover at that time!"

The new-married couple went to housekeeping in the house in which Col. Cabell lived while "Union Hill" was building. But the traitor Arnold was in Virginia and young William could not remain in idle dalliance. On January 30th, he went to work to help his father execute the Act for supplying the Army with Clothes, Provisions and Wagons, and continued to do so till Cornwallis' surrender. He was major of Lieut.-Col. John Pope's Battalion of Amherst militia, which went into action with "the army below," under Lafayette, to repel General Leslie's threatened invasion; and was busy in defense of Virginia until Oct. 19, 1781, when "the sun rose clear and bright at Yorktown and shone upon these United States."

Samuel married Mary Scott CARRINGTON, daughter of Paul CARRINGTON and Margaret READ, on 13 Aug 1781. (Mary Scott CARRINGTON was born on 14 Nov 1756 in Charlotte, Virginia, USA, "Mulberry Hill", died on 21 Mar 1837 in Springfield, Prince Edward County, Virginia, USA and was buried in Hampden Sydney, PR. Edw. Co., VA, College Ch. Cem.)