Dinwiddie - "Countrey of Apamatica" Chapter 1

Chapter 4

IN THE DAYS OF THE VIRGINIA DYNASTY

WHILE affairs that pertained to Virginia and the United States were absorbing the attention of some statesmen, international problems were confronting the new republic. Thomas Jefferson on March 4, 1801 became the third President of the United States. A real democrat was for the first time at the helm of government; yet Virginians were divided in their allegiance to the Federalist and Republim can camps. I here was, for instance, one of their number who supported conservatism-John Marshall, the brother of Mrs. George Keith Taylor. In 1803 John Marshall, in the case of Madison versus Marbury, handed down the decision influencing all the future, that the Supreme Court of the United States might set aside a law enacted by the Congress of the United States. Jefferson and Marshall, belonging to schools of thought that were vastly different the one from the other, had their friends and foes in Dinwiddie and throughout all Virginia.

The citizens of the area that had witnessed the first explorations toward the west-those engineered by Abraham Wood back in the years between 1650 and 1671 - were fired by the acquisition under President Jefferson of the vast Louisiana Territory, now comprising the states of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, and most of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. They knew that Jefferson had sent two Virginians - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark-to explore the territory.

Of more immediate consequence, moreover, was their interest in the attack upon American rights on the open seas. The British, operating under a high-handed policy, were seizing and searching American ships, looking for deserted seamen and products that it was unlawful to transport. Be it said in defense of England, however, America was encouraging desertions and protecting deserters. In 1807, during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, who believed in peace at almost any price, an act of the British enraged all the people of the United States.

Off the capes of Virginia-not so far from Dinwiddie County - the American frigate Chesapeake was fired upon by the British Leopard, and sailors whom the British declared to be deserters were seized. Dinwiddie County drew up and submitted to the General Assembly resolutions expressing "the indignation of the people of Virginia at the unjustifiable outrage committed by the British commander of the ship Leopard upon the United States frigate Chesapeake in Hampton Roads, on the 22nd of June, 1807."

Thomas Jefferson's reply was the Embargo Act of 1807, the first attempt America has ever made to prevent war through prohibiting trade. No American vessel might sail to foreign ports, and no foreign vessel might take cargoes from American ports. The trading folk of New England, however, kicked up such a racket that the Congress repealed the Embargo Act and substituted the Non-Intercourse Act, which was entirely ineffectual. Henceforward, Americans knew that there would be war with Great Britain.

ANOTHER INCENDIARY FAILS

It was several years, however, before the second war with England became an actuality. Meanwhile Dinwiddie County underwent minor catastrophes. There was, for instance, a second attempt to burn the town of Petersburg. Dinwiddie County in 18 10 had 12,524 inhabitants, of which 4,606 were free whites, 476 free Negroes, and 7,442 slaves. Petersburg had 2,406 free whites, 1,089 free Negroes, and 2,173 slaves-a total of 5,668. What inspired Matthew Murray to try to burn the town, nobody knows. At any rate, the incendiarv thought up an intricate plot and enlisted as accomplice Emanuel, a slave whose master-one Lin Stone-had recently died. Just as Opechancanough in 1622 had been thwarted in his plan to massacre the whites by the loyalty of Chanco, a converted Indian, and as one Gabriel Prosser, a free Negro, had had his plans to destroy the whites revealed by another Negro by the name of Pharaoh, so the incendiary, Matthew Murray, was betrayed by the slave whom he enlisted to assist him. Emanuel, engaged to carry Murray's plot into execution, informed Petersburg authorities of the plan. So, when Murray - along with Emanuel-arrived "at the destined Spot and Placed a large quantity of Light Wood against the House, and was Preparing to apply the match . . . the Persons who had Assembled for the Purpose of Detection, Instantly Apprehended the Said Murray.'' The pile of wood, already dried and prepared, had been dipped in turpentine and stacked beside a house that was filled with combustible material. Ignition would have brought about a fire capable of destroying a large part of Petersburg. Emanuel, therefore, was a hero worth honoring. Grateful citizens signed a petition directed to the General Assembly, asking that Emanuel be freed. Among the signatories were 256 citizens, including Joel Hammon, mayor; Archibald Baugh, recorder; Paul Nash, secretary; William Moore, Alexander Brown, James Byrne, Nathaniel Friend, William Bowden, William Prentiss, William Mills - all aldermen of Petersburg. Sadly enough, there is no record to show that Emanuel was freed, the petition having been tabled by the General Assembly.

Graver perils than those an incendiary was capable of bringing about were confronting the nation. March 4, 1809 saw the inauguration as President of the United States of James Madison. Hatred of Thomas Jefferson had grown with the passing years. William Cullen Bryant, the New England poet, merely echoed the animosity of his section of the country when he directed toward Thomas Jefferson the following stanza:

Go, wretch! resign the presidential chair,
Disclose thy secret measure, foul or fair;
Go, search with curious eye for horrid frogs
Mid the wild wastes of Louisiana bogs;
Or where Ohio rolls its turbid stream
Dig for huge bones, thy glory and thy theme.

THE WAR OF 1812 AND WlNFIELD SCOTT

When Madison assumed the Presidency, the "War Hawks," led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and Henry Clay, a native of Virginia who had moved to Kentucky, were clamoring for war with England. Great Britain was continuing to seize and search American ships and to interfere with the United States doctrine that had to do with the freedom of the seas. Incidents on the Canadian border and in the western part of the United States, in which England was thought to have a part, brought the situation to a climax in 1811. The War of 1812 was the result of it all.

To the conflict Dinwiddie County contributed an outstanding hero - Winfield Scott, who was born on June 13, 1786 on a farm 14 miles from Petersburg. His father, William Scott, and his mother, Ann Mason, were both natives of Dinwiddie. Winfield Scott attended school in Dinwiddie County and in Richmond and was graduated in law at the College of William and Mary. Upon receiving news that concerned the clash of the Chesapeake and Leopard in 1807, he became a volunteer member of the Petersburg troop of horse. On May 3, 1808 he was commissioned captain of light artillery and before the beginning of the War of 1812 had advanced to the rank of lieutenant colonel. During the war the Virginians who played conspicuous roles in the army were Edmund Pendleton Gaines, William Henry Harrison, Andrew H. Holmes, George M. Brooke, and Winfield Scott. William Henry Harrison had already made himself famous in 1811 by his victory over the Indians of the Northwest in the Battle of Tippecanoe and the following year had been commissioned major general in command of forces in the Northwest. In 1813 he invaded Canada, overcame the British under General Proctor, and later killed Tecumseh, the Indian chief. Then lieutenant colonel, Winfield Scott assisted in the Canadian Invasion. Captured near Queenstown, he was later exchanged, took part - with the forces of General Dearborn - in a number of engagements in the Northwest, and was awarded a. congressional medal. On March 9, 1814, having been promoted to the rank of brigadier general, Winfield Scott advanced with General Brown to Niagara Falls.

While the native of Dinwiddie was fighting for the United States - in the great Northwest, the war was coming close to his county. In February 1813 Admiral Cockburn, who was in command of British vessels, entered Lynnhaven Bay and plundered Virginia plantations along the coast. A battle fought in the Rappahannock River between the British St. Donzingo and the U. S. S. Dolphin resulted in an American defeat, but later the enemy was repulsed in an effort to take Norfolk. Cockburn succeeded, however, in pillaging the little town of Hampton close enough to Dinwiddie County to cause a deal of alarm. The burning of Washington and President Madison's flight from the city greatly affected the entire state.

Finally, the defeat of the British and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which established the freedom of the seas, brought to Virginia and to Dinwiddie, of course - a new sense of security. In the era of good feeling that followed, all the country rejoiced. James Monroe was inaugurated President in 1817. He acquired the Floridas, was party to the Missouri Compromise setting the latitude of 36" 30' as a line above and below which states might be admitted to the Union as free or slave and postponing final action upon the question of slavery, and put into his message of December 2, 1823 a statement of the principles embodied in the Doctrine now bearing his name, and preventing future European colonization of the Americas and Europe's interference in the political systems of the Western Hemisphere. In 1825 Monroe went out of office, and the leadership of Virginia began to wane.

Between 1776 and 1825 eight men had sat in the National House of Representatives from the Congressional District of which Dinwiddie was a part: John Banister, from 1777 to September 24, 1779; Theodorick Bland, from March 4, 1779 until his death on June 1, 1790; William Branch Giles, from December 7, 1790 to October 2, 1798; Joseph Eggleston, from December 3, 1798 to March 3, 1801; William Branch Giles from March 4, 1801 to March 3, 1803; Peterson Goodwyn, from March 4, 1803 until his death on February 21, 1818; John Pegram, from April 21, 1818 to March 3, 1819; James Jones, from March 4, 18 19 to March 3, 1823; and Mark Alexander, who took his seat on March 4, 1819 as member from the reorganized District, in which Dinwiddie was included after March 4, 1823. Of these, however, only Banister, Goodwyn, and Pegram were residents of Dinwiddie.

John Banister (1734-1788) was one of the most distinguished men the county ever produced. He was the son of the John Banister whom William Byrd II mentioned in 1733 and the grandson of the botanist, another John Banister, who was a friend of William Byrd I. He was educated in England and studied law at the Middle Temple. He repre- sented Dinwiddie in the House of Burgesses from 1765 to 1775, in the five Revolutionary conventions, in the General Assembly of 1777, and was one of the framers and signers of the Articles of Confederation. The story of the considerable part he played in the Revolution has been told. He equipped troops at his own expense, was lieutenant of cavalry, and A suffered heavy losses when his home, Battersea, was pillaged by the British.

Peterson Goodwyn ( 1745- 1818) is the man whom Dr. James Greenway accused of misappropriating public funds while he served as sheriff and who was promptly cleared by the Dinwiddie court and who twice opposed George Keith Taylor in important matters coming before the General Assembly. He lived at Sweden, near Petersburg, and was admitted to the bar in 1776. During the Revolution he equipped his own company and rose from captain to major, and then to colonel. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1789 until his election to the Congress in 1802.

John Pegram ( 1773-1 831) , who was Peterson Goodwyn's immediate successor, was born at Bonneville in Dinwiddie and as a young man held several county offices. From 1797 to 1801 he served in the Virginia House of Delegates, from 1804 to 1808 in the Virginia Senate, and again in the House from 1813 to 1815. After one term in the National House of Representatives he was appointed United States marshal for the eastern district of Virginia. He lost his life April 8, 1831 on a burning boat in the Ohio River. His body was never found.

The end of the Virginia Dynasty, marked as it was by the Era of Good Feeling with which James Monroe's administration closed, saw the emergence in Virginia of sectional strife and acute controversy over the slave question. The worn-out land of Tidewater, upon which too much tobacco had been planted, was yielding so small an increase as to bring about economic depression. Consequently, many progressive easterners had moved toward the mountainous parts of the state, where a wood living could be dug out of land that had not been impoverished, b and where Germans and Scotch-Irish had set an example of thrift and industry. Farms in the West, by no means so large as the great plantations of the Tidewater, were not in need of slaves. The people, moreover, unfettered by traditions that gripped the eastern part of the state, were advocating much that had long been the accepted order in the older counties.

FIRE OF 1815

A fire - and not merely an incendiary attempt - had in 1815 disturbed the serenity of Petersburg. It took place on July 16, when the temperature of the town did not need to be augmented by flames. Whether or not it was planned will never be known. Five hundred houses were destroyed, and the loss was estimated at three million dollars Indeed, two-thirds of the town lay in ashes.

But the town got itself together for Lafayette's visit in 1824, upon the occasion of the French general's tour of America. There were a few old folk in Petersburg who recalled that Lafayette had come to their rescue when Petersburg was occupied by the British in 1781-and to them the Marquis was the greatest of heroes. In 1824 a troop of horse met him outside the town. Replying to the Mayor's welcome, the Frenchman said, "I have had in former times to lament the necessity in the course of military operations to distrust the repose of the good town of Petersburg while it had become a British headquarters, but in this very circumstance. found new opportunities to witness her patriotism.'' The Marquis was tendered a banquet and ball-as he was everywhere else in Virginia. The next day at Poplar Lawn four hundred children of the Anderson Seminary chanted their welcome.

But before Lafayette left Petersburg, a local brawl embarrassed the townsfolk. Raleigh Rosser was killed by Robert Finn. Perhaps Lafayette scarcely knew what happened. At any rate, he bade the town a calm farewell and went his way.