Like his brothers William, John, and Nicholas, Joseph Cabell earned his reputation in the service of his country during the American Revolution. Born at the family estate in Warminster in 1732, he established early in life patterns of political service that would continue during the “Decade of Decision.” At the age of nineteen, he gained […]

The eldest son of William Cabell, Col. William Cabell (distinguished most frequently from his father by his military title), followed very directly in his footsteps. He haunted the same stretch of the James River and held many of the same offices, adding markedly to the Cabell family reputation by his outstanding public service. Very soon […]

Unlike her eventual husband, William Cabell, Elizabeth Burks was born in North America, in 1706. Her parents, Samuel Burks and Mary Davis Burks, claimed that Elizabeth’s Virginia roots were more ancient still. Mary Davis’ grandmother, they insisted, had been a princess in the Powhatan Confederacy, the daughter of Powhatan chief Opechancanough. Elizabeth Cabell thus grew […]

An émigré from Warminster, England, William Cabell was a surveyor, magistrate, farmer, trader, vestryman, churchwarden, and pioneer in colonial Virginia. He applied his numerous talents to the consolidation of British settlement in the interior and founded a dynasty of gifted individuals who would continue to offer their services to the Commonwealth for generations. Born in […]

Mary Cabell owns the distinction of being the first of her line born in the New World. Newlywed William and Elizabeth Cabell welcomed their first (and ultimately only) daughter into their Goochland County home in 1727. Though little hard information survives about the eldest Cabell child, she was literate by the age of ten and […]

Thomas Jefferson* ( 1743 – 1826) John Hartwell Cocke* (1780 – 1866) Benjamin W. S. Cabell (1793 – 1862) William L. Cabell (1827 – 1911) William Daniel Cabell (1834-1904) Joseph Cabell Breckinridge (1842 – 1920) Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Jr. (1872 – 1898) James Branch Cabell (1879 – 1958) Margaret Cabell Self (1902 – 1996) Charles […]

The First Three Generations of Cabells in America   A young William Cabell (1699-1774), patriarch of one of Virginia’s most influential families. In 1726, soon after his arrival in the Commonwealth from England, Cabell married Elizabeth Burks (c. 1706-1756). The two had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood. Those children and their offspring […]

Biographies of William Cabell and Select Descendants Since the arrival of William Cabell in Virginia in about 1726, many generations of Cabells have left their mark on the state and nation. Below are links to a genealogy of the first three generations of Cabells in the New World, and to biographies of several of the […]

MSS 38-111c Scope and Contents: These papers consist primarily of the correspondence of Joseph Carrington Cabell and other Cabell and other allied family members, ca. 1783-1887, ca. 4,200 items (12 Hollinger boxes, 5 linear feet). Among the correspondents are the Reverend George Bush, Anne Blaws Cocke Cabell, Elizabeth Nicholas Cabell, Nathaniel Francis Cabell, Philip Barraud […]

n.d., [1870?] (MSS 5084 / Box 2)