John Floyd (1783 - 1837)

Born 24 Apr 1783 in Floyds Station, Jefferson, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Letitia (Preston) Floyd — married 13 May 1804 in Franklin, Kentucky, United States

Descendants

Died 16 Aug 1837 at age 54 in Sweet Springs, Monroe, Virginia, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Angela Trigg [send private message]

Preceded by 24th Governor William Branch Giles

John Floyd 25th Governor of Virginia 1830—1834

Succeeded by 26th Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell

Biography

John Floyd is Notable.

John Floyd, Governor and Doctor.^[1][2]

John Floyd was Governor of Virginia 1830-34. His biography taken from the Biographical Directory of the American Congress^[3] follows:

FLOYD, John, a Representative from Virginia; born at Floyds Station,

near the present city of Louisville, Jefferson County, Ky. (then a

part of Virginia), April 24, 1783; pursued an academic course;

attended Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., and was graduated from the

medical department of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia

in 1806; settled in Lexington, Virginia, the same year, and soon thereafter

moved to Christiansburg, Montgomery County, Va., where he practiced

his profession; justice of the peace in 1807; major of Virginia State

Militia 1807-1812; served as surgeon with rank of major in the War of

1812; subsequently became brigadier general of militia; member of the

State house of delegates in 1814 and 1815; elected as a Democrat to

the Fifteenth and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4,

1817-March 3, 1829); was not a candidate for renomination in 1828;

Governor of Virginia 1830-1834; received the electoral vote of North

Carolina for President in 1832; died near Sweetsprings, Monroe County,

Va. (now West Virginia), August 17, 1837; interment in an unmarked

grave in the cemetery at Sweetsprings.

Born 24 APR 1783. Floyd Station, Kentucky, USA. ^[4],^[5],^[1]

Death

Death:

Date: 17 August 1837^[1]

Place: Sweetsprings,Monroe,,Va^[1]

Burial: Sweetsprings Cem.,Sweetsprings,,Va^[1]

Died 16 AUG 1837. ^[6],^[5]

Event: Military 1812 United States. ^[7]

Buried Sweet Springs, Monroe County, West Virginia, USA. ^[6]

Marriage

Wife: Letitia Preston^[1][2]

Marriage:

Date: 13 May 1804

Place: Franklin, Kentucky^[2]/Franklin,Virginia^[1]

Marriage Husband Gov. John Floyd. Wife Letitia Preston. Child: @I672@. Child: William P Floyd. Child: George Rogers Clark Floyd. Child: Letitia Preston Floyd. Child: Eliza Lavalette Floyd. Child: @I29@. Marriage 12 MAY 1804. Franklin, Kentucky, USA. ^[8],^[9],^[4]

Occupation

• Fact: Occupation (from 4 March 1830 to 31 March 1834) Governor of Virginia Virginia, United States
• Fact: http://familysearch.org/v1/LifeSketch John Floyd (April 24, 1783 - August 17, 1837) was a Virginia politician and soldier. He represented Virginia in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 25th Governor of Virginia.

Additional Biography

Seeking source of the following cut-and-paste biography; some of it appears to come from SlaveRebellion.info; most of it appears to be a copy-paste from Wikipedia; internal footnotes converted:

During his career in the House of Representatives, Floyd was an advocate of settling the Oregon Territory, unsuccessfully arguing on its behalf from 1820 until he left Congress in 1829; the area did not become a territory of the United States until 1848.

In 1832, Floyd received votes for the Presidency of the United States, running in the Nullifier Party, which was succeeded by the Democratic Party. He carried South Carolina and its 11 electoral votes. While governor of Virginia, the Nat Turner slave rebellion occurred and Floyd initially supported emancipation of slavery, but eventually went with the majority. His term as governor saw economic prosperity for the state.

Floyd was educated at home and at a nearby log schoolhouse before enrolling in Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the age of thirteen.^[10] He became a member of the Union Philosophical Society in 1797.^[11] Although he matriculated with the class of 1798, he had to withdraw due to financial troubles.^[10] His guardian had failed in his payments and family accounts relate Floyd was so poor that "he was obliged to borrow a pair of panteloons from a boatman" to return to his home in Kentucky.^[12]

When his step-father, Alexander Breckinridge, died in 1801, he was able to return, but had to withdraw again due to a lung illness.^[10],^[12] He moved to Philadelphia and was placed under the care of Dr. Benjamin Rush, an experience that influenced his decision to pursue a medical career.^[10] After an apprenticeship in Louisville, Kentucky, Floyd enrolled in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1804 and became an honorary member of the Philadelphia Medical Society and a member of the Philadelphia Medical Lyceum.^[12] Floyd was graduated in 1806 and his graduating dissertation was entitled An Enquiry into the Medical Properties of the Magnolia Tripetala and Magnolia Acuminata.^[3],^[10],^[12] He moved to Lexington, Virginia and then to the town of Christiansburg, Virginia.^[3],^[10] Floyd also served as a Justice of the Peace in 1807.

In 1804 Floyd married Letitia Preston, who came from a prominent southwest Virginian family. She was the daughter of William Preston and Susannah Smith, and sister of Francis Preston, of Abingdon, Washington County Virginia. They had 12 children, including:

• John Buchanan Floyd, (1806-1863), Governor of Virginia, and Secretary of War under President Buchanan.
• Nicketti Buchanan Floyd, married United States Senator John Warfield Johnston.
• George Rogers Clark Floyd, Secretary of Wisconsin Territory and later a member of the West Virginia Legislature
• Eliza Lavalette Floyd, married professor George Frederick Holmes

Floyd was a surgeon with the rank of major in the Virginia State Militia from 1807 to 1812. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, Floyd moved his family to a new home near present-day Virginia Tech to be near friends and entered the regular army.^[13] On July 13, 1813, he was appointed surgeon of Lt. Col. James McDowell's Flying Camp in the Virginia militia.^[14] When he returned from a leave of absence, he discovered someone else had been appointed to replace him, and so his service in this role ended on November 16, 1813.^[14] Floyd was then commissioned as major of the militia on April 20, 1814 and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general of the 17th Brigade of Virginia militia.^[14] He served until he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1814.^[3] During this time, he moved his family again, this time to Thorn Spring, a large plantation in Montgomery County, Virginia.^[12] Thornspring (Pulaski) (Thornspring Golf Course) was inherited by Letitia Preston Floyd from her father William Preston and was located near her older brother, Virginia Treasurer, Gen John Preston, and his Horseshoe Bottoms Plantation (Radford Army Ammunition Plant). They both were near the Prestons Smithfield home (Virginia Tech) that their father had completed in Montgomery county for their mother, Susannah Smith Preston, before he died. John Floyd use to keep Bears chained to the tree on the lawns of the Thornsprin Plantation in Pulaski, VA.

Legacy

Floyd County, Virginia is named in his honor.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6} "Ancestral File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:1:M1RX-PZC : accessed 2015-03-28), entry for John Floyd
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} "Kentucky Marriages, 1785-1979," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FWT2-BJD : accessed 28 March 2015), John Floyd and Lititia Preston, 12 May 1804; citing Franklin, Kentucky, reference ; FHL microfilm 266,194.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3} Biographical Directory of the American Congress Ambler, Charles Henry. The Life and Diary of John Floyd, Governor of Virginia, An Apostle of Secession, and the Father of the Oregon Country. Richmond: Richmond Press, 1918.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Yates Publishing, U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc) ncestry.com Operations Inc. Source number: 892.005; Source type: Pedigree chart; Number of Pages: 7; also Source number: 1346.018; Source type: Correspondence file (significant amount); Number of Pages: 21
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Ancestry.com, North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.) Book Title: Lineage Book : NSDAR : Volume 117 : 1915
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Ancestry.com, U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.)
7. ↑ Direct Data Capture, comp, U.S., War of 1812 Service Records, 1812-1815 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc)
8. ↑ Ancestry.com, Franklin County, Kentucky, Marriage Index, 1790-1815 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.)
9. ↑ Ancestry.com, Kentucky, Compiled Marriages, 1802-1850 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc)
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5} "John Floyd (1783–1837)". Dickinson College Chronicles (no longer online, but archived at Wayback Machine, 2012.
11. ↑ Dorman (1982), p. 68.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4} Ambler (1914), pp. 31-32.
13. ↑ Ambler (1914), p. 34.
14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1 14.2} Dorman (1982), pp. 69-70.

See also:

• Ambler, Charles H. (1918). The Life and Diary of John Floyd Governor of Virginia, an Apostle of Secession, and the Father of the Oregon Country. Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Press.
• Dorman, John Frederick (1982). The Prestons of Smithfield and Greenfield in Virginia. Louisville, Kentucky: The Filson Club. ISBN 0-9601072-1-5.
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 24 April 2017, 23:18), entry for Gov. John Floyd Jr, MD(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:LV7H-LVX); contributed by various users.
• John Floyd (Virginia politician) on Wikipedia
• Find A Grave Memorial# 7382922
• Ambler, Charles H. (1918). The Life and Diary of John Floyd Governor of Virginia, an Apostle of Secession, and the Father of the Oregon Country. Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Press.
• Cooper, William J. (1978). The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828-56. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 24 April 2017, 23:18), entry for Gov. John Floyd Jr, MD(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:LV7H-LVX); contributed by various users.
• Ancestry.com, 1810 United States Federal Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.) Census Place: Woodford, Kentucky; Roll: 8; Page: 385; Image: 00383; Family History Library Film: 0181353