Nathaniel Venable I
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Nathaniel E Venable I (1733 - 1804)

Colonel Nathaniel E Venable I
Born in Louisa County, Colony of Virginiamap [uncertain]
Ancestors ancestors
Husband of — married 24 Mar 1755 in Prince Edward County, Virginiamap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 71 in Prince Edward, Virginia, United Statesmap
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Profile last modified | Created 31 May 2011
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Contents

Biography

1776 Project
Colonel Nathaniel Venable I served with Civil Service, Virginia during the American Revolution.

Nathaniel was educated at William & Mary College. He became a member of the House of Burgesses, the Virginia House of Delegates 1766-1769-1776 and a State Senator from Prince Edward County, VA from 1780 through 1785. He furnished supplies for American cause. He was elected to the Committee of Safety in 1775. [1] During the course of his life, he came to own between 20-30 thousand acres and over 100 slaves. He was first a member of the Church of England (State Church prior to the Revolution) but later became a Presbyterian. Hampden-Sydney College counts him as one of its founders when it was formally organized at his "Slate Hill" plantation in 1755. He had been given the property by his father-in-law. He donated 100 acres for the school's founding, originally called Prince Edward Academy. Nathaniel Venable's office, now known as “The Birthplace,” sits on campus today, behind Atkinson Hall.

His wife was Elizabeth Michaux Woodson of "Poplar Hill" plantation, Prince Edward County, VA. Nathaniel's home 'Slate Hill' was described as a simple story and a half though it had spacious rooms, lofty ceilings large fireplaces and extensive book cases.

Col. Nathaniel Venable of 'Slate Hill', a roistering blade in early youth, but always a man of force and later a pious, strenuous life, was merchant, planter, member of the House of Burgesses, and later of the Legislature of Virginia, and was a Lieutenant of Prince Edward County . . . . Educated at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, he was a mathematician of some local renown, witness the clergyman who preached the sermon at his funeral and began the discourse by saying that 'his late friend had gone to the land where neither calumny nor praise could reach him; but it was simply due to the truth to state that he had been the best mathematician in Prince Edward County.' Always, in all things a strenuous, forceful, eager man, an Episcopalian at first, vestry-man of St. Patrick's Parrish in Prince Edwards County (the vestry book in his own hand writing is now at the Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria Virginia) and bearing on dissenters with a hard and, forbidding the Presbyterian clergymen to preach in the churches and the like, he later became a Republican, and, an even more zealous Presbyterian; tore down the Episcopal church at Kingsville; raised funds and built a Presbyterian church at Farmville; and as we have seen was the mainstay and founder of the college at Hampden-Sidney.

DAR Records

  • VENABLE, NATHANIEL
  • Ancestor #: A118474
  • Service: VIRGINIA Rank(s): PATRIOTIC SERVICE
  • Birth: 10-21-1733 HANOVER CO VIRGINIA
  • Death: 12-27-1804 PRINCE EDWARD CO VIRGINIA
  • Service Source: ABERCROMBIE & SLATTEN, VA REV PUB CLAIMS, VOL 3, PP 794,797; WM & MARY QTRLY, SER I, VOL V, P 247; BURRELL, HIST OF PRINCE EDWARD CO VA FROM 1753 TO THE PRESENT, P 33
  • Service Description: 1) PROVIDED SUPPLIES; COMMITTEE OF SAFETY, 1775 2) STATE SENATE, 1781-1782
  • RESIDENCE: 1) County: PRINCE EDWARD CO - State: VIRGINIA
  • SPOUSE: 1) ELIZABETH MICHAUX WOODSON

A Personal Story... V: the Venable family of NC and Virginia, descended from Patriot Nathaniel Venable and his wife, Patriot Elizabeth Woodson Venable, were some of the largest slave owners in those states, owning at one time over 100 slaves (I believe in the plantation called Slate Hill). Odd, how a man like that could help found Hampden-Sydney College with its high standards, and yet own slaves and think nothing of it. I am not sure when the family passed across from NC to VA (though it's all in my records) but they owned slaves up to the Civil War.

My ancestor, Abraham W. Venable, friend of John C. Calhoun, gave his daughter Mary Grace Venable Daniel a female slave as her own property, perhaps when she married. She died and he and his wife raised her daughter and that of Richard V. Daniel, Isabella Venable Daniel (Jones). She married Alexander Strachan Jones and they lived in Asheville during Reconstrucion. My grandmother, Belle Daniel Jones (Hall) was born there, and later moved West with her brother who had TB, in an attempt to cure him. His name was AV Jones (Abram Venable Jones). He died in 1915. Isabelle, or Belle, married her newspaper editor (she worked as a reporter for a Tucson paper) John Hall, Jr. of Mobile, AL.

They had one daughter, Isabelle Daniel Hall, my mother. She later changed her name to Barbara (and during WWII, to B. to conceal her sex, due to misogyny). Barbara Hall was her painting name, and she was also a cartoonist who drew "The Girl Commandoes," and "Honey Blake." I suspect her and my father, Irving Fiske, a Village Bohemian, of making this one up. Honey looks like my mother and her sidekick "Slapso" looks like my father, a short but atrractive and brilliant Jewish man who resemnbled A. Einstein. Now that story has wandered far from the category. There were many other Venables, Daniels, Woodsons, Carringtons, (one a Supreme Court judge before the War), and so on. [2]

Last Will And Testament

I Nathaniel Venable of the County of Prince Edward do publish and declare this to be my last Will and Testament:

I give to my Daughter Mary Venable one negro man named John I also confirm to my said daughter Mary the Gift I have already made her of a negro woman named Lucy and her children to her and her Heirs forever, it is also my Will that the sum on One hundred pounds be paid to my said daughter Mary out of my Estate which was promised her by her deceased brother Nathaniel:

I give to my daughter Mary and my son Thomas the Lands and plantation where I now live together with the following Negroes to wit: Dick commonly called Garden Dick, big Ned, Black Dick, Little Ned and a Negro girl named Betty as also the stock of every kind towit, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs &c with all the grain and other kind of crop on the place at my deceased also my riding carriage and household furniture of every kind except two feather beds & furniture which I give to each of my children William Venable and Elizabeth Wilson: I give to my daughter Elizabeth Wilson seven hundred pounds current money

I give to my daughter Mary and my son Richard N. Venable each One Hundreds pounds Current money:

It is to be understood that the several sums herein mentioned as given to my children in money are to be paid out of my part of the debts due to the stores in which I am concerned:

I give to my son William L. Venable my one fourth part of the Union Mills, with my interest in the negroes, and every other species of property belonging to the said Mills except the profits which may be made to the time of my decease also one negro man called yellow Dick:

I give to my sons William and Thomas all the rest of my Estate of every kind not before given in this Will, to them and their Heirs forever:

My two oldest son Samuel W. Venable and Abraham B. Venable, have already receive - their proportion of my Estate: -

I appoint my son Richard N. Venable Executor of this my last Will and Testament, to which I have set my hand and affixed my seal this Ninth day of July in the year of our Lord One thousand Eight hundred and three.

in presence of his J. LeagueNathaniel // Venable Sen. (seal) James Woodmark Hezekiah Jackson.

At a Court held for Prince Edward county June the 17th 1805 This last Will and Testament of Nathaniel Venable Senior deceased was presented in Court and proved by the Oaths of Joshua League and James Wood two of the Witnesses thereto Ordered that the same be recorded. And at another Court held for the said County February 17th 1806, this last Will and Testament of Nath'l Venable, St deceased was again presented in Court and on motion of Richard N. Venable the Executor therein named who with Nathaniel Venable & Benjamin Watkins his Sureties entered into and acknowledged their bond for that purpose in the penalty of Ten thousand pounds and conditioned according to Law and took the Oath required by Law Certificate for obtaining a probat thereof in due form is granted him. Teste: B. Watkins, D. C. A copy, Teste: Horace Adams Clerk

Children — born in Prince Edward Co., VA

  1. Samuel Woodson VENABLE, b. 19 Sep 1756; d. 7 Sep 1821; m. 13?/15? Aug 1781, Mary Scott CARRINGTON (21 Jun 1758 - 21 Mar 1837)
  2. Abraham Bedford VENABLE, b. 20 Nov 1758
  3. Elizabeth Ann "Bettie/Betsy" VENABLE, b. 18 Sep/Oct/Nov 1760; d. 1/3 Dec 1826; m. 2 Jul 1782, Thomas WATKINS (12 Feb 1761 - 1797)
  4. Richard N. VENABLE, b. 16 Jan/Feb 1763; d. 1838; m. 5 Mar 1797, Mary MORTON (1779-1838/9)
  5. Martha VENABLE, b. 1765; m. first cousin, Nathaniel VENABLE
  6. Ann VENABLE, b. 6 Nov 1767; d. 10 Jan 1768
  7. Ann VENABLE, b. 9 Dec 1768; m. 18 Nov 1796, Prince Edward Co., VA, James Chesley DANIEL
  8. Agnes VENABLE, b. 1771; d. 1802
  9. Mary VENABLE, b. 16 Jun 1773; d. 1807
  10. Nathaniel VENABLE, b. 13 Feb 1776; d. 23 Aug 1801
  11. Frances VENABLE, b. 18 Apr 1778; d. Jun 1799
  12. William Lewis VENABLE, b. Mar 1780; d. 1824; m. Frances Watkins NANTZ (1791-1859)
  13. Thomas VENABLE, b. 17 Nov 1782; d. 1809
  14. Elizabeth VENABLE, b. 21 Nov 1784, m. 4 Nov 1802, Prince Edward Co., VA, Goodridge Alexander WILSON


Slaves

See: Slaves of Nathaniel E. Venable I, Virginia free-space page.


Sources

  1. Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed 29 Jan 2018), "Record of Nathaniel VENABLE", Ancestor # A118474.
  2. Unkown author, originally from a now defunct category regarding slavery in Virginia. Transfered 3 March 2015




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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Nathaniel by comparing test results with other carriers of his Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA. Y-chromosome DNA test-takers in his direct paternal line on WikiTree: It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Nathaniel:

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Comments: 1

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Hello JD,

As a member of the US Black Heritage Project, I have added a section for slaves owned by Nathaniel Venable on this profile with categories using the standards of the US Black Heritage Exchange Program. This helps us connect enslaved ancestors to their descendants. See the Heritage Exchange Portal for more information.

Thanks, Natalie, USBH member

posted by Natalie (Durbin) Trott