Representative Samuel Jordan Cabell

Samuel Jordan Cabell (December 15, 1756 – August 4, 1818) was an American Revolutionary War officer, planter, and Virginia politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1785 to 1793, sat as an Anti-Federalist delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention of 1788, and later represented Virginia in the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic-Republican from 1795 to 1803. His public career spanned the turbulent transition from colonial rule through the Revolutionary War and into the early national period, during which he participated actively in the development of both state and federal institutions.

Cabell was born on December 15, 1756, in what was then Albemarle County in the Colony of Virginia, into a prominent planter family. He was the son of William Cabell, a substantial landowner and political figure, and his wife, and the grandson of another William Cabell, who had emigrated from Warminster, England, to Virginia. The elder immigrant Cabell is believed to have first come to the colony in connection with service in the Royal Navy as a ship’s surgeon, despite lacking a formal medical degree in an era when medical education was only beginning to be institutionalized. In Virginia, this grandfather combined medical practice with public service, holding positions such as undersheriff in Henrico County and later surveyor and coroner in Goochland County, all while steadily acquiring and operating plantations worked by enslaved laborers. As the family moved westward along the James River, he ultimately died on a plantation he left to his youngest son in the area that would later become Nelson County. During Samuel Cabell’s youth, the Virginia General Assembly repeatedly reorganized county boundaries in the region: Goochland County was divided to form Albemarle County in 1744, and Albemarle itself was later subdivided several times, shaping the local political geography in which the Cabell family rose to prominence.

Raised in this influential milieu, Samuel Cabell received a private education appropriate to his class and station. He was then sent to Williamsburg, the colonial capital, for higher studies at the College of William & Mary, an institution closely associated with Virginia’s political elite. His father, William Cabell, was well acquainted with Williamsburg and the college through his own service in the colonial legislature, the House of Burgesses, where he represented Albemarle County and, after its creation in 1760, Amherst County. The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, however, disrupted Samuel Cabell’s formal education. The College of William & Mary closed for much of the conflict, and military forces occupied its campus, drawing many of its students, including Cabell, into active service.

The Cabell family firmly aligned with the patriot cause as tensions with Britain escalated. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, had suspended the House of Burgesses, prompting Virginia patriots to organize a series of revolutionary conventions. William Cabell represented Amherst County at four of the five Virginia Conventions that guided the colony into open resistance. In 1775, Samuel Cabell and his younger brother, William Cabell Jr., joined the Revolutionary Army. The extended Cabell family helped recruit a company of riflemen from Amherst County, initially commanded by Samuel’s uncle, Colonel Nicholas Cabell of the “Union Hill” plantation. When Nicholas Cabell was appointed a commissioner to settle claims in Virginia’s southern district—covering Pittsylvania, Augusta, Botetourt, and Bedford counties—the Amherst County Volunteers elected Samuel Cabell as their captain in 1776. The company was assigned to the 6th Virginia Regiment under Colonel Charles Lewis of Albemarle County, which marched in concert with Hanover County volunteers led by Colonel Samuel Meredith and Patrick Henry to Gwynn’s Island to seize gunpowder previously commandeered by Lord Dunmore. Cabell saw extensive combat, participating in the pivotal Battle of Saratoga in 1777, after which he was promoted to major. He served in General George Washington’s army during 1778 and 1779 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. On May 12, 1780, at the Siege of Charleston, he was captured by British forces and held in custody at Haddock’s Point until near the end of the war, returning home on August 21, 1781.

Following the conclusion of hostilities, Cabell resumed civilian life as a planter in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Like his father and other members of the family, he operated plantations that relied on enslaved labor, integrating himself into the agrarian economy that dominated the state’s social and political order. At the same time, he embarked on a legislative career in the newly independent Commonwealth. Amherst County voters elected him to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he served, sometimes alongside his father, from 1785 to 1792. In this capacity he participated in shaping post-Revolutionary state policy during a formative period marked by debates over debt, taxation, and the balance of power between state and emerging federal authorities.

Cabell’s prominence in state politics led to his selection, together with his father, as a delegate from Amherst County to the Virginia Ratification Convention of 1788. There he aligned with the Anti-Federalist faction, which included figures such as Patrick Henry and George Mason, and opposed ratification of the proposed United States Constitution on the grounds that it concentrated too much power in the national government and lacked a bill of rights. Both Samuel and William Cabell voted against ratification, although the convention as a whole approved the Constitution. In the aftermath, Samuel Cabell remained active in the broader Anti-Federalist and emerging Republican movement. He played a role in encouraging fellow Continental Army veteran James Monroe to challenge James Madison for a seat in the first U.S. House of Representatives in a sprawling district that extended from Amherst County in southwestern Virginia to Spotsylvania County in the northeast, thus helping to advance Monroe’s early national political career.

In 1795, Cabell himself entered national office when he was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia. Serving four consecutive terms, he remained in Congress until 1803. During his tenure he was aligned with the Republican, or Democratic-Republican, Party that coalesced around Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in opposition to the Federalist policies of the Washington and Adams administrations. As a Republican representative, Cabell contributed to the legislative process during a significant period in American history, participating in debates over issues such as federal fiscal policy, the scope of executive power, and the direction of the young republic’s foreign relations. He represented the interests of his agrarian constituents, reflecting the broader Republican emphasis on states’ rights, limited central government, and support for the agricultural economy. In the 1802 election, Matthew Clay, a relative of future U.S. Senator Henry Clay, succeeded to Cabell’s congressional seat, marking the end of his service in the national legislature. Within the extended family, political influence continued: his cousin William H. Cabell succeeded Samuel’s younger brother in the Virginia House of Delegates and went on to serve as governor of Virginia and later as presiding judge of the state’s highest court, which evolved into the Supreme Court of Virginia.

After leaving Congress, Cabell returned full-time to his plantation and local affairs. He resided at his estate, “Soldier’s Joy,” located at Wingina in what became Nelson County, Virginia, a region closely associated with the Cabell family since the colonial period. He continued to live there as a member of the planter class that had long dominated Virginia’s social and political life. Samuel Jordan Cabell died at Soldier’s Joy on August 4, 1818. His legacy as a Revolutionary War officer, Anti-Federalist critic of the Constitution, and Republican congressman is documented in family papers and correspondence, many of which are preserved in the collections of the University of Virginia Library, providing valuable insight into the political and social history of Virginia and the early United States.