Abraham B. Venable

Abraham Bedford Venable (November 20, 1758December 26, 1811) was a Virginia lawyer, planter and politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and briefly as U.S. Senator, as well as in the Virginia House of Delegates. Early and family life Born to the former Elizabeth Woodson (1740-1791) and her husband Nathaniel Venable (1733-1804) at Slate Hill Plantation, a farm in what is now Worsham, Prince Edward County, then in the Colony of Virginia. He was named to honor his great-grandfather, Abraham Venable, who immigrated to Virginia around 1685, and his grandfather, also Abraham Venable (1700-1768) who married a daughter of Quaker Nathaniel Davis of Devonshire, England, and who became a great landowner in then-vast Hanover, Louisa and Goochland Counties, and ultimately a burgess for Louisa County. His father operated plantations using enslaved labor, as well as represented Prince Edward County in the House of Burgesses and later in the Virginia House of Delegates, and helped found the first Presbyterian church in Prince Edward County. The family included an elder brother, Samuel Woodson Venable (1756-1821), younger brothers Richard Nathaniel Venable (1763-1838) and William Lewis Venable (1780-1824) This younger Abraham Venable received a private education suitable to his class, then attended Hampden–Sydney College, which his father helped establish in 1775. He traveled to New Jersey for higher education at what was then the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and graduated in 1780. In addition to helping his father and overseers operate plantations in Prince Edward County, Venable studied law, but never married. Career