Charles Lynch

Colonel Charles Lynch (1736 – 1796) was an American planter, politician, military officer and judge who headed a kangaroo court in Virginia to punish Loyalists during the Revolutionary War. The terms "lynching" and "lynch law" are believed to be derived from his surname. Early life He was born in 1736 at an estate known as Chestnut Hill on the banks of the James River in Virginia, a place at which his brother, John Lynch, would later establish the town of Lynchburg. Lynch's father left his native Ireland and emigrated to the British colony of Virginia in about 1725 as an indentured servant, called a "redemptioner" in the nomenclature of the day. Upon arrival to the New World, Lynch's contract of indenture was sold to a wealthy planter living in Caroline County. Lynch remained with the planter for his fixed term of servitude, winning in the process not only his freedom but also the hand of the planter's daughter, Sarah Clark, in marriage. With the financial assistance of the elder Clark, the Lynches themselves became planters of tobacco on a large scale, farming well over 7,000 acres of Virginia land. Sometime between Charles' birth in 1736 and the middle of the decade, Charles' father died, leaving behind his Chestnut Hill estate to his eldest son, John. His mother joined the Quaker religious sect in 1750, bringing her sons with her into that religion. Lynch married a fellow Quaker, the former Anne Terrell, on January 12, 1755. With Chestnut Hill occupied by his brother, the young couple set out to establish their new home on Virginia's western frontier on a more distant parcel of land granted to his father by King George II, in the newly established Bedford County.