William Cabell

William Cabell (March 13, 1730 – March 23, 1798) was an American planter, soldier, and politician who served more than four decades in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly representing the area of his and family members' plantations on the upper James River. Early life, family and education Cabell was born on March 13, 1730, near Licking Hole Creek in what was then vast Goochland County, Virginia. The firstborn son of physician, planter and surveyor William Cabell (1699–1774), who had emigrated from Warminister, England, and his wife the former Elizabeth Burks (1705–1756), he would have younger brothers Joseph Cabell (1730-1798), John Cabell (1735-1815) and Nicholas Cabell (1750-1803), and a sister Mary. All the Cabell brothers (and Mary's husband John Horsley) became patriots in the American Revolutionary War shortly after their father's death, and married well (thus making their family one of the First Families of Virginia), as they operated plantations using enslaved labor, and served in the Virginia General Assembly and local governments. Cabell's father returned to England for several years to settle his father's estate, during which time he often wrote his wife about the boy's education. Elizabeth Burks Cabell ran her family's estates and greatly increased them during this time (including by buying slaves). According to family tradition, after receiving a private education suitable to his class from his parents and tutors at home, this William Cabell studied at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. At some point the college acknowledged his qualifications as surveyor, so by 1749, he was assisting in his father's surveying business. His public career would begin in 1751 as he joined his father as a vestryman of St. Anne's Parish in Albemarle County, Virginia. Two years later he received an official appointment as surveyor in his own right. As settlement proceeded westward through Virginia's Piedmont, the Virginia General Assembly created Albemarle County from the western section of Goochland County in 1744, and would create Buckingham County from the southern part of Albemarle County and Amherst County from the western section in 1761.