1776.
Richard Henry Lee moves a Resolution for a Separation--Seconded
by John Adams--Declaration of Independence--Jefferson--General
Orders--Thomas Nelson, Jr., and the Nelsons--Benjamin Harrison,
Jr., and the Harrisons--George Wythe.
ON the 7th day of June, 1776, a resolution in favor of a total and
immediate separation from Great Britain was moved in congress by Richard
Henry Lee, and seconded by John Adams. On the twenty-eighth a committee
was appointed to prepare a declaration of independence, the members
being Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert R.
Livingston. Richard Henry Lee being compelled, by the illness of Mrs.
Lee, to leave congress on the day of the appointment of the committee,
and to return to Virginia, his place was filled by Roger Sherman. The
declaration, adopted on the 4th day of July, 1776, was composed, in
committee, mainly by Mr. Jefferson, but much modified by congress. The
Virginia delegates who subscribed it were George Wythe, Richard Henry
Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Carter Braxton.[652:A]
Thomas Nelson, Jr., eldest son of the Honorable William Nelson, some
time president of the council of Virginia, was born at York, in
December, 1738. His mother was of the family of Burwell. After having
been under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Yates, of Gloucester, he was sent
at the age of fifteen to England, where he remained seven years, for the
completion of his education. He enjoyed the superintending care of Dr.
Porteus,[653:A] and was at the school of Dr. Newcome, at Hackney, at
Eton in 1754, and at Cambridge. While on his voyage returning to
Virginia he was elected (1774) a member of the house of burgesses, being
then just twenty-one years of age.[653:B] He was a member of the
conventions of 1774 and 1775, and displayed extraordinary boldness in
opposing the British tyranny. He was afterwards appointed colonel of a
Virginia regiment. In 1775 and 1776 he was a member of Congress. There
is a fine portrait of him still preserved, taken, it is said, while he
was a student at Eton, (by an artist named Chamberlin, London, 1754,)
the only portrait of him for which he ever sat.[653:C]
The first of the Nelsons of Virginia was Thomas, son of Hugh and Sarah
Nelson, of Penrith, Cumberland County, England. This Thomas Nelson was
born in February, 1677, and died in October, 1745, aged sixty-eight. He
married, first, a Miss Reid, secondly, a widow Tucker. Coming from a
border county, he was styled "Scotch Tom." He was an importing merchant.
Yorktown was in his day, and for a long time, the chief sea-port town of
Virginia. Of his two sons, Thomas being long secretary of the council,
was known as Secretary Nelson. Three of his sons were officers in the
army of the Revolution.
William, the other son of the first Thomas Nelson, imported goods not
only for Virginia, but at times for Baltimore, and even Philadelphia.
Negroes were a principal subject of importation; merchants and planters
of chief note, some of them leading men in the colony, and patrons of
the church, engaged in it; and no odium appears to have been attached to
a business in which British capital was so largely interested, which was
so constantly encouraged and protected by the British government, and
which had been so long an established feature of the colonial system,
and so generally concurred in. John Newton, while personally engaged in
the slave-trade on board of a Guinea ship, appears to have entertained
at the time no scruples whatever on the subject of his employment. It is
no matter of surprise that a Virginia consignee of slaves should have
received them with a like indifference.
William Nelson married a Miss Burwell, a granddaughter of King Carter.
Having been long president of the council, and at one time acting
governor, he came to be known by the title of President Nelson. He died
in November, 1772, aged sixty-one, leaving an ample estate. His sons
were Thomas, Hugh, William, Nathaniel, and Robert. A daughter, Betsy,
married, in 1769, Captain Thompson, of his majesty's ship Ripon, which
brought over Lord Botetourt. The portion descending to Thomas, oldest
son of President Nelson, and who had been associated in business with
him, was estimated at forty thousand pounds.
Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, was descended from ancestors who
were among the early settlers of Virginia. Hermon Harrison came to
Virginia in the second supply, as it was called. One of the name was
governor of Bermuda. John Harrison was governor of Virginia in 1623. The
common ancestor of the Harrisons of Berkley and of Brandon, was Benjamin
Harrison, of Surrey. He lies buried in the yard of an old chapel near
Cabin Point, in that county.[654:A]
It was long believed that the Harrisons of Virginia were lineally
descended from Colonel John Harrison, the regicide and friend of
Cromwell, and one of the noblest spirits in a heroic age. This
tradition, however, appears to be erroneous. The first of the family in
Virginia, of whom we have any particular record, was the Honorable
Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, who was born in that county in 1645,
during the civil war in England. It is certain that he could not have
been a son of Colonel Harrison, the regicide. He may have been a
collateral relation.
The first Benjamin Harrison (of Surrey) had three sons, of whom
Benjamin, the eldest, settled at Berkley. He married Elizabeth, daughter
of Louis Burwell, of Gloucester; was a lawyer, and speaker of the house
of burgesses. He died in April, 1710, aged thirty-seven, leaving an only
son, Benjamin, and an only daughter, Elizabeth.
Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, was educated at William and Mary;
married a daughter of Robert Carter, of Corotoman;[655:A] and was for
many years a burgess for his native county, Charles City. In 1764 he was
one of the committee chosen to prepare an address to the king, a
memorial to the lords, and a remonstrance to the commons, in opposition
to the stamp act. Like Pendleton, Bland, and others, he opposed Henry's
resolutions of the following year. He was a member of the committee of
correspondence, and of all the conventions held before the organization
of the republican government. He opposed Henry's resolutions for putting
the colony in a posture of defence, but was appointed one of the
committee chosen to carry them into effect. He was elected, in 1774, a
delegate to the first congress, of which his brother-in-law, Peyton
Randolph, (who married Elizabeth Harrison,) was president. In February,
1776, he remarked in that body: "We have hobbled on under a fatal
attachment to Great Britain. I felt it as much as any man, but I feel a
stronger for my country." As chairman of the committee of the whole
house, Mr. Harrison, on the 10th of June, 1776, introduced the
resolution declaring the independence of the colonies, and on the
fourth day of July he reported the Declaration of Independence, of
which he was a signer. He was six feet in stature, corpulent, and of a
florid complexion. He was practical, energetic, frank, epicurean, gouty,
good-humored, fearless, and patriotic.[656:A]
The sons of the first Benjamin Harrison, of Berkley, were Benjamin,
signer of the Declaration; Charles, a general of the Revolution;
Nathaniel, Henry, Collier, and Carter H. From the last-mentioned are
descended the Harrisons of Cumberland. Benjamin Harrison, Jr., the
signer, married a Miss Bassett. Their children were Benjamin, Carter,
Bassett, member of congress, and William Henry, President of the United
States. One daughter married a Mr. Richardson, a second married first
William Randolph, of Wilton, and then Captain Richard Singleton; a third
married David Copeland, and a fourth married John Minge, of Weyanoke,
afterwards of Sandy Point. So far the Berkley branch of the Harrisons.
The second son of Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, was Nathaniel. His
eldest son was of the same name, and his only son was Honorable Benjamin
Harrison, of Brandon, of the council at the same time with his relative
and namesake of Berkley at the commencement of the Revolution. This
Benjamin Harrison, of Brandon, was father of the late George Harrison,
and of William B. Harrison, of Brandon.
George Wythe was born in 1726, in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, on
the shore of the Chesapeake. From his maternal grandfather, Keith, a
Quaker, he inherited a taste for letters. His ancestor, Thomas Wythe,
was burgess for that county in 1718. The father of George was a prudent
farmer of estimable character.[656:B] George, the second son, losing his
father at an early age, enjoyed but limited advantages of school
education, and his early tuition was principally directed by his mother;
and it is related that he acquired a knowledge of the Latin classics
from her instructions.[656:C] Mr. Jefferson mentions that while young
Wythe was studying the Greek Testament, his mother held an English one
to aid him in the translation. It has been since inferred, from an
examination of his manuscripts, that this last was the only kind of
assistance that he received from her in the Latin and Greek. He studied
law under his uncle, John Lewis, of Prince George; but, upon the death
of his elder brother and his mother, becoming master of a competent
fortune, he fell into habits of idleness and dissipation. Like Swift,
however, he was not one who, having wasted part of his life in
indolence, was willing to throw away the remainder in despair; and in
the society of Governor Fauquier and Professor Small he imbibed their
love of learning; and at the age of thirty applied himself unremittedly
to study. He became, eventually, distinguished by his attainments in
classical literature; and he pursued other studies with a like success.
But he often deplored the loss of so many early golden years. His
learning, judgment, and industry soon raised him to eminence at the bar.
A member of the house of burgesses as early as 1758, he continued in it
until the Revolution. At its dawn Mr. Wythe, in common with Thomas
Jefferson and Richard Bland, assumed the ground that the crown was the
only connecting link between the colonies and the mother country. In
1764 Mr. Wythe was a member of a committee of the house of burgesses
appointed to prepare a petition to the king, a memorial to the lords,
and a remonstrance to the commons, on the subject of the stamp act. He
prepared the remonstrance in conformity with his radical principles; but
it was greatly modified by the assembly. In May, 1765, he, in common
with Nicholas, Pendleton, Randolph, and Bland, opposed Henry's
resolutions as premature. Mr. Wythe likewise voted (March, 1775,)
against Henry's resolutions for putting the colony in a posture of
defence; but he was in favor of the scheme of Colonel Nicholas for
raising a large regular force. Early in 1775 Mr. Wythe joined a corps of
volunteers as a private soldier; in August he was elected a member of
congress. He was returned by the City of Williamsburg to the convention
of that year; but being in attendance on congress his place was filled
by Joseph Prentis. Mr. Wythe signed the Declaration of Independence,
which he had strenuously supported in debate.[657:A] Mr. Wythe married
first a Miss Lewis, and secondly a Miss Taliaferro.[658:A] He died
childless. He is described as being distinguished for integrity,
patriotism, and disinterestedness; temperance and regular habits gave
him good health; engaging and modest manners endeared him to every one;
his bow was one of most expressive courtesy. His elocution was easy, his
language chaste, his arrangement lucid; his frequent classic quotations,
smacking a little of pedantry; his style, which aimed at the antique,
was deficient in elegance and rhythm. Learned, urbane, logical, he was
not quick and ready, but solid and profound. He was of middle size,
well-formed, his forehead ample, nose aquiline, eye dark gray,
expression manly and engaging. His religious opinions were supposed to
be skeptical; but the closing scene of his life is said to have been
that of a sincere professor of the Christian faith.
FOOTNOTES:
[652:A] Extracts from Orderly Book:--
"SPRING FIELD, July 17th, 1776.
"General Lewis hopes that the reports of some of the officers
gaming to excess is without foundation: he begs that the
field-officers will make diligent enquiry into it, and if
true, to arrest such officers, that a total stop may be put to
so infamous practices.
"Officer for the day LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WEEDON."
"SPRING FIELD, July 24th, 1776.
"The Declaration of Independency is to be proclaimed to-morrow
in the City of Williamsburg, by order of the council, when all
the troops off duty are to attend."
"WILLIAMSBURG, July 26th, 1776.
"Parole--Stephen.
"A fatigue of one captain, two subalterns, two sergeants, and
sixty rank and file, to be warned from the College Camp, to
carry on the work intended to be thrown up on the road to
Jamestown.
"Colonel Buckner will please to order a fatigue proportioned
to his number of men, to work on the road from Burwell's Ferry
to Williamsburg, at such a place as he shall judge proper to
fortify. One company of the second regiment to take post
to-morrow at Mr. Burwell's, to erect a work at the mouth of
King's Creek. The rest of the second regiment to march
to-morrow to Mr. Digges's, to fortify there."
[653:A] He afterwards sent, by Parson Bracken, a volume of his sermons,
a present to young Nelson. The parson liked them so well that he
preached them all before he delivered the book.
[653:B] Old Churches, of Va., i. 207.
[653:C] His statue is to stand on the monument in Richmond.
[654:A] The following is his epitaph:--
"Here lyeth
the body of the
HON. BENJAMIN HARRISON, ESQ.,
who did justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly with his God;
was always loyal to his prince,
and a great benefactor to his country.
He was born in this parish the 20th day of September, 1645,
and departed this
life the 30th day of January, 1712-13."
[655:A] Two daughters of this union were killed at Berkley by the same
flash of lightning: a third married a Randolph, of Wilton.
[656:A] Convention of 1776, p. 96; Allen's Biog. Dictionary.
[656:B] Grigsby's Convention of 1776, p. 125.
[656:C] Wirt's Patrick Henry, 65.
[657:A] Convention of '76, p. 122. On his return to Virginia toward the
close of the session of the convention then sitting, he was appointed
one of a committee to prepare devices for a seal of the commonwealth.
[658:A] Pronounced "Tolliver," originally an Italian name, Tagliaferro.