and to Kentucky, Missouri, and California, one each-severally in Governors Jacobs, B. Gratz Brown, and Miller; Thomas Hart Benton, John J. Crittenden, William C. and William Ballard Preston, leading moulders of public sentiment; the Breckinridges, Dr. Robert J. and William L., distinguished theologians of Kentucky; Professors Holmes, Venable, and Cabell of the University of Virginia, besides other distinguished educators. Nor is their battle-roll less glorious. It is claimed that more than a thousand of this family and its connections served in the contending armies in our late civil war. Among the leaders were Generals Wade Hampton, Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph Eggleston Johnston, John Buchanan Floyd, John Cabell Breckinridge, and John S. and William Preston. When it is stated that besides the names enumerated, the family is connected with those of Baldwin, Blair, Bowyer, Brown, Buchanan, Bruce, Cabell, Carrington, Christian, Cocke, Flournoy, Gamble, Garland, Gilmer, Gibson, Grattan, Hart, Henry, Hughes, Howard, Lee, Lewis, Madison, Marshall, Mason, Massie, Mayo, Parker, Payne, Peyton, Pleasants, Pope, Radford, Randolph, Read, Redd, Rives, Siddon, Sheffey, Taylor, Thompson, Trigg, Venable, Watkins, Ward, Watts, Winston, Wickliffe, among many others as well esteemed, some idea may be formed of its mental characteristics and social influence.

THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH.

Thomas Mann Randolph, the eldest son of Thomas Mann and Anne (Cary) Randolph, was born at "Tuckahoe," the family seat, in Goochland County, Virginia, in the year 1768. His father, a member of the Virginia Convention and of the Committee of Safety of 1775, and frequently afterwards of the State Assembly, was the son of Thomas and Anne (daughter of Tarleton Fleming) Randolph, and the grandson of the emigrant William Randolph, of "Turkey Island." His mother was Anne, daughter of Colonel Archibald Cary, of "Ampthill," Chesterfield County, an ardent patriot of the Revolution, whose uncompromising resistance to British rule gained him the sobriquet of "Old Iron." The wife of Colonel Cary was Mary, daughter of Richard Randolph, of "Carles," and his wife Jane, daughter of John Bolling, of "Cobbs," who was fourth in descent from Pocahontas and John Rolfe.

Thomas Mann Randolph, the subject of this sketch, after a preliminary course at William and Mary College, completed his education at the University of Edinburgh, and visited Paris in 1788, where Thomas Jefferson was then residing as the Minister from the United States, having with him his daughter Martha. The young people were second cousins, and had been attached to each other from childhood.

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Young Randolph in person and mind exhibited marked traces of both lines of his descent. He was tall, lean, with dark expressive features and a flashing eye, commanding in carriage, elastic as steel, and had that sudden sinewy strength which it would not be difficult to fancy he inherited from the forest monarchs of Virginia." His education was a finished one. His reading was extensive and varied. His fortune was ample, and would have been immense but for the change effected in the Virginia statutes of descent. Few young men had attracted more attention abroad. He received marked attentions in the Scottish capital, and made friends, too, among the grave and learned. Thomas Mann Randolph and Martha Jefferson were married at "Monticello," February 23, 1790. The young couple for a time lived at "Varina, a few miles below Richmond, in Henrico County, noted as having been the county seat, the residence of Rev. William Stith, the historian, and as the point of exchange of Confederate and Federal prisoners during the late war. Thomas Mann Randolph served as a member of the Virginia Senate in 1793 and 1794. He removed soon after this period to Edge Hill," Albemarle County, where he continued to reside until 1808, when his family was domesticated with Mr. Jefferson, at "Monticello." He was a representative from Virginia in the United States Congress from 1803 to 1807. On the last day of the session of 1806, misapprehending an expression in a speech made by his brilliant and eccentric kinsman, John Randolph "of Roanoke," he rose and passionately resented the supposed reflection in bitter denunciation. The calmer counsels of friends, however, convinced him of his error, which he with due manliness admitted in the House, regretting his expres sions, and disclaiming any "disposition to wound the feelings of any gentleman who did not intend to wound his." A duel, however, for a time seemed imminent, and Mr. Randolph repaired to Richmond with the expectancy of a hostile meeting, but reason prevailed and the matter was ended. The sentiments of two eminent men, elicited by this affair, are worthy of transmission. They are extracted from the original letters, before the writer. Mr. Jefferson writes from Washington, June 23, 1806: "I had fondly hoped that the unfortunate matter between yourself and John Randolph, the last evening of Congress, had been stifled almost in the moment of its birth;" and, in reference to the wife and children of Mr. Randolph: "is it possible that your duties to those dear objects can weigh more lightly than those to a gladiator? Be assured this is not the opinion of the mass of mankind, of the thinking part of society, of that discreet part whose esteem we value. If malice and levity find sport in mischief, rational men are not therefore to exhibit themselves for their amusement. But even the striplings of fashion are sensible that the laws of dueling are made for them alone, for lives of no consequence to others; not for the fathers of families or

for those charged with other great moral concerns. The valuable part of society condemns in their hearts that knight-errantry which, following the ignis fatuus of an imaginary honour, bursts asunder all the ligaments of duty and affection." Mr. Jefferson, writing again, July 13th, says: “I find but one sentiment prevailing (and I have that from very many)—that the thing may stop where it is with entire honour to yourself, and with no other diminution of it to the other party, than showing that he has not that ravenous appetite for unnecessary risk which some had ascribed to him; and which indeed is the falsest of honour, as mere compound of crime and folly. I hope, therefore, that the matter is at an end, and that great care will be taken not to revive it. I believe that will be the case on his side, for I think you have been mistaken in supposing he meant to try any experiment on your sensibility. Of this he is acquitted, I find, by all who had opportunities of observing his selection of characters to be the subjects of his sarcasms." The celebrated John Taylor, "of Caroline," writing from Fredericksburg, June 26, 1806, to Wilson Cary Nicholas, says: "The two Randolphs are preparing, I see, to cut each other's throats-the devil having made such men mischievous in society as would imbibe vice, could only rob it of those who would not be wicked by a stratagem. Therefore he invented a delusion called honour,' concealing the epithet of 'false,' which ought to belong to the inscription upon all his manufact* *Nothing can, in my view, be more ridiculous than the controversy which may eventually rob the State of one or of two of her most valuable citizens. * * * And pray, for be assured it will be a good action, stop where it is, the progress of this 'affair of his majesty's honour.""

ures.

*

Mr. Randolph now, in deference to the desire of his wife, withdrew from public life, and devoted himself to agricultural pursuits at "Edge Hill," riding thither daily from "Monticello." He possessed a restless and vehement energy-but it was not sufficiently accompanied with that degree of perseverance which is the basis of important and continued success. He corresponded widely with leading agriculturists in the United States and England-in the latter with Sir John Sinclair, who was also a correspondent of Washington. The claims of his beloved State, invaded by the enemy in the war with Great Britain in 1812, met with instantaneous response in the ardent patriotism of Mr. Randolph. He was among the first to raise a command and rush to her defence. He gallantly participated in the engagements of the sea-board, and was soon promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and placed in command of the 1st Light Corps. On the 20th of March, 1813, he became the Colonel commandant of the 20th United States Infantry, and performed efficient service on the Canada line. December 1, 1819, by election of the Assembly, he succeeded James P. Preston as Governor of Virginia, and thus served by annual re-election until December 1,

1822. Returning to his farm he resumed his private pursuits, but becoming pecuniarily involved, he resigned his affairs to the charge of his eldest son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and applied for a commission from the Government to run the boundary line between Georgia and Florida. But the precarious condition of his health necessitated the relinquishment of the proposed employment and his return home. He died at "Monticello," June 20, 1828, aged sixty years. His characteristics are thus recited by Randall, in his Life of Jefferson (Vol. I, p. 558): "He was brilliant, versatile, eloquent in conversation, impetuous and imperious in temper, chivalric in generosity, a knight-errant in courage, in calm moments a just, and at all times a high toned man." His son, the late Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was wont to apply to him the lines of Scott, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, describing William of Deloraine:

"Alike to him were time and tide,
December's sleets or July's pride.
Alike to him were tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime."

The range of scientific attainment of Governor Randolph has been alluded to. His only surviving child, Mrs. Meikleham, of Washington, D. C., has kindly communicated the following in relation thereto : "The Abbe Corria, who was sent by the Portuguese government to study the flora of America, who was called in Paris the learned Portuguese,' and who was ranked by De Candolle with, if not above Cuvier · and Humboldt, spent the summers and autumns during his visit, at Monticello.' He and my father spent hours every day wandering, in company with each other, through the woods and fields, and he was thus fully able to pronounce judgment upon the proficiency of one branch at least of the scientific attainments of my father, whom he affirmed to be the best botanist with whom he had met in America."

Of the issue of Governor Randolph his son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who married Jane, the daughter of Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas, served frequently in the Virginia Assembly, and edited the papers of his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, published in four volumes, 8vo, in 1828. Another son, George Wythe Randolph, a lawyer of distinction-a conspicuous member of the Virginia Convention of 1860-1, which passed the ordinance of secession-entered the Confederate service as Major of the Howitzer Battalion, of Richmond, and for gallantry at the battle of Bethel was made a brigadier-general. He was Secretary of War of the Confederate States from March 17 to November 17, 1862. Resuming the practice of law, he in December, 1863, went to France as the agent of the Confederate Treasury Department, and returned home in September, 1865, with shattered health. He died at Richmond,

Virginia, April 4, 1867, in the forty-ninth year of his age. Of the daughters of Governor Randolph, Anne Cary, married Charles Bankhead; Eleanora, married Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, Mass.; Virginia, married Nicholas P. Trist; and Septimia, married David Meikleham. Congress has recently granted Mrs. Meikleham a pension. A daughter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Miss Sarah Nicholas Randolph, is favorably known as the authoress of Home Reminiscences of Thomas Jefferson, and other works of merit. She has been associated for some years with her sisters in the conduction of an admirable female school at "Edge Hill." Among his daughters, Margaret, married William Randolph ; Martha Jefferson, married J. C. R. Taylor; Cary Anne, married Colonel Frank G. Ruffin, a vigorous writer, and favorably known in the agricultural and political annals of Virginia; Maria Jefferson, married Charles R. Mason; Jane H., married Major R. G. H. Kean, a prominent member of the Lynchburg bar; Ellen W., married William B. Harrison. Of his two sons, Dr. Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph, a successful physician, married Miss Holladay, and Lewis Meriwether Randolph, Major Confederate States Army, married Miss Daniel. The last died a few years since.

JAMES PLEASANTS.

The founder of the excellent Pleasants family of Virginia, John Pleasants, was a member of the pacific, prudent and upright Society of Friends, and many of his descendants have consistently held the same tenets to the present day. He was a native of Norwich, England, from whence, in 1665, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he emigrated to the colony of Virginia, settling in Henrico County, on James River, in 1668. During the period 1679-1690 he received grants of nearly five thousand acres of land. He married Jane, widow of Samuel Tucker, and died at his seat, "Curles," May 12, 1698. He had issue: i. John, who married Dorothea Cary, was a patentee of nearly ten thousand acres of land, and February 17, 1752, was appointed one of the trustees of the town of Richmond, Virginia; ii. Elizabeth, married James Cocke, and their numerous descendants number the names of Harrison, Poythress, and many others equally estimable; iii. Joseph, patented nearly two thousand acres of land, married Martha Cocke.

Of the issue of four sons and three daughters of Joseph and Martha (Cocke) Pleasants, the second son, John, of “Pickanockie," married Susanna, the sixth child of Tarleton* and Ursula (Fleming†) Woodson, *His mother was Judith, daughter of Stephen Tarleton, who is said to have been of the family of Colonel Banastre Tarleton, the famous British partisan ranger of the Revolution.

The daughter of Charles Fleming, of New Kent County, Virginia, who was said to be descended from Sir Tarleton Fleming, second son of the Earl of Wigton, who married in England, Miss Tarleton; emigrated to Virginia in 1616, landing at Jamestown, but settling afterwards in New Kent County, where he died. He