Wyndham Robertson
Wyndham Robertson | |
---|---|
David Campbell as Governor | |
Virginia House of Delegates | |
In office 1838–1841 | |
Preceded by | Robert Stanard |
Succeeded by | Raleigh T. Daniel |
Constituency | Richmond, Virginia |
Virginia House of Delegates | |
In office 1859–1865 Serving with Gustavus A. Myers, David J. Saunders (1859-1860) John O. Stegar, Thomas H. Wynne, Thomas B. Bigger (1861-1863) David I. Burr, David J. Saunders (1863-1865) | |
Preceded by | Joseph R. Anderson |
Succeeded by | Peachy R. Grattan |
Constituency | Richmond, Virginia |
Personal details | |
Born | near Manchester, Chesterfield County, Virginia, US | January 26, 1803
Died | February 11, 1888 Abingdon, Virginia, US | (aged 85)
Political party | Whig |
Spouse | Mary Trigg Smith |
Children | 4 daughters, 2 sons |
Residence(s) | Richmond, Virginia, US Abingdon, Virginia, US |
Occupation | lawyer, farmer, businessman |
Signature | |
Wyndham Robertson (January 26, 1803 – February 11, 1888) was the Acting Governor of the U.S. state of Virginia from 1836 to 1837. He also twice served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, the second series representing Richmond during the American Civil War.[1]
A Whig, Robertson advocated for the United States during the secession crisis that precipitated the Civil War. However, after Lincoln's call for troops, he joined in Virginia's secession. After the war, he was a member of the Committee of Nine that helped usher Virginia back into the Union without imposing disabilities upon former Confederates. Near the end of his life, Robertson published a book about Pocahontas and her descendants, including himself.
Early life and family
He was born in 1803 near
In 1831, Robertson married Mary Trigg Smith, daughter of Captain Francis Smith (d.1843) of Washington County, Virginia, who served the Continental Army and in the Virginia Senate during the War of 1812. They had at least four daughters—Mary Robertson (1834-1866), Elizabeth Robinson (1837- ), Kate Robertson White (1845-1922), Pocahontas (1847-1923), and two sons—Francis Smith Robertson (1841-1926), and Wyndham Robertson Jr. (1851-1923).[6]
Career
Admitted to the Virginia bar in 1824, Robertson made a short trip to Paris and London three years later. In 1830 legislators elected him to Virginia's Council of State, where his late father had sat.
On March 31, 1836, Robertson became the Council of State's senior member, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. When Governor
In 1841, Robertson moved to his wife's home, "Mary's Meadows", just south of Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, and farmed.[5][12] He was made a Justice of the Peace for Washington County on July 25, 1842,[13] and a trustee of Abingdon Academy in 1843, shortly before his father-in-law's death.[14] In 1849, Robertson chaired a meeting to elect delegates to extend the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to town.[15] In 1850, Robertson leased the King Saltworks for five years. Thomas L. Preston had leased them the previous years and would again lease them in 1858. Salt production in those days used enslaved labor to keep fires burning to evaporate brine, and the salines which came to be run by Stuart, Palmer, and Parker by 1863 helped supply much of the salt required by the Southern States.[16]
Enslaver, Unionist, and legislator in the American Civil War
In 1858, Robertson returned to Richmond.[5] He had owned 11 enslaved persons in the 1840 U.S. Federal Census,[17] and at least 28 enslaved persons in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census.[18] His father-in-law Capt. Francis Smith had enslaved 107 people in the 1840 census, of whom 20 were engaged in farming.[19] In the 1860 census, Robertson owned seven enslaved persons in Richmond and at least 75 enslaved persons in Washington County, Virginia.[20]
In 1859, Richmond voters again elected Robertson to the Virginia House of Delegates as one of their three delegates in the 1859-1861 session based on the representational changes after adopting the Virginia Constitution of 1850 and population shifts documented in the census.[21] As Virginia struggled with the idea of seceding from the United States, Robertson was a staunch Unionist and tried to prevent its secession.[4][22] He later characterized himself as a "friend to peace and the Union" and noted that he had actively opposed South Carolina's call for a Southern Convention in 1859.[9] At the Henry Clay banquet in April 1860, at which former President John Tyler was present, Robertson gave "The Union" toast, followed by a short speech:
The Constitutional Union of the States" - The Union of the States is the harmony of the spheres. While obedient to the laws of their creation, they sing ever as they go 'glad tidings of great joy' to all the world. Rebelling against them, light and joy are swallowed up in darkness, and order falls back into primordial chaos.[23]
After South Carolina and several other states started seceding in the winter of 1860-61, Robertson still advocated against Virginia following suit.[4][9] On January 7, 1861, he presented the "Anti-Coercion Resolution", which rejected secession, but stated that if the Federal government used coercion toward the seceded states, Virginia would fight, which was duly adopted.[4][24] When President Abraham Lincoln made his call for troops on April 15, 1861, Robertson believed the Anti-Coercion scenario met and was "from that time forth zealously active in all measures for the defence of his State."[5] Virginia seceded after voters approved a referendum the following month.
And now, after twenty years' experience of yet unripened results, I have no regrets, nor repent a single act of my State, or myself, in these unhappy affairs - welcoming the end of slavery, but still believing it would have been reached without the horrors of war. |
-- Wyndham Robertson[25] |
Robertson continued as the leading vote-getter within Richmond's delegation to the House of Delegates for two additional terms; his legislative service ended as the Confederacy fell in 1865.[26] In 1863, Robertson opposed and helped to defeat a bill to fix food prices, which he believed "fraught with the direst mischief", despite food riots in Richmond.[25] When Richmond citizens presented a resolution asking their representatives to support a similar bill or resign, Robertson refused. When he found that his colleagues had already acquiesced, he resigned so as not to misrepresent his constituents. The House, however, requested that his resignation be withdrawn until the wishes of his constituents could be determined. A formal poll was held, and it was determined that a majority did not support the bill, so Robertson retained his seat.[25][27]
Postwar
After the war, Robertson moved back to Abingdon. During
After the American Civil War, some Northern writers began questioning the validity of the rescue story of Captain
Death and legacy
Wyndham Robertson died on February 11, 1888, and was buried near his parents at Cobbs Cemetery, Enon, Chesterfield County.
The Library of Virginia has his papers as governor and other correspondence, including of the Buena Vista Plaster Company run by his sons after his death. The special collections of the University of Chicago Library also have many boxes of family correspondence, including with Confederate generals during the Civil War and with various historians, as well as concerning the Loyal Company (of which his father-in-law was a shareholder).[3] Governor Robertson was an early donor to Emory and Henry College, which endowed the Robertson prize medal for "encouraging oratory".[32]
Notes
- ^ Lewis Preston Summers, History of Southwest Virginia (Richmond 1903), p. 766
- ^ Robertson, Pocahontas and Her Descendants, 40-41
- ^ a b "Guide to the Wyndham Robertson Papers 1768-1925". Archived from the original on September 8, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e Smith, 344-345
- ^ a b c d e Summers, p. 766
- ^ 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Richmond Ward 2, family 1388
- ^ Robertson, Pocahontas and her Descendants, 81
- ^ Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (Richmond, VA, 1915) (no page numbers in excerpt at ancestry.com)
- ^ a b c Robertson, Pocahontas and her Descendants, 82
- ^ Leonard, The General Assembly of Virginia, p. 386.
- ^ Leonard, pp. 390, 394, 398.
- ^ Year of moving is in Robertson, Pocahontas and her Descendants, 82
- ^ Summers, p. 828
- ^ Summers, p. 828, 883
- ^ Summers, pp. 495, 504
- ^ Summers, p. 586
- ^ U.S. Federal Census for Richmond Ward 3
- ^ 1850 U.S. Federal Census for Washington County, Virginia district 67
- ^ 1840 U.S. Federal Census for Washington County, Virginia
- ^ 1860 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule for Richmond Ward 2; 1860 U.S. Federal Census slave schedules for Washington County, Virginia. In all these instances, the corresponding state slave schedules are unavailable for online review.
- ^ Leonard, p. 471.
- ^ Robertson pardon application filed at Lynchburg, Virginia available on ancestry.com
- ^ Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, 464
- ^ Robertson, Pocahontas and her Descendants, 82-83
- ^ a b c Robertson, Pocahontas and her Descendants, 83
- ^ Leonard, The General Assembly of Virginia, 480, 485.
- ^ His elder son does not appear to have served in the Confederate military (perhaps exempted due to the 20-slave rule) and his brother was too young, although a private from Nottoway County named "Wyndham Robertson" did enlist and died in 1863, according to ancestry.com military records
- ^ Brenaman, 78
- ^ Summers, p. 554
- ^ a b Birchfield, Stan. "Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith?". Archived from the original on May 20, 2009. Retrieved September 9, 2006.
- ^ a b Fishwick, Marshall. "Was John Smith a Liar?". AmericanHeritage.com. Archived from the original on June 24, 2006. Retrieved September 9, 2006.
- ^ Summers, p. 578
References
- Brenaman, Jacob Neff (1902). A History of Virginia Conventions. Richmond, Virginia: J.L. Hill Printing Company.
- Leonard, Cynthia Miller, comp. (1978). The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619 - January 11, 1978. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia State Library.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Robertson, Wyndham (1986). Pocahontas, alias Matoaka, and Her Descendants through Her Marriage with John Rolfe. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.
- Smith, Margaret Vowell (1893). Virginia 1492-1892:A History of the Executives. Washington, D.C.: W.H. Lowdermilk & Co.
- Summers, Lewis Preston (1971). History of Southwest Virginia 1746-1786, Washington County 1777-1870. Baltimore, Maryland: Regional Publishing Company.
- Tyler, Lyon Gardiner (1884). The Letters and Times of the Tylers. Richmond, Virginia: Whittet & Shepperson.
External links
- Pocahontas and Her Descendants, Wyndham Robertson, Richmond, 1887
- A Guide to the Executive Papers of Governor Wyndham Robertson, 1836–1837 at The Library of Virginia
- Guide to the Wyndham Robertson Papers 1768-1925 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center