Descendants of John Randoll, 1470

229. Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee [12902] was born on 19 Jan 1756 in Stratford, Virginia, died on 25 Mar 1818 in Cumberland Island, Georgia at age 62, and was buried in Greene's Private Cemetery, Dungeness, Cumberland Island, Georgia.

General Notes: Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, born at Leesylvania near Dunfries, Virginia, was blonde, blue-eyed, and full of spirit. He graduated from Princeton in 1773 and returned home to prepared for war. His skill as a horseman, as well as his temperament, made him a natural cavalryman. He soon was commissioned as Captain in the fifth group of Virginia Light Dragoons and sent north to join the Continental Army.

Leading his men on lightning raids against enemy supply trains, Harry attracted the attention and admiration of General Washington and was rapidly promoted. In a surprise attack at Paulus Hook, New Jersey, he captured 400 British soldiers with the loss of only one man. His adroit horsemanship soon earned him the nickname "Light Horse Harry". When the military theatre shifted, he enjoyed equal success in the Southern Campaign.

Resigning his commission after the British surrender at Yorktown, Harry returned to Virginia to marry his cousin, the "divine Matilda" Lee. The wedding took place at Stratford and it is said that General Washington contributed several pipes of his best Madeira to the festive occasion. Matilda had inherited Stratford in the division of her father's estate and lived there with her new husband. The dashing young cavalryman, however, was no farmer. His interests in the livelier arena of politics led to Harry's election to the new Virginia House of Delegates. After only eight years of marriage, Matilda died in 1790, leaving three young children and a grief stricken husband.

Two years later, Harry was elected Governor of Virginia, serving three one-year terms. While living in Richmond, he fell in love with Ann Hill Carter of nearby Shirley Plantation. In 1793 they were married. His governorship behind him, he took his bride to Stratford.

Again, family life was interrupted by his appointment to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Upon the death of President George Washington, Harry was asked by Congress to deliver a tribute to his beloved general, describing him for posterity:

"First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen . . . second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life."

After the death of his idol, Harry's fortunes began to decline rapidly. The support of a family of six coupled with disastrous land speculation, reduced him to financial poverty, then, on January 19, 1807, in the large upstairs room at Stratford where so many Lees had come into the world, Ann gave birth to their fifth son, Robert Edward, named after two of his mother's favorite brothers. As Robert was learning to walk, his father was carried off to a debtor's prison in Montross.

With characteristic courage in a 12 by 15 foot prison cell, Harry wrote his "Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States", still the standard text on that portion of the Revolutionary War. When the book was finished in 1810, the family moved to Alexandria where a new life on a modest scale was made possible by a legacy from Ann's father. Harry's eldest son, Henry, became master of Stratford.

Light Horse Harry's last years were marred by sorrow and pain. Internal injuries received when he was beaten by a mob as he defended a friend and freedom of the press in Baltimore, kept him in constant physical pain. He sought relief in the warm climate of the West Indies. When his health continued to decline, Harry attempted to return home but died on Cumberland Island, Georgia, in the home of the daughter of his former commander, Nathaniel Greene.
------------

By the Spring of 1790, American politicians such as George Washington and John Adams had cause to worry about the survival of the Union to which they had devoted their careers. Southerners remained angry over their inability to establish the capital on the Potomac and the northern demand that the federal government assume all state debts. Northerners expressed their frustrations openly, especially after the House rejected assumption on April 12. Prominent men in both sections began to question the viability of the Union. Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee wrote Madison that he would "rather myself submit to all the hazards of war and risk the loss of everything dear to me in life, than to live under the rule of a fixed insolent northern majority."

LETTER TO REP JAMES MADISON OF VIRGINIA FROM HENRY LEE, April 3, 1790.

Dear Sir

I am induced to address you on a subject which violates the rule I had lately prescribed to myself with respect to our public affairs.

A youth the son of Mr. Thomas L. Lee to whom I believe you was intimately known met me this morning on the road.

Bred to the mercantile line in one of the most respectable houses in our country and cut off from his expectations there, by the death of his principal Mr. Ritchie who was killed the other day in a duel, he is anxious to obtain a place in some of the departments of the general government. He is very humble in his wishes & is most solicitous to produce a birth under a character from whose example he will derive instruction & on whose patronage he can rely. He mentioned Mr. Jefferson & said that his deceased father & Mr. J he understood had been very friendly from an early acquaintance. I promised to write Mr. J on the subject which I have accordingly done & will thank you if you remind him of the matter, provided you can do it consistently with your mode of conduct. If the government should continue to exist, which by the bye is more & more eventful, the introduction of the southern youth as clerks in the high departments of the nation seems to me to be as sure tho slow means of Aiding the southern influence. They become as it were from their official education owners of the ministerial functions if their conduct & talents correspond with their prospective stations.

I wish our southern gentlemen would in due time attend to this material truth - if they do not a monopoly will take place from the northern hives in this, as in everything else in their power.

On the score of propriety & repose I had determined to suppress my anxious attention to the prosperity of the national government, for I really know not what conduct I may feel myself bound to observe in consequence of the mad policy which seems to direct the doings of Congress.

Therefore for the sake of propriety I wish to be done with government. On the score of tranquility & peace I am also desirous to be quiet, for every day adds testimony of the growing ill will of the people here to the government. To risk repose when good can result from it & the object in view is clearly right, I hold to be the indefensible duty of every good citizen, nor will I ever disobey the sacred injunction, but to do it in reverse circumstances is pursuing the commands of temerity and folly. Henry already is considered as a prophet, his predictions are daily verifying. His declaration with respect to the division of interest which would exist under the constitution and predominate in all the doings of the government already has been undeniably proved.

But we are committed and we cannot be relieved I fear only by disunion. To disunite is dreadful to my mind, but dreadful as it is, I consider it a lesser evil than union on the present conditions.

I had rather myself submit to all the hazards of war and risk the loss of everything dear to me in life, than to live under the rule of a fixed insolent northern majority. At present this is the case, nor do I see any prospect of alteration or alleviation.

Change of the seat of government to the territorial center, direct taxation and the abolition of gambling systems of finance might and would effect a material change. But these suggestions are vain and idle. No policy will be adopted by Congress which does more or less tend to depress the south and exalt the north. I have heard it asserted that your vice president should say the southern people were formed by nature to subserve the convenience and interests of the north. Very soon will his assertion be thoroughly exemplified. How do you feel, what do you think, is your love for the constitution so ardent, as to induce you to adhere to it tho it should produce ruin to your native country. I hope not, I believe not. However I will be done for it is disagreeable to utter unpleasant opinions. Yours always-

H. Lee

1756 - Henry Lee is born in Leesylvania, Prince William County, Virginia
1773 - Henry Lee graduates from Princeton.
1776 - Henry Lee is commissioned a Captain in Bland's Regiment of Virginia Light Cavalry.
1777 - Joins General George Washington's main army.
1778 - January 20 - Lee skirmishes with Captain Banatre Tarleton at the Spread Eagle Tave near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
1779 - August 19 - Lee captures the fort at Paulus Hook (Jersey City), New Jersey.
1779 - October 21 - Lee's Legion is formed with three companies of infantry to his cavalry.
1779 - November 6 - Lee is promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
1781 - January 13 - Lee arrives in South Carolina.
1781 - January 24 - Lee joins Francis Marion (Swamp Fox) in actions at Georgetown, SC.
1781 - February 25 - Lee defeats Tory forces at Haw River, North Carolina.
1781 - March 15 - Lee is a part of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
1781 - April 15/23 - Lee and Francis Marion lay siege to Fort Watson, South Carolina
1781 - May 12 - Lee and Francis Marion secure the surrender of Fort Motte, South Carolina
1781 - May 15 - Lee secures the surrender of Fort Galphin, South Carolina
1781 - May 23/June 4 - Henry Lee supports the siege of Augusta, Georgia
1781 - June 8-19 - Henry Lee and Major General Nathaniel Greene lay siege to Post 96, South Carolina.
1781 - September 7 - Lee participates in the Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina
1781 - October - Henry Lee is present at General George Washington's siege at Yorktown.
1781 - December 1 - Henry Lee sees action at Dorchester, South Carolina
1782 - February - Henry Lee is granted a leave of absence. He marries Matilda Lee.
1785 - Henry Lee is elected to Congress. Serves until 1788.
1790 - Matilda dies.
1791 - Henry Lee is elected governor of Virginia
1793 - Henry Lee marries Ann Carter Hill at Shirley Plantation, Virginia
1794 - Henry Lee commands troops at the Whiskey Rebellion.
1799 - Lee is elected to Congress
1802 - September 2 - Henry Lee's son, Sydney Smith Lee is born at Camden, New Jersey.
1807 - Henry Lee's son Robert Edward Lee is born at Stratford Hall, Virginia
1812 - Lee is severely injured during a riot - spends time in a debtors prison - writes Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department 1813 - Henry Lee sails for the West Indies to recuperate
1818 - March 25 - Henry Lee dies on Cumberland Island, Georgia.

Henry married Matilda Lee [12904] [MRIN: 4293], daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee [12780] and Elizabeth Steptoe [12779], in 1782. Matilda was born in 1764 in Stratford, Virginia and died in 1790 at age 26.

381 F i. Lucy Grymes Lee [12921] was born in 1786 and died in 1860 at age 74.

+ 382 M ii. Henry (Black Horse Harry) Lee [12922] was born in 1787 in Startford Hall, Northumberland, Virginia and died on 30 Jan 1838 in Paris, Frances at age 51.

Henry next married Ann Hill Carter [12897] [MRIN: 4292] in 1793 in Stratford Hall, Westmoreland County, Virginia. Ann was born in Oct 1773 in Shirley Plantation, James River, Virginia, died on 29 Jul 1829 in Ravensworth Plantation, Fairfax County, Virginia at age 55, and was buried in Washington And Lee University Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia.

383 M i. Algernon Sydney Lee [12908] was born on 2 Apr 1795 in Stratford, Virginia, died on 9 Aug 1796 in Westmoreland County, Virginia at age 1, and was buried in Sulley, Virginia.

385 M iii. Charles Carter Lee [12909] was born on 8 Nov 1798 and died on 21 Mar 1871 at age 72.

386 F iv. Anne Kinloch Lee [12910] was born on 19 Jun 1800 and died on 20 Feb 1864 at age 63.

387 M v. Sydney Smith Lee [12911] was born on 2 Sep 1802 in Camden, New Jersey and died on 22 Jul 1869 at age 66.

+ 388 M vi. Robert Edward Lee [12905] was born on 19 Jan 1807 in Stratford Hall, Virginia, died on 12 Oct 1870 in Lexington, Virginia at age 63, and was buried in Washington And Lee University Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia.

389 F vii. Catherine Mildred Lee [12912] was born on 27 Feb 1811 in Stratford, Westmoreland County, Virginia and died in 1856 in Paris, France at age 45.

230. Charles Lee [12866] was born in 1758 in Alexandria County, Virginia, died on 24 Jun 1815 in Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia at age 57, and was buried in Turkey Run Church.

General Notes: General Charles Lee. Served as Attorney General from 1795 - 1801 under President John Adams. He defended Aaron Burr and the famous treason trial.

Charles married Anne Lee [12854] [MRIN: 4288], daughter of Richard Henry Lee [12805] and Anne Gaskins Pinkard [12817], in 1789. Anne was born on 1 Dec 1770 in Chantilly, Westmoreland County, Virginia and died on 9 Sep 1804 in Alexandria County, Virginia at age 33.

390 F i. Anne Lucinda Lee [12868] was born in 1790 and died in 1845 at age 55.

392 M iii. Richard Henry Lee [12870] was born in Feb 1793 and died in Mar 1793.

Charles next married Margaret Christian Scott [12867] [MRIN: 4287] in 1809. Margaret was born about 1795.

General Notes: Margaret had a previous marriage to Mr. Peyton. After Charles Lee passed away, she married John Glassell.

396 M i. Robert Eden Lee [12874] was born in 1810 and died in 1843 at age 33.

Edmund married Sarah Lee [12858] [MRIN: 4302], daughter of Richard Henry Lee [12805] and Anne Gaskins Pinkard [12817], in Feb 1789 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Sarah was born on 27 Dec 1775 in Chantilly, Westmoreland County, Virginia and died on 8 May 1837 in Alexandria County, Virginia at age 61.

399 M i. Edmund Jennings Lee [12941] was born in 1797 and died in 1877 at age 80.

402 M iv. William Fitzhugh Lee [12944] was born in 1804 in Alexandria County, Virginia and died on 19 May 1837 in Virginia at age 33.

Robert married Jane Tayloe [23497] [MRIN: 7934], daughter of John Tayloe [23528] and Rebecca Plater [23529]. Jane was born in Mar 1777 in Mt. Airy, Richmond County, Virginia and died on 10 May 1816 in Blandfield, Essex County, Virginia at age 39.

407 M i. William Bradshaw Beverley [23530] was born in 1791 in Blandfield, Essex County, Virginia, died on 11 Nov 1866 in Selma, Loudon County, Virginia at age 75, and was buried in Leesburg, Virginia.

+ 408 M ii. James Bradshaw Beverley [23531] was born in 1797 in Blandfield, Essex County, Virginia and died on 15 Jun 1853 in Selma, Loudon County, Virginia at age 56.

409 F iii. Maria Beverley [23533] was buried in Blandfield, Essex County, Virginia.

410 F iv. Rebecca Tayloe Beverley [23535] died on 28 Oct 1822 in Blandfield, Essex County, Virginia.

411 F v. Jane Bradshaw Beverley [23536] was born in 1805 and died on 22 Oct 1822 in Blandfield, Essex County, Virginia at age 17.

Roberta married William Bernard Lightfoot [23538] [MRIN: 7952], son of Phillip Lightfoot [23539] and Sally Sevigne Bernard [23540].

Virginia married Thomas W. Cash [23600] [MRIN: 7991]. Thomas was born in Williamson County, Tennessee.

265. Henry St. George Tucker [15962] was born on 29 Dec 1780 in Chesterfield County, Virginia, died on 28 Aug 1848 in Virginia at age 67, and was buried in Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia.

General Notes: Attorney. Served in the U.S. Congress beginning 1815 and served two terms.

Henry St. George Tucker was born in 1780 in Chesterfield County, Virginia and followed in the path of his father, St. George Tucker. He was a lawyer and dabbled in poetry. Tucker studied at the College of William and Mary where he graduated in 1801. He was admitted to the bar and began his legal practice in Winchester, Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia house and senate and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives where he served from 1815 to 1819. He was a superior court judge (1824-31), and was elected president of the Virginia Supreme Court in 1831. From 1841 to 1845 he was professor of law at the University of Virginia, before which he maintained a private law school. He was a soldier in the War of 1812 and author of both poetry and legal commentaries. His son, John Randolph Tucker (1823-1897), followed in his father's ways, as Henry St. George followed his father, St. George Tucker.

Tucker is buried at the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery in Lexington, Virginia.

414 M i. John Randolph Tucker [23598] was born on 24 Dec 1823 in Winchester, Virginia and died in 1897 at age 74.

General Notes: John Randolph was born at Winchester, Virginia, on December 24, 1823, the son of Henry St. George Tucker and the grandson of St. George Tucker. Like his father, he was a lawyer, professor, and politician. He served as attorney general of Virginia (1857-65), professor and dean at Washington and Lee University (1870-74, 1889-97), and U.S. Representative (1875-87). He practiced law from 1865 to 97 and argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Tucker is buried at Mt. Hebron Cemetery, Winchester, Virginia.

Ann married John Morrison [34266] [MRIN: 11613], son of Alexander Morrison [34256] and Anne Bland [34255]. John died in Mar 1790.

John married Ann Poythress Bland [34267] [MRIN: 11613], daughter of Richard Bland [13050] and Mary Bolling [13051].

Eliza married Maj. Thomas Turner [16379] [MRIN: 5451] in Oct 1798 in Charles City County, Virginia. Thomas was born in Apr 1772 and died in Jan 1839 at age 66.

416 M i. Edward Carter Turner [16391] was born on 5 Aug 1816 in Kinloch, The Plains, Fauquier County, Virginia, died about 1891 in Fauquier County, Virginia about age 75, and was buried in Kinloch, The Plains, Fauquier County, Virginia.

Edward married Mary Magill Randolph [16390] [MRIN: 5460], daughter of Robert Lee Randolph [16375] and Mary Buckner Thurston Magill [16388]. Mary was born in Nov 1833 in Eastern View, Fauquier County, Virginia.

Edward next married Sarah Jane Beverley [23543] [MRIN: 7955], daughter of James Bradshaw Beverley [23531] and Jane Johns Peters [23532], on 21 Oct 1840. Sarah was born on 22 Jun 1820 in Acrolophos, Georgetown, D.C. and died on 20 Feb 1865 in Kinloch, The Plains, Fauquier County, Virginia at age 44.

417 F i. Mary Magill Randolph [16390] was born in Nov 1833 in Eastern View, Fauquier County, Virginia.

Mary married Edward Carter Turner [16391] [MRIN: 5460], son of Maj. Thomas Turner [16379] and Eliza Carter Randolph [16371]. Edward was born on 5 Aug 1816 in Kinloch, The Plains, Fauquier County, Virginia, died about 1891 in Fauquier County, Virginia about age 75, and was buried in Kinloch, The Plains, Fauquier County, Virginia.

Judith married Richard Randolph [15965] [MRIN: 5786], son of John Randolph [15960] and Frances Bland [15959], on 20 Dec 1789 in Henrico (Goochland) County, VA. Richard was born on 9 May 1770 in Virginia and died in 1796 at age 26.

General Notes: Richard Randolph, the eldest brother of Randolph of Roanoke, married his first cousin Judith. Richard was 19 and his lady love only 15 at the time, and the marriage, which took place the following year, proved one of the most tragic happenings of Virginia society of their generation. If the wise mother of Judith had been less subservient to the opinion of her husband and had actively opposed the union about which she had such evident foreboding, much sorrow might have been avoided.

Richard's character was lovable but weak, as his letters from childhood show, and poor Judith was a most unhappy wife. Richard's death followed shortly after the trial in which he and Nancy Randolph, his wife's sister, were accused of infanticide. Of that crime their vindication was complete, but it was followed by gossip and slander which were certainly contributing causes of Richard's death.

Of his two sons, Tudor and St. George (one named for his stepfather's brother, Thomas Tudor Tucker, and the other for his stepfather himself). The one died of consumption in the south of England, the other lived long as a deaf-mute and a madman, and the fact that with them, the line of John Randolph of Matoax and Bizarre ended, was probably the cause of much of the sorrow and bitterness which clouded the life of the last survivor of the family of John Randolph of Roanoke.

(see Ann Cary Randolph for the story of "Bizarre Plantation")

303. Anne Cary Randolph [17207] was born on 15 Sep 1774 in Tuckahoe Plantation, Goochland County, Virginia and died on 28 May 1837 in New York at age 62.

General Notes: The family resided at the Tuckahoe Plantation when Ann Cary was born. Her records show a birth in the St. James Northan Parish, Goochland County, Virginia.

Alan Pell Crawford -

The plantation called Bizarre was consumed by a fire that seems all to conveniently symbolic of the fate of a class that lived off the labor of African slaves. Sometimes all that remains, on some field that once produced the finest tobacco in the New World, are barns where the slaves hung the leaf to dry and the quarters where they slept.

One family that rose and fell with the antebellum tobacco economy, that built Bizarre and watched it burn, was the once-mighty Randolphs. One of the most important families in America at the time of its founding, the Randolphs were to Virginia what the Adams were to Massachusetts and the Roosevelts would be to New York - rich, socially prominent and politically fearsome.

The Randolphs amassed great wealth from tobacco, owned hundreds of slaves, built imposing mansions and produced generations of statesmen, generals and jurists. These include not only Edmund Randolph and Peyton Randolph but Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall and Robert E. Lee, whose mothers were all Randolphs. They also produced in 1774, Anne Cary "Nancy" Randolph, a high spirited girl whose story I've been researching for several years.

Nancy's story is the story of a family and its fall in the midst of wrenching social upheaval. That anything at all remains of the places where she grew up, suffered and endured is remarkable. The resourceful investigator who is determined to discover something of that vanished world - in little known places like Bizarre, and better known ones like Tuckahoe and Monticello - will not be disappointed.

Just about nobody knows precisely where Bizarre stood, nobody knows precisely what was going on there in the early 1790's when all the gossip started. That's when Nancy Randolph (Anne Cary), not yet 20, moved to the plantation to live with her big sister, Judith, and her sister's husband, Richard Randolph, who was the sister's cousin.

Nobody knows why Bizarre was called what it was, a mystery that has endured for centuries. The Randolphs never said. When the architect Benjamin Latrobe visited the plantation in June 1796, he noted in his journal that it was a "French name but not quite applicable to Mr. Richard Randolph's house at present for there was nothing bizarre about it that I can see." In French "bizarre" originally meant valorous and only later took on the more sinister connotation of the odd or fantastic that it has in English. Others through the years have speculated that the plantation was named for a wildflower that grows in the area, though even Virginia horticulture buffs seem never to have heard of such a plant.

In any case, the place will be remembered for Nancy Randolph alone, who seems an exotic enough specimen in her own right. Nancy was by every indication a fetching girl with a "little upturned nose", a gift for self-dramatization, remarkably little in the way of discretion, and oodles of sex appeal. Richard was a good-looking if somewhat directionless young man in his early twenties who had studied at Princeton and partied with the most sophisticated circles of Philadelphia society before coming home to Virginia to marry.

By the 1790's, when Nancy moved to Bizarre, the tobacco economy was collapsing and the way of life of the great Virginia slaveholding families had begun to disintegrate beneath their feet. Anti-slavery sentiment was building and the confidence of an entire class was crumbling. Many of the young men and women Nancy grew up with would never recover from the blow.

Almost as soon as Nancy arrived at Bizarre, visitors began to say that she and Richard were "too fond" of one another, considering that he was married to her sister and was their cousin besides. By the summer of 1792, Nancy began to gain weight without explanation, making people even more suspicious of her relationship with Richard. It was in the fall, when Richard and Nancy visited their cousins at Glentivar Plantation, that all hell broke loose.

The house at Glentivar, about 30 miles northeast of Farmville, near what is now Cartersville, was unfinished when the Randolphs came to call, with a pile of shingles in the yard. The original house is no longer standing. It was dismantled during the Randolphs' lifetime, but don't tell that to the old folks who rattle around in the brick house that replaced it on the property.

"A terrible crime happened here," one of them told me not long back. "There was a baby murdered in this house. We wish everybody would just forget about it."

That's unlikely, considering what happened - or was said to have happened.

On the last night of September, when everybody at Glentivar had gone to bed, Nancy's screams woke the household, but Richard blocked entry to her room. After the screaming stopped, someone - everybody assumed it was Richard - hustled downstairs, left the house and, moments later, returned.

The next morning, there were bloodstains on the staircase and the bedclothes. After the Randolphs left, Glentivar field hands told their master that they had discovered something in the shingle pile: a corpse of a white baby.

Storied Plantations - Virginia is like that. Around almost every bend of those country roads, just past the taxidermy shop and the abandoned filling station, there looms upon the hill a large and handsome plantation house with secrets it does not give up without a struggle. Tuckahoe, where Nancy was born, is one such house. Off River Road about 10 miles west of Richmond, Tuckahoe was built around 1710. Thomas Jefferson, a boyhood friend of Nancy's father, grew up there. "Built solely to answer the purposes of hospitality," in the words of one English visitor, Tuckahoe was a showplace when Nancy lived there and remains one today.

The grounds are always open to visitors, and the house, with its beautiful walnut paneling, can be toured if you call first and make an appointment. The character of the house and surrounding grounds is so well preserved that film crews regularly take over the property. Tuckahoe is also - those who have stayed there insist - conspicuously haunted. Shady ladies glide around its corridors, then disappear. A rocking chair is know to rock on its own, and invisible partygoers make merry in the middle of the night. An"unhappy bride" moves mournfully down the lane by the old stable.

It was not a happy place, certainly, when Nancy moved out from Tuckahoe and went to Bizarre. Her mother had died and her father had quickly married a rich family friend's very young daughter, despite the girl's objections. Nancy and her new stepmother quarreled from the start, and Nancy was kicked out. She went to live at Bizarre with her sister and brother-in-law. Things did not go more smoothly at Bizarre. After the ghastly night at Glentivar, slaves began to spread the story of their grisly discovery, and - fed up with the Randolphs' high handed ways - people of less exalted station put up a fuss. As a result, in the spring of 1793, Nancy and Richard were ordered to appear at Cumberland Court House, located midway between Farmville and Cartersville, and accused of "felonious murdering" their illegitimate child.

While Richard was locked up in the Cumberland jail, Nancy was released into the custody of the Randolph lawyers, two other well-known names from the period: a robust young John Marshall and a frail Patrick Henry. When court met on April 29, 1793, witnesses included Thomas Jefferson's daughter Patsy, who had married Nancy's brother Tom. Patsy said that, before the trip to Glentivar she had procured for Nancy a medicine called gum guaiacum, known to produce an abortion. Others testified that they had seen the defendants kiss. Some said they believed Nancy had been pregnant.

Because Virginia law prohibited slaves from testifying, there was no testimony from anyone who claimed to have seen the baby's corpse. Charges were dropped.

That was hardly the end of the story. The Randolphs returned to Bizarre. There, three years later, at 26, Richard suddenly died, under circumstances that remain mysterious. Nancy and her sister, the now widowed Judith, continued to live together, and as Judith stewed over evidence presented in court that Nancy and Richard may have been lovers, if not outright murderers - their relationship deteriorated. Before long, Judith - who by now called Nancy "the blaster of my happiness" - was treating her like one of the servants.

One of the few times Nancy left Bizarre was in the summer of 1800 when she was allowed to visit her Jefferson cousins at Monticello, near Charlottesville. Monticello is well worth a visit, but when Nancy was there, it did not look like it does today any more than Williamsburg - where she used to stay at the St. George Tucker House - looked like it does today.

By the time of American independence, Williamsburg was already in decline. When Nancy went to Monticello, she found the house in a "terrible state of dilapidation." Jefferson as usual was at work on the place, which resembled a construction site. Shortly after his death in 1826, the family labored under debts he left them and had to strip the place and sell its furnishings.

Money was also tight at Bizarre, especially after John Randolph - brother to Richard, cousin of Nancy, another storied member of the clan who is know as Randolph of Roanoke - began his notorious political career. After debating Patrick Henry at Charlotte Court House, he was elected to Congress, where he established a reputation as the wittiest orator in the Capitol. A historical marker describes the famous debate.

Convinced Nancy had poisoned his beloved brother Richard, John also commenced a lifelong campaign against her. Shortly after his return from Washington in 1805, he told her she was no longer welcome at Bizarre. She had better leave quickly, he said, because she had been taking "as many liberties" at Bizarre as she would "in a tavern".

At 31, unmarried, penniless and reduced "to a condition of total despair," Nancy headed back home to Tuckahoe. The mansion was by now abandoned, so that Nancy used aspen boughs to make a pallet and tried to sleep. For the next several months, she shifted from plantation to plantation, before moving to Richmond. There she took a room in the house of a couple who ran a disreputable riverfront amusement park near the site of the old Tredegar Iron Works, which manufactured cannons for the Confederate army. During her time in Richmond, Randolph of Roanoke would claim she supported herself by prostitution.

About the time Nancy left Richmond and headed for New York, John Randolph quarreled with Judith and moved to Roanoke Plantation. There, in a cluster of cabins that still stand today, he existed between congressional sessions in a condition of "savage solitude". He made this his home until his death in 1833. For much of the time he spent there, he read Byron, took opium and pursued his vendetta against Nancy.

One day, Nancy was visited at her Greenwich boardinghouse in New York by the rich Gouverneur Morris, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and an old friend of her fathers. Morris asked her to come to his Harlem River Estate, called Morrisania, as his housekeeper. With no better prospects, Nancy took the job. On December 25, 1809, Morris shocked family members he had invited to Christmas dinner by having a clergyman present and marrying her on the spot.

Anne married Gouverneur Morris [17213] [MRIN: 5785] on 25 Dec 1809 in Morrisania, New York. Gouverneur was born on 31 Jan 1752 in Morrisania, New York, died on 6 Nov 1816 in Morrisania, New York at age 64, and was buried in St. Annes's Episcopal Church Cemetery, The Bronx, New York.

General Notes: Excerpts from an article by Richard Brookhiser -

Gouverneur Morris, author of the Constitution and the most famous forgotten man in New York, is buried on a remnant of the 1,900 acre estate his family once owned in what is now the South Bronx. When the Number Six train stops at Brook Avenue and 138th Street, it leaves you on a poor but bustling main drag, dotted with fast food restaurants and cheap clothing and furniture outlets. If you walk a block east and three blocks north you come to St. Anne's, an old Episcopal Church built by Gouverneur Morris II in 1841 in honor of his mother. In the yard behind a fence stands a tablet erected by the state of New York in honor of Gouverneur Morris, listing his dates (1752 - 1816) and his accomplishments: his hand in two constitutions (New York and the United States), George Washington's minister to France, projector of the Erie Canal. Before I visited, I had called the rector to tell her that I was a biographer, and she kindly showed me the stained glass, the list on the sanctuary wall of seventeenth and eighteenth century Morrises, and Gouverneur's mausoleum, whose half sunken entrance is sheltered by a huge elm, the shape of an umbrella. There is nothing else to see.

The congregation, like the neighborhood, is almost entirely Hispanic, and I cannot imagine that they give much thought to the father of their church's founder. In this they are not alone. Only the most comprehensive guides to the city mention Morris's grave. Morris himself has been the subject of only nine books (two of them in French). Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence probably gets nine books written about him every five years. Amazingly, there are now three biographies of Morris in the works.

One barrier to Morris' fame has been his first name, how to pronounce it. Another has been the curse of New York. If the author of the Constitution had been born in Boston or Virginia, his grave would have walking tours and heritage trails. There would be a statue and great pronouncements by the founding fathers. Yet, there is a deeper reason for Morris' obscurity; he does not fit the template of what we think of as a founding father. Morris was a funny man. The Founders mostly were not and we would not wish them to have been otherwise for they had serious work to do. Franklin could be funny when he chose to be, John Adams was funny when he couldn't help it which was usually when he was enumerating the vices of some enemy. But Washington leading his troops, Jefferson and Madison contemplating their theories, and Hamilton balancing the books were all earnest men, not to be distracted from their duties.

A good joke always distracted Morris. The one story about him that everyone knows is about a humorous bet. Alexander Hamilton offered to buy Morris dinner if he could go up to Washington, president of the Convention, hero of the Revolution, and father of his country, slap him on the shoulder and say, "My dear General, I am glad to see you looking so well." Morris executed the shoulder slap and won the dinner. Afterwards he said the look Washington gave him had been one of the worst moments of his life. The story is probably not true. But it tells us something about what others thought of Morris' character, his contemporaries expected a light heart from him.

Another way in which Morris stands out from his peers is not evident to us, though it was to him and that is his background - all those forefathers listed on the wall of St. Anne's. Most of the Founders were men of wealth or at least middling means. Several of them had been involved in colonial politics before the imperial system began showing its pre-revolutionary strains in the mid-1760's. Morris belonged to the governing elite of three colonies. Gouverneur's grandfather, Lewis Morris, was the leader of one of the two factions that divided the New York colonial assembly between then, broadly speaking, the lineup pitted merchants and Anglican vs landowners and other Protestants. In this role, Grandfather Morris tormented colonial governors of New York so successfully that London had to buy off by making him governor of New Jersey. Gouverneur's uncle, Robert Hunter Morris became governor of Pennsylvania. When he took the job he asked a leading politician, Benjamin Franklin how he would get along with the colonies' legislators. Franklin told him he would get along well, so long as he did not quarrel with them. "You know I love disputing," the new governor answered. "It is one of my great pleasures." For Gouverneur Morris, power lacked the charm of unfamiliarity. It was something he could always take or leave because his family had taken so much of it.

A third distinguishing characteristic of Gouverneur Morris can only be called affliction. Morris was handsome, intelligent, rich and successful. He also lived through more than his share of troubles, two of them especially painful and disfiguring. When he was home from school at age 14, he upset a kettle of boiling water on his right side, burning his arm so badly that the doctor who attended him feared gangrene. The arm was saved but one man who saw it, or heard of it, described the limb as fleshless.

As if to emphasis some point about the frailty of flesh, fate next deprived Morris of a leg. When he was 28 years old, he was mounting a carriage in haste and when the horses started up, his left foot was caught in the spokes of the wheel and the ankle was mangled. The doctors who attended him - his own was out of town - removed the leg below the knee. When his own doctor returned, he opined that the leg could have been saved.

Morris never complained except when he occasionally slipped on muddy cobblestones. But every day when he looked at himself he saw what he lacked. The founders who fought in the Revolution saw death and destruction but that is what soldiers expect. Franklin and Hamilton rose from poverty, and Hamilton from shame, but they could imagine that they had put it all behind them.. Morris bore the inescapable mark of two heavy blows. Perhaps as a result he believed even less than his realistic colleagues that all problems could be fixed by human ingenuity.

He was certainly unusually sympathetic to fellow sufferers. In the stress of the American Revolution, one of Morris' friends, by no means a die hard Tory but unwilling to become an active rebel, felt obliged to move to England. "I would to God," Morris wrote, "that every tear could be wiped from every eye. But as long as there are men, so long it will and must happen that they will minister to the miseries of each other . . . it is your misfortune to be one out of the many who have suffered. In your philosophy, in yourself, in the consciousness of acting as you think right, you are to seek consolation." To his aged mother, at a time when public business kept them apart, he offered a measure of grave hope. "There is enough of sorrow in this world, without looking into the futurity for it. Hope is best. If it happens, well; if not, it well then be time enough to be afflicted and at any rate the intermediate space well filled."

When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, Morris had been living in Philadelphia, first as a congressman and assistant superintendent of finance, then as a lawyer and businessman, for nine years; he was chosen to serve as a delegate from Pennsylvania rather than his native New York. He had not sought the appointment which took him by surprise, but he threw himself into the Convention's work, giving more speeches than any other delegate, even though he missed a month of meetings, and serving on the Committee of Style, which gave him the job of putting all the resolutions into words. Unlike Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Morris mostly worked up pre-existing material, though he did it well. "The finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris," said James Madison. "A better choice could not have been made." The preamble, however, was altogether Morris' own. The draft supplied by the Committee of Detail simply began: "We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts . . ." and so on, through Georgia. Morris transformed this into a little essay on the ends of government, whose authority he derived from "the people of the United States," as citizens of the whole, not of its parts.

His first experience of constitution writing had come in 1777 when he was a member of the New York Provincial Congress that had the task of writing the state's first post-independence constitution in Kingston, New York.

At 25, Morris was one of the youngest members but he and his good friends John Jay and Robert Livingston took leading roles in the deliberations.

At neither the state nor the national convention, nor at any time in his career was Morris a democrat. His first political letter, written when he was 22, described a turbulent New York City meeting in 1774 to discuss British inequities. Young Morris observing the scene from a balcony, wrote this haughty description. "The mob being to think and reason. Poor reptiles! It is with them a vernal morning, they are struggling to cast off their winter's slough, they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they will bite." He never changed these views. In Kingston in 1777 he moved to raise the property qualifications for voting in Assembly elections to about $780. In Philadelphia in 1787 he argued that the few and the many were inevitable rivals, and that each be given a house of the legislature to dominate, to prevent their contentions from rending the state.

In Philadelphia, Morris gave his anti-reptilian politics an additional twist, arguing that enfranchising the poor would empower the rich.. "Give the votes to people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich who will be able to buy them." Anyone who would dismiss this argument out of hand should be required to explain what the endless battles over campaign finance reforms are about, if not the fear that rich contributors will buy lawmakers.

Even though the Morris family had owned slaves for generations, Morris unsuccessfully moved that the New York constitution condemn slavery and he gave a blazing anti-slavery speech at the Constitutional Convention, attacking his home state among others.

Morris defended freedom of religion opposing friend John Jay when Jay said, "he would erect a wall of brass against Catholicism in New York". It was not out of sympathy that he took this position, rather he believed it was his position as public servant to take a social position that benefited all. His credo; "I plead the cause of humanity." Morris believed humanity had rights, even those he called reptiles.

Succeeding Jefferson as Minister to France, Morris stayed in Europe until 1799, earning the money that would enable him to buy the Morris estate from his half-brothers. He returned to the United States in time to witness the demise of Federalists, his own political party. When Jefferson and the victorious Republicans attacked the judiciary, the last Federalist bastion by cutting down the number of federal judges and impeaching a Federalist Justice of the Supreme Court, Morris became alarmed. When they launched the War of 1812, he despaired. He thought the war unwinnable. He thought the constitution he wrote a failure.

Counterbalancing this misjudgment were two autumnal achievements. Morris was an early advocate of the Erie Canal. He served as a commissioner and explored routes himself, trekking through the swamps of western New York.

On Christmas Day 1809, Morris hosted a dinner party, which he described in his diary, "I marry this day Anne Cary Randolph, no small surprise to my guests." Well might they have been surprised, since Nancy Randolph was 22 years younger than her new husband, and his housekeeper.

Her story is as interesting as his.

In the last year of his life, Morris corrected his biggest political mistake; "If our country be delivered, what does it signify whether those who save it wear a federal or democratic cloak?"

Morris died November 1816 in the same room in which he was born.

Gouverneur Morris 1752 - 1816
. Residence, Westchester County, New York
. Born in Morrisania, Bronx, Bronx County, New York
. Delegate to the Constitutional Congress, 1777
. Member of New York State Assembly 1777-78
. Member U. S. Constitutional Convention 1787
. Minister to France 1792-94
. U. S. Senator from New York 1800-03

418 M i. Gouverneur Morris [16020] was born on 9 Feb 1813 in Morrisania, New York.

Lucy married Edward Randolph [15974] [MRIN: 7965], son of Edward Randolph [15879] and Elizabeth Graves [15972].

Lucy married Archibald Cary Randolph [30144] [MRIN: 10127], son of Thomas Isham Randolph [15988] and Jane Cary [30141], on 6 Apr 1797. Archibald was born in 1769 in Goochland County, Virginia and died in 1813 at age 44.

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