Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/16

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INTRODUCTION.

Yorktown and the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. They received the thanks of Congress for services rendered. George Dabney's powder-horn, that he carried into battle, is still in existence, and in the possession of one of his descendants. Patrick Henry, who was a kinsman and companion of these brothers, was on very intimate terms with them.

From the marriage of Cornelius Dabney and Sarah Jennings sprang three sons and four daughters. The descendants of their half-brother George and of this band of brothers and sisters have their homes in Louisa and Hanover Counties. Of late years they have spread over nearly every State in the South and Southwest, and some have found their way to the Middle States.

The distinguished Presbyterian minister, Rev. Robert L. Dabney, well known as the author of the "Life of Stonewall Jackson," and now professor in the State University of Texas, is descended from Cornelius Dabney's son George.

John Dabney established himself on the lower Pamunkey River, at what has been known ever since as Dabney's Ferry, and this became the original nest of the Dabneys of King William and Gloucester Counties.

"Most of the families of Lower Virginia are descended from John d'Aubigné; also the Carrs, Walters, Taylors, Pendletons, Nelsons, Robinsons, and Carters and Fontaines, Beverleys and Maurys, the Lees, of Loudoun, the Seldens and Alexanders, of Alexandria.

There is hardly a Huguenot or Cavalier family in Virginia that has not in its veins an infusion of the blood of that sturdy confessor, Agrippa d'Aubigné. From the original pair of French Huguenots, married in 1685, no less than six thousand descendants have their names inscribed on a gigantic family-tree. Several thousand more could be added, if the twigs and boughs were filled out with the names of the lineal descendants known to exist."

John d'Aubigné was married twice. George was the offspring of his first marriage. James, his son by his second wife, was famous for his great strength.