Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/336

 PROM I NEXT PERSONS

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a states rights Whig, and took his seat De- cember 2. 1839, but, having left the party with two colleague;? after the nomination of Harrison for President, he resigned, July 21, 1840. He was again elected to congress as a Van Buren Democrat, serving from Feb- ruary I, 1842, till March 3, 1843, and was then elected to the United States senate, serving from December 4, 1843, ^^^1 ^^ ^^' signed in 1848. He supported President Polk in the Oregon controversy, and throughout the Mexican war was a promi- nent opponent of the Wilmot proviso. He was an earnest speaker in the Nashville con- vention in 1850 in defence of the rights of the South. He was licensed as a Methodist preacher in 1827, and even during the tur- moil of a most exciting political career, was iii the habit of officiating at the Methodist churches. He was one of the most success- ful lawyers in the state, and in criminal practice had no rival. He died in Macon, Georgia, May 7, 1855.

Fleming, Thomas, born in Goochland county, \'irginia. in 1727, son of Col. John Fleming and Mary Boiling, his wife. He was in command of two hundred back- woodsmen in the battle of Point Pleasant against the Indians in 1774. He concealed his men behind trees and had them hold out their hats. As the Indians fired, the hats were dropped, and the Indians rushed for- ward to scalp their supposed victims, who tomahawked their assailants. After lead- ing his men gallantly in two onrushes, Fleming was severely wounded, one ball passing through his arm and another through his breast. In March, 1776, he was commissioned colonel of the Ninth Virginia Regiment, but died from his former ex- posures in August of the same year.

Henderson, Richard, born in Hanover county, Virginia, in 1734. His parents were poor and unable to give him an education, and he could neither read nor write until he was grown to manhood, but served as con- stable and under sheriff. In 1762 he went to North Carolina, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and in 1769 was made an associate judge of the superior court. In 1770 public feeling ran high on account of the excessive taxation enforced under Gov. Tryon, and a mob assailed him in the court room and forced him from the bench. After the revolutionary war, and when order was restored, Henderson was reelected judge, but would not qualify, having formed the Transylvania Land Company, for the pur- pose of acquiring large tracts of the public domain. In effecting this purpose he nego- tiated **the Watoga Treaty" with the chiefs of the Cherokee Indians, by which the com- pany came into possession of all the lands lying between the Cumberland river, the Cumberland mountains, and the Kentucky river — a territory larger than the present state of Kentucky — and was named Tran- sylvania, with Boonesborough as its capital. .•\mong the members of the company were Daniel Boone, Richard Calloway, John Floyd, James Harrod and Thomas Slaugh- ter, and they formed a most comprehensive and equitable system of government. How- ever, Henderson's purchase was subse- quently annulled by Virginia, as an infringe- n'ent of her chartered rights; but, to com- pensate the settlers, the legislature granted to them a tract twelve miles square on the Ohio river, below the mouth of Greene river. In 1779 Judge Henderson and four others were appointed commissioners to run the boundary line between Virginia and

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