Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/58

 FATHERS OF THE R INVOLUTION

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vention; was first president of the Conti- nental Congress convened in September of the same year. On the removal of the pow- der from the Williamsburg magazine, he ap- peased the patriots and delayed impeu^ang hostilities. He was again speaker of the house of burgesses in May, 1775, and after- ward sat in the second Congress. He was a close friend of Washington, and as a youth Jefferson took him as a model. He was grand master of Virginia Masons in 1773. He married Elizabeth Harrison, sister of Benjamin Harrison, the signer, and died of apoplexy in Philadelphia. October 22, 1775, childless. His remains were conveyed to Williamsburg and interred in the chapel of William and Mary College, by the side of his brother, Sir John Randolph. In 1784, the remains of his brother, John, were laid beside him.

Read, Thomas, son of Colonel Clement Read, and Mary Hill, his wife, was born at "Bushy Forest," in Lunenburg county, about 1735-1740, and beg^n life as a sur- veyor; studied at William and Mary Col.- lege, and was deputy clerk of Charlotte ' county, in 1765, when it was set apart from Lunenburg. In 1770 he became clerk, hold- ing the office till his death in 1817. He was a member of the convention of May, 1776, and had a place on the committee appointed to draw up the declaration of rights, and a state constitution. During the revolution, he was county lieutenant, and marched with the county militia to oppose Cornwallis. He was a man of fine physique and a warm friend of President Madison. He died at his seat, "Ingleside," in Charlotte county, February 4, 1817.

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Ronald, William, a native of Scotland, was a prominent member of the house of dele- gates, during and after the revolution. He resided in Powhatan county, which he rep- resented in the convention of 1788. He was a delegate from Virginia to the Annapolis convention, September 5, 1786. His brother, Andrew Ronald, was an eminent lawyer of Richmond, who was opposed to Patrick Henry in the British debts case, in which the debtors were represented by Patrick Henry.

Smith, Meriwether, son of Colonel Francis Smith, of Essex county, Virginia, was born at "Bathurst," Essex county, in 1730. He married (first) in 1760, Alice, daughter of Philip Lee, and of their children, George William became governor of Virginia; and (second) September 29, 1769, Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel William Daingerfield. He sat in the house of burgesses in 1770; was a member of the Virginia conventions of 1775 and 1776, being the author of a bill of rights and a state constitution; was a signer of the articles of the Westmoreland Association, February 27. 1766, pledged to use no articles of British importation, and the resolutions of the Williamsburg Asso- ciation, which met at the old Raleigh Tavern of that city. May 18, 1769. He was a dele- gate to the Continental Congress, 1778-82, and a member of the Virginia convention, which adopted the constitution of the United States. He died January 25, 1790.

Starke, Boiling (q. v., i-330).

Tabb, John, was a descendant of Humphrey Tabb, who came from the neighborhood of Welles, in England, to Virginia, about 1637.

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