Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/296

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

departments of college instruction. The courses of instruction were enlarged and enriched; the library was increased by several thousand volumes; the endowment funds were materially enlarged; the physical plant was improved, and the student attendance showed a gratifying growth both in numbers and quality.

President Webb is a member of the Southern Educational Association, and of the Religious Education Association. Before these bodies he has presented papers which have have been published in their proceedings. He is also a member of the Commission of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This commission is appointed quadrennially by the bishops of the church, and is intrusted with the task of formulating standards for the classification of the several academies, colleges and universities under the auspices of the Southern Methodist church. In 1911-12-13 he was professor of English literature in the summer school of the University of Colorado. In 1911 Wofford College conferred the degree of Doctor of Literature upon President Webb. On August 5. 1913, he was elected president of Randolph-Macon Woman's College and entered upon the discharge of the duties of that position in September.

Dr. Webb married, January 31, 1899, Mary Lee Clary, of Bell Buckle, Tennessee, who was educated at the Webb School and at Price's College for Women, in Nashville, Tennessee. They have four children.

Robert Davis Yancey, who has served as commonwealth attorney for the state of Virginia for more than a quarter of a century continuously, is a descendant of a family which has had numerous distinguished members both in this country and in Europe. The Yancey family in Virginia sprang from four brothers — Charles, William, Joel and Robert — who came to this country from Wales in 1642 with Sir William Burkley, later governor, and who settled in the James river section and prospered there. The branch of the family under discussion here is descended from one of these brothers, but there is a break of two or three generations between the founders of the family and Captain Robert Yancey, the first of whom we have definite record.

(I) Captain Robert Yancey held his rank in the First Virginia Dragoons during the revolutionary war, and served on the staff of General Washington. He was prominent in in the Masonic fraternity, having attained the thirty-third degree in that order, and was grand master of Masons at Alexandria, Virginia. He instituted the lodge at Lynchburg, Virginia, and his portrait and biographical sketch are said to be in the archives of Virginia Masonry, at Richmond. According to good authority he married a Miss Duke, sister of Henry Clay's mother, and they had a son Joel.

(II) Major Joel Yancey, son of Captain Robert and (Duke) Yancey, served in the war of 1812 with the rank of major, his commission being still in the possession of one of his descendants. He was a typical Virginia gentleman of his day, owning a large and fine estate near Forest Depot, Bedford county, where he built a commodious brick mansion, and entertained his friends there with the lavish hospitality for which the south was then noted. His nearest neighbor, and a warm personal friend, was Thomas Jefferson, who mentions Major Joel Yancey in one of his books. After his death the home place was sold and later came into possession of Colonel Radford, who married a granddaughter of Major Yancey. The house was destroyed by fire in 1912. Major Yancey is buried in the family graveyard on the old place.

Major Yancey married (first) a Miss Burton, (second) Elizabeth Macon. By his first wife he had: Robert J., who moved to Missouri; Martha, who married General Davis Rodes, a hero of the Mexican war, and had a son. General Robert Rodes, who was a major-general in the Confederate army. By the second marriage there were: William Tudor, of whom further; Charles D., removed to New Orleans, amassed a fortune, and married a Miss Mallarche, a Creole; Betsy, died unmarried at a very advanced age; Louisa, married Thomas Steptoe; Mary Barbara, married Colonel Thomas Macon, removed with him to New Orleans, and died there of yellow fever; Anne Rebecca, died unmarried.

(III) William Tudor Yancey, son of Major Joel and Elizabeth (Macon) Yancey, was born in Bedford county, Virginia, in 1811, died in the same county in 1889. He was raised on the old family plantation, receiving an excellent education for those times. For a short time he taught school,