Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/373

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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is perhaps in Virginia more than in any other section of the country, that the tra- ditions and associations of the early times when the American nation was with grim struggles getting itself born, have been pre- served, and are to this day an operative influence in the formation of character.

( I ) Captain Thomas Dew, the paternal grandfather of Judge John Garnett Dew, was the founder of the family in Virginia. Me was himself a native of Maryland, hav- ing been born there in the closing years of the eighteenth century. He was a man of unusually enterprising character and in many ways a mail of mark. As a very young man he left his native state and removed to King and Queen county, Virginia, where he made himself the owner of a valuable prop- erty, which has become the residence of the Dew family for many years, and has wit- nessed the birth of its heirs down to the time of the present generation. Captain Dew began his life in the new home as a farmer, but with his usual cleverness soon became the banker for all the farmers in the surrounding country, and waxed Avealthy as the result of his business. He became a ca]:)tain in the United States army during the war of 1812, tendering distin- guished service therein, and before his death became the leading figure in the community of which he was a member. He married Lucy E. Gatewood, a native of King and Queen county, and by her had ten children, all of whom are now deceased. His eldest son. Dr. William Dew. became a very dis- tinguished Virginian physician, and another son, Thomas R. Dew (a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work), became the president of William and Mary College, the second oldest college in the United States, the early history of which was so checkered, and for whose founding such terrible efforts and sacrifices were needed on the part of the colonists. Its charter was at last granted by the King m 1693, since which time it has been the scene of the youthful labors of many of the greatest men in American history, including such names as Thomas Jefferson, John Randolph, John Marshall, and many others among its graduates. The last of Captain Thomas Dew's children to depart this life was Benjamin Franklin Dew, the father of John Garnett Dew.

(II) Benjamin Franklin Dew, son of Captain Thomas and Lucy E. (Gatewood)

Dew, was bcjrn June 8, 1820, on his father's homestead in King and Queen county, Vir- ginia, which had come to be known as Dewsville. He was a student at William and Mary College, of which his uncle, Thomas R. Dew, was the president, and graduated from that venerable institution with the degrees of M. A. and B. L. For a time he devoted himself to the practice of the law, but ere a great while had elapsed returned to his great landed estate of Dews- ville, where he settled, continuing to live there for the remainder of his life. He was later offered the appointment of magistrate on the county court, which he accepted and held up to and during the years of the war between the states. He married Mary Susan Garnett, a native of King and Queen county, where she was born in the year 1821. Mrs. Dew was the daughter of Colonel Reuben

M. and (Pendleton) Garnett, also of

King and Queen county. Colonel Garnett was a farmer all his life in his native region, and Mrs. Garnett was the daughter of Cap- tain James Pendleton, of the Continental Artillery in the revolution. To Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Dew six children were born, all of whom are deceased with the exception of John Garnett Dew, men- tioned at length below. Another of their children. Dr. J. Harvie Dew, was a promi- nent physician in New York City for over forty years. Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Dew died October 5, 1855, when John Garnett was but ten years of age, and two years later Mr. Dew remarried, this time to Eliza- beth Quesenberry. of Caroline county, Vir- ginia, by whom he had three children, all of whom are deceased. Mr. Dew died October 10, 1877.

(Ill) Judge John Garnett Dew, the sec- ond child of Benjamin Franklin and Mary Susan (Garnett) Dew, was born July 23, 1845, near the old estate of Dewsville, founded by his grandfather. Captain Thomas Dew. in King and Queen county, Virginia. Fie received the rudiments of his education in the local schools of King and Queen county, and then attended Dr. Gess- ner Harrison's School in Nelson county, until he had reached the age of fifteen years. When the civil war broke out, plunging the whole country into blood and strife, young Mr. Dew, in spite of his tender years, en- listed in the Second Company of the Inde- pendent Signal Corps. For a time he