Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/461

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

871

Forth, was also bestowed on him. His de- scendant. Sir \\'illiam, who married a daughter of the Earl of Crawford, had a son, William, who was created Earl Mareschal before June, 1458. The fifth earl was George, founder of the Mareschal College, Aberdeen, in 1593.

The progenitor of the Keiths of Virginia was the Rev. James Keith, known as Par- son Keith, who came to \'irginia from Scot- land some time after the Stuart uprising in 1715, in which he took part, and the tradi- tion is that he was wounded at the battle of SherifT jMuir. He had been educated for the church, and from 1730 to 1733 he was rector of Henrico parish. Later he removed tci what is now Fauquier county (it was then Prince William county), where he lived the remainder of his life, and was rector of Hamilton parish, included in which was the old Elk Run Church. For a while, also, he served as rector of Truro parish. He married Alary Isham Randolph, daugh- ter of Thomas Randolph, of "Tuckahoe." Many of his descendants still live in Fau- quier county, Mrginia. and some of them own the old 'Woodbourne'' homestead, which is near Warrenton, \'irginia. Chil- dren of James and Mary Isham (Randolph) Keith: James. John. Thomas, of whom fur- ther ; Alexander, Isham, Mary, Elizabeth and Judith. Mary Keith married Thomas Marshall, and was the tnother of Chief Jus- tice John Marshall.

Thomas Keith, Alexander Keith and Isham Keith, sons of James and Mary Isham (Randolph) Keith, served in the American revolutionary army, and Thomas Keith, who attained the rank of captain, is thus mentioned in the report of the con- gressional committee on revolutionary pen- sions, submitted January 16, 1846: "The Committee on Revolutionary Pensions, have, according to order, had under con- sideration the petition of Mrs. Judith Keith, asking an increase of her pension for the services of her deceased husband, the late Captain Thomas Keith, a commissary in the Virginia line in the continental establish- ment and submit the following report: 'It appears that the said Captain Keith was engaged in the military service at the earli- est period of the Revolution ; that he was a Captain and afterwards a Commissary until the surrender of Cornwallis'." Captain Thomas Keith married, in 1774, Judith, born

in 1759, died in 1857, daughter of Joseph and Lucy Blackwell. and had children : Marshall, Harriet, Mary Isham. Susan. Tarleton Fleming. Peter Grant, James, and Isham. of whom further.

Isham Keith, son of Captain Thomas and Judith (Blackwell) Keith, married Juliet Chilton, granddaughter of Captain John Chilton, who was killed at the battle of P>randywine, and had children, only two of whom survived childhood : Isham, of whom further, and James, who entered the Con- federate States army in the Black Horse Cavalry Company, gaining the rank of lieu- tenant and later adjutant of the Fourth \'ir- ginia Cavalry ; a member of the Virginia legislature ; judge of the circuit court for the eleventh judicial circuit of Virginia, from 1870 to 1895, and president of the supreme court of appeals of V'irginia since January I. 1895. He was twice married, first, to Lilias Gordon ]\Iorson. and his sec- ond wife was her sister, Frances Barksdale Morson, who died June 9, 1908. Children of the latter marriage : Juliet Chilton and A. A. Morson.

Isham (2) Keith, son of Isham (i) and Juliet (Chilton) Keith, was born in Fau- quier county. Virginia, in September. 1833, and died September 19, 1902. He attended the University of Virginia, and in later life followed agricultural pursuits. In the war between the states he was a member of the Black Horse Cavalry, later serving under Mosby. He married Sarah Agnes, daugh- ter of William and Anne Sparke (Gordon) Blackwell, the Blackwells being one of the old English families which came to this country in the early colonial days and have been in P'auquier county for two centuries or more. Jose])h Blackwell, the great-grandfather of Mrs. Keith, was the first sheriff of Fauquier county after it was taken from Prince Wil- liam county in 1759. in the days when the courts were opened in the name of His Majesty. King George the Second. His son, Joseph Blackwell, grandfather of. Mrs. Keith, served in the I-'auquier Company in the revolutionary army. ^Irs. Sarah Agnes (Blackwell) Keith was born in Fauquier county. \'irginia, February 14, 1837, and died November 3. 1912, and had children: i. Wil- liam .StejJtoe. born November 17, 1855, a graduate of the X'irginia Militarv Institute, died October 23, 1879. 2. Julian Chilton, born in 1857, a farmer, married (first) Mary