University of Virginia Library

MAGRUDER.

John B. Magruder came to Albemarle from Maryland in
the early years of the century. With him from the same

State came George Jones, the father of Robert S., Jesse and
Thomas. They were friends, both good men, and local
preachers of the Methodist Church. They settled in the
eastern part of the county, on the borders of Fluvanna. Mr.
Magruder died in 1812. He and his wife Sarah had nine
children, Sarah, the wife of John Timberlake, Mildred, the
wife of Gideon A. Strange, Elizabeth, the first wife of Dr.
Basil Jones, James, Horatio, Benjamin H., William, Hilary
and John B.

The family were largely engaged in the improvements of
the Rivanna Navigation Company. Besides founding the
Union Mills in Fluvanna, John B. Magruder and John Timberlake
in 1829 bought the Shadwell Mills from the Jefferson
estate, and in addition to the grist mills already existing,
established cotton and woolen factories, which continued in
operation until swept away by the disasters of the war. In
1833 they purchased from a family named Scholfield, of
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a large body of timber
land in the Buck Island section, which had lain in its virgin
state from time immemorial. James Magruder after the war
purchased Frascati, the former home of Judge Philip Barbour
near Gordonsville, where he resided until his death.
Benjamin H. was admitted a member of the Albemarle bar in
1829, and lived for some years in Scottsville. He subsequently
bought Glenmore, opposite Milton, which he made
his home until his death in 1885. Both before and since the
war he represented the county in the Legislature. He was
twice married, first to a daughter of James Minor, of Sunning
Hill, Louisa, and secondly to Evalina, daughter of Opie
Norris. Mildred and her husband, Gideon A. Strange, were
the parents of Sarah, the wife of William Stockton, a brother
of John N. C. Stockton, who emigrated to Florida, John B.,
Colonel of the Nineteenth Virginia in the late war, and Mary,
the wife of John W. Chewning.

Mary, the sister of John B. Magruder Sr., was the wife of
Thomas D. Boyd. At the beginning of the century he conducted
a public house at the junction of the Three Notched and
River Roads, the locality still known as Boyd's Tavern.

He had six children, John H., who went to Richmond,
Charity, the wife of James Thrift, of Montgomery County,
Maryland, James M., Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas A.
Woodson, Mary, the wife of Bartley Herndon, of Shenandoah
County, and Thomas J. The last was admitted to the
Albemarle bar in 1829, and removed to Wytheville, where
he recently died at an advanced age.

Allan B. Magruder, a nephew of John B., and brother of
General John Bankhead, became a member of the Albemarle
bar in 1838. He resided in Charlottesville in the house at
the rear of the late Thomas Wood's until a short time before
the war, when he removed to Washington City, and subsequently
to Frederick County, Virginia. His daughter Janet
became the wife of Major Robert H. Poore, who fell in the
battle of Gettysburg, and his daughter Julia, by the productions
of her pen, has attained quite a position of note in the
literary world.