University of Virginia Library

MINOR.

John Minor, of Topping Castle, Caroline County, was the
patentee of land on the north fork of the Rivanna as early as
1735. Of the eleven children of himself and his wife, Sarah,
daughter of Thomas Carr, three have been represented in
Albemarle. His son James came to the county from Spotsylvania
not far from 1770, and lived on the land entered by
his father east of the Burnt Mills, which he beyond all question
first built. He was a man of energy and industry, and
a public spirited magistrate, but died in 1791, at the age of
forty-five. His wife was Mary Carr, and his children Dabney,
James, John, Sarah, the wife of William Wardlaw,
Mary, the wife of Richard H. Allen, Nancy, the wife of Dr.
Thomas Yancey, and Elizabeth, the wife of Alexander Garrett.
Dabney resembled his father in capacity for business, became

a large landholder in this and other counties, and for a number
of years served as a magistrate. He resided at first at
the home of his father, but subsequently purchased Carrsbrook,
and there spent his last years. He died in 1824, about
fifty years of age. He was twice married, first to Eliza
Johnson, a niece of William Wirt, and secondly to Martha
J., daughter of Richard Terrell, and granddaughter of Mr.
Jefferson's sister, Martha. By the first marriage his children
were Mildred, the wife of Hudson Martin, Catharine, the
wife of E. W. Reinhart, Sarah, the wife of James Tompkins,
and William W., of Gale Hill, and by the second Lucy J.,
the wife of Robert N. Trice. James lived at Brookhill, on
the south fork of the Rivanna. His wife was Catharine Tompkins,
and his children Dabney, John, James, Elizabeth, the
wife of Samuel Moore, Ann, the wife of Rev. Albert Holladay,
missionary to Persia, and President-Elect of Hampden-Sidney
College, Catharine, the wife of Rev. Luther Emerson, and
Martha, the wife of Lafayette Harris. He departed this life
in 1848. John was a physician, and married Jane Bell, a
Scotch lady, who was a resident of Lynchburg. He resided
at Gale Hill, which at his death in 1841 he devised to his
nephew, William W. Minor.

Another son of John Minor, of Topping Castle, was Garrett,
of Louisa, who married Mary O. Terrell. Their son
Peter came to the county early in the century, and married
Lucy, daughter of Dr. George Gilmer, of Pen Park. In 1809
he purchased from Jesse and John Key the present farm of
Ridgeway, and in 1811 was appointed Treasurer of the Rivanna
Navigation Company. He was for many years Secretary
of the County Agricultural Society, in the great objects
of which he was deeply interested. To his wife George
Divers at his death in 1830 left one-third of his estate. He
died in 1835, and his children were Hugh, Franklin, Peter
C., George, John S., James E., Martha, the wife of Robert
Grattan, Lucy, the wife of Dr. Charles Minor, and Mary, the
wife of R. W. N. Noland. Hugh married first a Fry, and
secondly Mary Ann, daughter of J. Boucher Carr, and lived
at Ridgeway; but exchanging it with his brother Franklin

for the Rigory, he resided there until his death in 1858.
Franklin married Lucy Ann, daughter of Dr. John Gilmer,
of Edgemont, and established a classical school at the Rigory,
but afterwards removed it to Ridgeway, where it attained a
wide-spread reputation. He died in 1867, but owing to ill
health, and the interruption of the war, the school had been
relinquished some years before. Samuel O., another son of
Garrett, married Lydia Laurie, daughter of Thomas W.
Lewis, of Locust Grove. In 1817 he bought from Martin
Dawson upwards of six hundred acres on the north side of
the Rivanna, below Milton. He afterwards lived and conducted
a school at the Farm. Dr. James H. Minor, of Music
Hall, and Elizabeth, the wife of Andrew Brown, were his
children.

Another son of John Minor, of Topping Castle, was Major
John, whose son Launcelot, of Minor's Folly in Louisa,
married Mary O. Tompkins. Several of their children resided
in Albemarle. Lucian was admitted to the bar in 1830,
practised for a time in Charlottesville, and subsequently
became Professor of Law in William and Mary. John B.,
after practising law for a brief period in Buchanan on James
River, settled in Charlottesville, erected as his home the house
at Northwood, the present residence of Charles Benson, and
in 1845 entered upon his distinguished career as Professor of
Law in the University of Virginia, where he died in 1896.
Dr. Charles, who married Lucy, daughter of Peter Minor,
taught a classical school at Brookhill, and afterwards lived
until his death in 1862 at Land's End, near Stony Point.
George W. Trueheart, a son of Ann Minor, daughter of
Launcelot, and wife of Overton Trueheart, was for a time a
member of the Albemarle bar.