University of Virginia Library

George Keith Taylor was, we believe, a native of this county. He was a member
of the legislature in '98 and '99, during the famous discussion of the alien and sedition
laws, in the advocacy of which he bore a conspicuous part. He was a leader of the
federal party, and a confederate of John Marshall, whose sister he married. As an advocate
in criminal cases he was distinguished: his oratorical powers have been described
as little inferior to those of Patrick Henry; and, like him, his manner on commencing
was unprepossessing. In Gilmer's "Sketches and Essays" there is a note which says
that "Mr. Taylor was one of the most eminent lawyers of his state—acute, profound,
logical, and persuasive; of fine wit, of exquisite humor, of brilliant fancy, and of the
most amiable disposition."

Col. Theodorick Bland, Jun., a worthy patriot and statesman, and a descendant of
Pocahontas, was born in this county about the year 1742. In 1753, when about 11 years
of age, he was sent to England to be educated, and in 1761 he repaired to Edinburgh to
study medicine. He was among the first persons from Virginia that devoted themselves
to the study of medicine—a profession in that day but little cultivated in the colony, and
in the improvement of which, from his diligence, he is entitled to the merit of having
been one of its earliest pioneers. After an absence of about 12 years from America, he
returned to Virginia, and entered upon the practice of his profession. But he was not
an indifferent spectator of the political commotions of the day. In December, 1774, in
writing to a mercantile friend in England, he says, "I should have vested the small
proceeds in goods, but the present political disputes between these colonies and the
mother country, which threaten us with a deprivation of our liberties, forbid such a step,

and induce us to exert every nerve to imitate the silkworm, and spin from our own
bowels, although the web should be our winding-sheet." The battle of Lexington was
the subject of a patriotic poetical effusion by him. On the 24th of June, 1775, Dr.
Bland was one of a party of 24 gentlemen who, shortly after the flight of Dunmore,
removed certain arms from the governor's palace at Williamsburg. In the following
December he wrote, apparently for publication, certain philippics against Dunmore, in
which the political corruption and private profligacy of his lordship's character are depicted
in the blackest hues. In June, 1776, he was captain of the first troop of Virginia
cavalry. He was subsequently appointed lieutenant-colonel of horse, and in September,
1777, joined the main army. From a letter, it would appear that towards the close of
this year he was a member of the senate of Va. "While in the army, he frequently
signalized himself by brilliant actions."[1] In November, 1778, he superintended the
march of the British troops of convention-made prisoners at Saratoga, to Virginia; and
on their arrival, or shortly after, was appointed by Washington to the command of the
post at Charlottesville. From 1780 to '83, he was a member of Congress. In 1781,
Farmingdale, his residence in Va., was plundered by the enemy. While in Congress he
manifested his usual spirit and industry in the public cause, particularly in the financial
department. In 1785 he was appointed, by Gov. Henry, lieutenant of this county. He
was in that minority in the convention of Va., convened to consult upon the adoption
of the federal constitution, that believed it repugnant to the interests of the country,
and therefore voted against its ratification. On its adoption, however, he acquiesced in
the will of the majority, and was elected to represent his district in the first Congress
held under the constitution. While serving in that capacity, he died at New York, June
1st, 1790, aged 48. "In person, Col. Bland was tall—in his latter days corpulent—and
of a noble countenance. His manners were marked by ease, dignity, and well-bred repose.
In character he was virtuous and enlightened, of exemplary purity of manners
and integrity of conduct, estimable for his private worth, and respectable for his public
services. His career was distinguished rather by the usefulness of plain, practical qualifications,
than by any extraordinary exhibitions of genius. Animated, from his childhood,
by a profound love of country, with him patriotism was not an impulse but a principle.
In style, he is fluent and correct, and if sometimes too florid or diffuse, he is at
others wanting neither in energy of thought nor in elegance of diction. Moderation
and good temper pervade his correspondence, and it is nowhere sullied by profanity or
indelicacy."[2]

Richard Bland was another of the many prominent Virginians who acted on the
theatre of the revolution. Wirt, in speaking of him before the war, says he "was one
of the most enlightened men of the colony. He was a man of finished education, and
of the most unbending habits of application. His perfect mastery of every fact connected
with the settlement and progress of the colony, had given him the name of the
Virginian antiquary. He was also a politician of the first class; a profound logician,
and was also considered as the first writer in the colony;" but he was a most ungraceful
speaker in debate. "He wrote the first pamphlet on the nature of the connection with
Great Britain, which had any pretension to accuracy of view on that subject; but it was
a singular one: he would set out on sound principles, pursue them logically, till he found
them leading to the precipice which we had to leap; start back, alarmed; then resume
his ground, go over it in another direction, be led again by the correctness of his reasoning
to the same place, and again tack about and try other processes to reconcile right
and wrong; but left his reader and himself bewildered between the steady index of the
compass in their hand, and the phantasm to which it seemed to point. Still there was
more sound matter in this pamphlet, than in the celebrated Farmer's Letters, which
were really but an ignis fatuus, misleading us from true principle." Mr. Bland was a
member of Congress from 1774 to 1776; he died in 1778.