University of Virginia Library

John Page, Governor,

Dec. 1, 1802-Nov. 30, 1805.

John Page was born at "Rosewell" in Gloucester County
April 17, 1744, son of Mann Page and Alice Grymes, his

wife. He graduated from William and Mary College in 1763,
and served as a member of Lord Dunmore's Council and in
the House of Burgesses. When the Revolution began, he was
a delegate to the Convention of 1776, and became a member
of the Revolutionary Committee of Safety in August, 1775.
He was a colonel of militia from Gloucester in 1781, member of
Congress from 1789 to 1797. In the army to subdue the
Whiskey Insurgents in Western Pennsylvania, he was lieutenant
colonel. December 1, 1802, he became Governor, and after
serving three years, was in 1806 made by Jefferson United
States Commissioner of Loans, which position he held till his
death in 1808. The County of Page, in the Valley of Virginia,
formed in 1831 from Rockingham and Shenandoah, was named
after him.

Governor Page renewed the correspondence begun by
Monroe with Jefferson about colonization of the negroes in a
letter dated February 2, 1805. In a message dated December
5, 1803, he assumed the ground which prevailed more or
less with all the early governors that recommendations by the
governor was an interference with the legislative functions,
but two years later in making many suggestions in a message
he candidly admitted himself embarrassed by the recollections
of his former stand and recalled his opinions on the subject.