University of Virginia Library

JAMES WOOD.

James Wood, the son of Colonel James Wood, the founder of Winchester,
Virginia, was born about the year 1750, in Frederick County,
which he represented in the Virginia Convention of 1776, which framed
the State Constitution. He was appointed by that body, Nov. 15,
1776, a Colonel in the Virginia line, and rendered gallant service in the
cause of Freedom, as well as in the defence of the frontiers of Virginia
from the Indians. He was long a member of the State Council, and
by seniority in that body, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. He was
elected Governor of the State, December 1, 1796, serving until December
1, 1799, when he was succeeded by Governor James Monroe.
Governor Wood was subsequently commissioned a Brigadier-General of
State troops. He was also, for a time, President of the Virginia branch
of the Order of Cincinnati. He died at Richmond, June 16, 1813.
The county of Wood, formed in 1799 from Harrison county, was named
in commemoration of his patriotic services. The wife of General Wood,
who was Jean, daughter of Rev. John Moncure, a Huguenot refugee,
who fled from religious persecution to Virginia, early in the eighteenth

century, and was long the rector of Overwharton parish, Stafford county,
survived her husband several years. Mrs. Wood was a lady of great
benevolence of character, and was gifted with both poetic and musical
talents. Of her poetry, examples are preserved in the Southern Literary
Messenger. She also frequently contributed to the newspaper press, and
left in MS. a volume of unpublished poetry and sketches. Mrs. Wood
spent the close of her life in pious works of charity and usefulness.
A noble monument to her philanthropy, is a society for the assistance
of indigent widows and children, which she founded with the assistance
of Mrs. Samuel Pleasants, and a Mrs. Chapman. It was styled the
"Female Humane Association of Richmond," and was incorporated by
the Legislature of Virginia, in 1811. Mrs. Wood was the first President
of the Society, and untiringly performed the somewhat arduous duties
of that responsible station until her death, in 1825, at the age of
sixty-eight years. Her grave is in the cemetery of the Robinson family,
a little beyond the western limits of Richmond, near the banks of James
river. Soon after the death of Mrs. Wood, the Rev. John H. Rice,
President of Hampden-Sydney College, instituted an association of ladies
for the purpose of working for the benefit of poor theological students
of the College, and which, in compliment to Mrs. Wood, he called the
Jean Wood Society.