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Descendants of WILLIAM HUNTER CAVENDISH

Generation No. 1

1. WILLIAM HUNTER¹ CAVENDISH was born Abt. 1740 in Ireland, and died in Virginia. He married (1) JANE MURPHY. He married (2) ALICE MANN 1804, daughter of WILLIAM MANN and JANE HAMILTON.

Notes for WILLIAM HUNTER CAVENDISH:
Info from DAR PATRIOT INDEX:CENTENNIAL EDITION:
*CAVENDISH, William Hunter b c 1750 IR, d 1828 VA, m 1. Jane Murphy, 2. Alice Mann, Patriotic Service, VA.*

Info from THE CAVENDISH HISTORY printed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1961:
*William Henderson CAVENDISH was born in Ireland about 1740 and came to America between 1756 and 1760 with his mother and two sisters. The story is that he was eligible for the House of Lords in Parliament and that his mother had been sent to Ireland before his birth so that in case the child was a boy that he could become a member of Parliament direct from Ireland. However, on growing up his sympathies were so pro-Irish that is was thought advisable to get him out of the country. They settled in Virginia on the James River not far from Lexington. The place where they settled is still known as the Cavendish Farm. William Henderson Cavendish's sisters married and from one of them decended George W. McClintic, recently Judge of the United States District Court of Southern West Virginia and the Arbuckles of Lewisburg and Glenville.
William Henderson Cavendish was a quarter-master general during the Revolutionary War 1778-82. He was appointed on the first board of visitors of Washington College, Lexington, Virginia in 1796. The proof of this is contained in Laws of Virginia, page 44, chapter 41 - "An act for erecting Liberty Hall academy into a College". This act was passed December 21, 1796 and names the board of visitors among whom is William H. Cavendish of Greenbrier. The duties of the board of visitors were to appoint the president and professors, remove and suspend the same for a good cause, fix their salaries, make inspections, and have control of all property belonging to the college.
William Henderson Cavendish served in the Assembly of Virginia 1802-1805 with the exception of two years when he was the sheriff of Greenbrier County at which time he lived in Lewisburg. The Cavendish vs. Fleming case on record at Lewisburg decided in settlement of an estate of which he was administrator. He lived for some time in or near Lewisburg, but returned to Virginia where he died. He was twice married. His first marriage was to Alice Mann. His family came with him west of the mountains and most of them remained there. He left five children of whom we have a record: two sons and three daughters. One daughter, Mary Cavendish, married Isaac Callison, August 27, 1798. Another daughter, Jane Cavendish, married Joseph McClung, May 1804. The third daughter, Rebecca Cavendish, married Alex McClung, January 25, 1816. One son, Willim Cavendish, a lawyer, was the first clerk of Kanawha county and practiced law in what is now West Virginia. One instance on court record is of his pleading a case in Point Pleasant. He married Jane McCoy, Feb. 6, 1794 but left no children. The other son of William Henderson Cavendish was Andrew Cavendish. From him descended those who bear the name of Cavendish of whom we have any knowledge.*

Info from "Greenbrier Co. FAmily History," p. 43, sub. by Gradon Smales Love (SAR National No. 142549):
*William Cavendish was connected to the aristocratic House of Cavendish in England was a fact that was freely discussed among people in early Greenbrier Co. He served several terms in the Virginia Assembly after the Revolution of 1776 and ran the Greenbrier Commissary during the War for American Independence from The British Empire.
Tradition has it that this Lord Cavendish came to the colony of Virginia with his mother and two sisters from England. A thorough search of shipboard records by this researcher could only find one Cavendish before the mid-eighteen hundreds. That was Margaret Cavendish who was probably the mother. Early shipboard records did not record the names of children or women, unless they were unaccompanied by a husband. If this was his mother, she came on the convict ship -Litchfield- in 1752.
The fact that she came on a ship with felons does not indicate that she was a bad person, indeed the beaches of history are strewn with the victims of political massacres. Also, in those days of totally disenfranchised females, a man could charge his wife with a crime, send her away, and take on a new lady. The records of the Old Bailey Courthouse in London, particularly the Sessions of Gaol, need to be searched to solve this mystery.
One can only speculate as to the horrors this aristocratic young mother experienced as she made her way across the Atlantic Ocean on a ship filled with cutthroats, thieves, and her three children. Sufficient to say that young William Hunter Cavendish reflected the education and breeding of his royal background at an early age. He desposed in court documents that he was in Greenbrier County as early as 1769 before the formation of the county.
In a frontier characterized by illiteracy and crude survival, Lord Cavendish was busy dictating the deeds and wills of his countrymen to a court clerk. He witnessed the "X" marks made by pioneer men and women on courthouse documents and decided to start a school to combat the ubiquitous illiteracy of early Greenbrier residents. His compassion for others and lawyering skills made him a most respected and successful gentleman. He accumulated a sizable plantation.
The question of Lord Cavendish's wives is still debated by his descendants. Only Church of England marriages were recognized until after The Revolution. What is well documented is his marriage to my great-great-great-grandmother, Jane Murphy, on 13 June 1780. Subsequent to her death in 1800, he married the widow, Alice Mann. William Cavendish's will was probated in Bath Co., VA, in 1818.* (Note: the above submitter does not list Moses Cavendish as a child. Other researches list him as a son.)

Info from Sharon McNeeley (smcneeley@ahol.com):
*(Written in July and Aug. 1949 by Junius Hunter Arbuckle): In 1808, Mrs. Alice McClintic married again to William Hunter Cavendish, a Lawyer of Greenbrier Co. (Cavendish, an Englishman, settled in Greenbrier in 1769.) He was the first County Clerk of said Co., and served in the State Legislature 1790-1800. When Bath Co. was organized in 1790 he was one of the first lawyers given a permit to practice at Warm Springs. By a previous marriage he had several children living in Greenbrier Co. When he died in 1818, according to his will, specified that he had no strings attatched to his wife's property, but property he owned in Greenbrier Co., he gave to his own children. After his death, this farm was always known as the "Old Cavendish" place, and his widow was called Grandma Cavendish.*

Notes for ALICE MANN:
Info on Alice Mann and her ancestors from WFT CD.

Info from Sharon McNeeley (smcneeley@ahol.com):
*(Written in July and Aug. 1949 by Junius Hunter Arbuckle): Grandma Cavendish was a good business woman. With the aid of her two sons, she accumulated considerable land on both sides of Jackson's River in the southern part of what is now known as Bath Co. After she became a widow again, her grand-daughter Bettie McClintic came and lived with her. She made and recorded her will in 1838, 20 years before her death. Unfortunately, her son Moses died before she did. In her will she gave both her sons and all her grandchildren property and named her son William II executor. After her death in 1858, some of the in-laws of her son Moses' children brought suit against the estate for a new accounting, but failed to change any part of it. (See her will, Bath Co., W.B. #6, p. 176 and supplement of lawsuit.) She lived to be 95 years of age.
(Morton's "History of Alleghany Co." p. 209-210): Alice, born 1762, married William McClintic, who died 1786. She afterward married William Hunter Cavendish, an Englishman, who was the first clerk of Greenbrier and later the first clerk of Kanawha. He was a delegate from Greenbrier almost continuously from 1790 to 1804. A son was Andrew, a lawyer of Fayette County. A great grandson is R.M. Cavendish, a lawyer of Sutton, WVA.*

Children of WILLIAM CAVENDISH and ALICE MANN are:

ANDREW² CAVENDISH, b. 24 March 1787; d. Abt. 1870, Fayette Co., (West) Virginia.

ii.

MOSES CAVENDISH.

iii.

MARY POLLY CAVENDISH.

iv.

WILLIAM CAVENDISH, m. JANE MCCOY, 1792.

Notes for WILLIAM CAVENDISH:
Info from "THE CAVENDISH HISTORY" printed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1961:
*William Cavendish, Lawyer, First Clerk of Kanawha County married 1792 to Jane McCoy.*

JANE CAVENDISH, m. JOSEPH MCCLUNG, 1804.

Notes for JOSEPH MCCLUNG:
*His nickname was Cranberry Joe. He is sais to have been the first white child born on Meadow River, Greenbrier Co., WV. He was also the first person buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetary near Mt. Lookout, WV. He served in the War of 1812, pvt., Reg. 4, Inf. Virginia Mil.*

vi.

REBECCA CAVENDISH, m. ALEX MCCLUNG, 1816.

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