John Woodson Jr.
John Woodson, was a Virginia planter and politician who served four terms in the Virginia General Assembly representing Cumberland County, Virginia, from 1788 to 1792.
Early life and education
Born to the former Mary Miller and her husband John Woodson, Woodson was descended on both sides from early Virginia settlers. He had an elder brother Miller Woodson and sisters Ann, Sarah, Mary, Judith and Susannah. John Woodson Jr. received a private education appropriate to his class, and fought in the American Revolutionary War, as did numerous relatives including his elder brother Miller Woodson, who would serve as clerk of Cumberland County for several decades as would his namesake son and grandson, and whose son Tsharner de Graffenreid Woodson became deputy clerk and whose grandson Blake Baker Woodson became clerk of Fayette County, Virginia and later of Cumberland County until the mid-1880s.Personal life
Woodson married twice. His first wife, the former Joanna Booker, daughter of James Booker and the former Elizabeth Howlett, bore six sons and two daughters before her death. His eldest son, Booker Woodson remained a farmer in nearby Buckingham County, whereas Peter Woodson moved to Robertson County, Tennessee, Benjamin Woodson moved to Rockingham County, North Carolina after his marriage to his stepsister Martha Ann Venable, Joseph Woodson moved to Montgomery County, Tennessee, and only the youngest, James B. Woodson remained in Cumberland County. This man's second wife, the widow Elizabeth Raine Venable, widow of John Venable, bore another son. Woodson also had six daughters: Elizabeth, Judith, Susanna who married Joseph Williams and also moved to Roanoke Missouri, Polly who married John Garrett, Nancy who married Joseph Ligon, and Sarah who married Byrd Smith who moved several times.Career
Woodson and his father or distant cousin of the same name also operated plantations, a ferry, a tobacco warehouse and other businesses in Cumberland County near Cartersville using enslaved labor long before the American Revolutionary War. The ferry connected Cumberland County on the south side of the James River with Goochland and Albermarle Counties on the northern bank. During the conflict, Cartersville was a military supply depot and logistics center. In fact, either this man or his father donated the 27 acres of land at Carter's Ferry which the legislature incorporated as Cartersville in 1790. Complicating matters was a 4th generation John Woodson and two other 5th generation John Woodsons. The most important was John Woodson of Goochland County who married Dorothea Randolph, had a dozen children and served many terms in the Virginia General Assembly representing Goochland County. Another 5th generation John Woodson also descended from that 2nd generation Robert Woodson ultimately moved to Cartersville and died in 1793. That man had married Elizabeth Hughes and had three daughters as well as a son also named John who died in Cartersville in 1832. That John Jr. had married Ann Pleasants and his sister Ann married Francis B. Deane of Cartersville, and established what would be the family graveyard in Cartersville at "the Deanery." This man also had a closer cousin John Woodson who lived in Albemarle County, had married Elizabeth Baily and whose son Tarleton Woodson was a sergeant in the Revolutionary War and married Annis Shepherd.Either this man or his father was a member of Cumberland County's Committee of Safety in 1775, presided by wealthy neighbor George Carrington. Others among the 18 members included Edward Carrington, Joseph Carrington, Charles Woodson Jr. and Carter Henry Harrison I. His nephew Blake Woodson would represent Cumberland County in the House of Delegates in 1807, but may be more notable for joining with John Randolph of Roanoke, this man's legal and legislative colleague Creed Taylor and several other men to acquire land from Judith Randolph of Bizarre plantation as the founding trustees of Farmville, the county seat of Prince Edward County and now the nearest commercial center for Cumberland County.
Cumberland County voters elected this John Woodson as one of the men representing them in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1788 alongside attorney Creed Taylor, and thrice re-elected Woodson. While this Woodson represented Cumberland County, his distant cousin Tarlton Woodson represented nearby Prince Edward County, first alongside former Virginia governor Patrick Henry, and then alongside John Purnell This man's son-in-law Joseph Michaux represented Cumberland County alongside Thomas H. Drew in the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788. In that assembly, both men followed the lead of neighbors Patrick Henry and Thomas Read of neighboring Charlotte County and John Pride and Edmund Booker of Amelia County and voted against ratification. However, unlike Henry, Read, Pride and Booker, neither of those two Cumberland men ever held any other state elective office.