James Powell Cocke

James Powell Cocke, III

Find A Grave Memorial ID # 156304870

Cocke was born in 1748; died January 13, 1829. He married twice: First, Elizabeth Archer, sister of Martha Archer, wife of Chastain Cocke, and of the father of Hon. William Segar Archer, (died 1773, without issue)

He married second, September, 1777, Lucy Smith, born Lucy Smith, the second wife of James Powell Cocke, was the daughter of Obadiah Smith, of Westham, Chesterfield County, who was a man of considerable property, and owned lands in Chesterfield, Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and a fourth plantation at the junction of Hico and Dan rivers, in the southeastern corner of Halifax. He died in 1777. His son, Obadjah, was a lieutenant in the Continental army. There were also in the Continental Line two William Smiths, one of whom was certainly a brother of Lucy Smith. The other (of a collateral branch) was of Powhatan.

It will be remembered that in a previous article (see April Number Magazine, page 411) we stated that Mary Cocke, daughter of William Cocke, married (about 1700) Obadiah Smith, The present Obadiah Smith, of Westham, in Chesterfield county, was his grandson, and the son of Luke Smith.

There was another Obadiah Smith, who was the contemporary and cousin of Obadiah Smith, of Westham. He died in 1765, and there was a litigation about his will, the case (Smith vs. Carter) being reported in 3 Randolph's Reports page 166.

James Powell Cocke and Lucy Smith, his wife, were, therefore, both descended from Richard Cocke' — the former through Thomas Cocke; the latter through William Cocke.' The pedigree of Lucy Smith, as a descendant of William Cocke, is given farther on under the head of the fine of William Cocke.

On account of his health, James Powell Cocke, who seems to have lived at Malvern Hills, removed to the up-country in 1791. Malvern Hills had been sold some time before to Robert Nelson, brother of Governor Nelson, and James Powell Cocke (as is stated by Mr. R. Heber Nelson, grandson of Robert Nelson) received in exchange for it lands in the North Garden, Albemarle county.

But he did not leave Henrico until 1791, when he removed to Augusta county, having purchased the Spring Hill estate (840 acres), near Tinkling Spring, from the Rev. James Waddell, D.D., the celebrated blind preacher immortalized by Wirt. He paid for this land ;^i,o5o (13,500), which he sold in 1793 for 15,333.33, and which was bought by John Coalter in 1812 for 113,700 (Joseph Addison Waddell in Staunton Spectator, February, 1885). [The Rev. James Waddell bought this property from heirs of John Preston, who lived on it, and who was progenitor of the Preston family of Virginia. Died c. 1780.]

James Powell Cocke was a member of the Board of Trustees of the old Staunton Academy, which consisted of the following distinguished names: Rev. John H. McCue, Gabriel Jones [a famous man in that day], Alex. St. Clair, Archibald Stuart, Robert Gamble, William Bowyer, General Robert Porterfield [married half-sister of J. P. C], James Powell Cocke, John Tate, Robert Grattan, Gentlemen.

In 1793 James Powell Cocke sold his plantation in Augusta, removed to Albemarle, and lived at Edgemont, on the Hardware river, near the Green Mountain, thirteen miles south of Charlottesville — a handsome old place still in good preservation, where his monument stands in the old family burying-ground.

James Powell Cocke and Lucy Smith had issue:

• James Powell Cocke,' born October 10, 1779; died 1811 married Martha Ann Lewis died 1856; connected with Lewises and Randolphs of Albemarle,
• Another son born and died, 1783.
• Mary Cocke, born 1785; died in infancy.
• Martha Cocke,' born 1788, and died in infancy.
• Chastain Cocke, born 1790, and died in infancy.
• Smith Cocke, born 1792 died in Kentucky, 1835; educated at Washington College.
• Chastain Cocke, born February, 1795; died (unmarried) at Edgemont, December 16, 1838.
• Mary Cocke, born October 21, 1796; died March 5, 1888.
• Martha Cocke, born June 14, 1799; died July 12, 1874.

Mary Cocke, daughter of James Powell Cocke II, married, about 1817, Dr. Charles Carter, of Charlottesville. Charles Warner Lewis Carter (he called himself Charles Carter) was son of Edward Carter (the second), of Blenheim, Albemarle, and Mary Lewis, and grandson of the first Edward Carter, of Blenheim, who was a son of Colonel John Carter, of Shirley; son of " King" Carter. The first Edward Carter represented Albemarle in House of Burgesses about 1770, and again in 1785, and probably other years. Dr. Charles Carter was also in the Legislature about 1849. Mary Lewis was daughter of Colonel Charles Lewis (of the family of Colonel Fielding Lewis), of Buck Island, Albemarle. (Represented Albemarle in Convention of 1776.)

Martha Cocke, daughter of James Powell Cocke II, married, 1825, Valentine Wood Southall, son of Major Stephen Southall, and grandson of Colonel Turner Southall of Henrico. There was a singular conjunction here. Both of the parties were descended from Richard Cocke by a double line. Martha Cocke, daughter of James Powell Cocke, was descended through James Powell Cocke, from Thomas Cocke, eldest son of Richard.

Through her mother, Lucy Smith, she was descended from William Cocke, father of Mary Cocke, wife of Obadiah Smith. Valentine Wood Southall was descended from Martha Cocke, who married Henry Wood in 1724. She was daughter of William, son of John; so that he traces through John Cocke, son of Richard. 1 This was his maternal line.

His grandfather, Colonel Turner Southall, married Martha Vandewall, who was the daughter of Martha (Cocke) Pleasants, who was daughter of Martha Cocke, who was daughter of Richard Cocke. So that the descent by this line is to Richard Cocke, son of Richard. The pair trace their descent to four
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James Powell Cocke on Monticello.og

Cocke was born at Malvern Hill, his family's ancestral home in Henrico County, Virginia. In 1783, Cocke moved to Augusta County and then in 1787 he relocated to Albemarle County. When he came to Albemarle, Cocke purchased from Robert Nelson sixteen hundred acres on the south fork of the Hardware River. According to Albemarle County historian Edgar Woods, Cocke "fixed his residence on the east side of Fan's Mountain, and the west edge of the Eppes Creek Valley .... He first built the mill which has ever since continued in that vicinity ...." Cocke was married twice, first to Elizabeth Archer, then to Lucy Smith. He had five children: James Powell, Smith, Chastian, Mary, and Martha.

In his memorandum books, Thomas Jefferson first mentioned Cocke as early as 1771, when Jefferson became involved in a case between "Isaac an Indian" and Cocke, whom Isaac sued for freedom. Late in Jefferson's presidency, he purchased glasses and a stove in Philadelphia for Cocke. Most of Jefferson's correspondence with Cocke comes from the 1812-1813 period and concerns stocking Jefferson's fish pond with "Roanoke chub."

In Albemarle County, James Cocke lived at Edgemont, a house that was built ca. 1796 and is generally believed to have been designed by Thomas Jefferson. Cocke died in 1829 and was buried in a small family plot behind the house.