Randolphs of Roanoke

Randolphs of Roanoke
Name	Randolphs of Roanoke
Region	Roanoke, Virginia
Founded	18th century
Notable members	William Randolph, Peyton Randolph, John Randolph

Contents

Randolphs of Roanoke The Randolphs of Roanoke were an influential Virginian family centered around Roanoke, Virginia, with connections to Colonial Williamsburg, Richmond, Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, Monticello, and plantations across Petersburg, Virginia and Hanover County, Virginia. Emerging in the late 18th century, the family interwove with figures from the American Revolution, the Virginia House of Burgesses, and the United States Congress, interacting with actors such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, John Marshall, and Patrick Henry.

Origins and Early Settlement

The family's roots trace to branches of the Randolph family of Petersburg, Virginia and Henrico County, Virginia, who migrated from ties to England and settled near the Roanoke River, linking estates to the Tidewater region and the Shenandoah Valley, while participating in networks that included William Byrd II, Robert Carter I, Francis Fauquier, Edmund Pendleton, and Bland family. Early Randolph settlers engaged with institutions like the College of William & Mary, the Virginia Company of London, and the Anglican Church (Church of England), and their landholdings abutted tracts associated with Daniel Boone, Patrick Henry's Red Hill, and roads to Staunton, Virginia.

Key figures included descendants linked to William Randolph (colonist), who connected to Peyton Randolph, a president of the Continental Congress, and to John Randolph of Roanoke, a congressman and orator associated with Thomas Jefferson and adversaries like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Other lineages tied into marriages with the Carter family of Shirley, the Randolph family of Turkey Island, the Lewis family (Fielding Lewis), the Harrison family of Virginia, and the Monroe family, creating kinship with James Monroe, George Wythe, Beverley Randolph, and Edmund Ruffin. Military and political alliances brought relationships to Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Confederate contemporaries such as Jefferson Davis and J.E.B. Stuart.

The Randolphs of Roanoke held seats in the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Constitutional Convention, and the United States House of Representatives, influencing legislation alongside figures like John C. Calhoun, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Aaron Burr, and John Quincy Adams. Economically, their plantations and mills connected to the Norfolk and Western Railway, Tennessee Valley trade routes, and market towns including Big Lick (later Roanoke), Salem, Virginia, and Lynchburg, Virginia, while engaging with enterprises such as the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and industries tied to tobacco, wheat, and cotton markets that involved merchants from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. The family's financial networks included dealings with banks like the Bank of Virginia and legal interactions with jurists from the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

Estate houses attributed to branch members displayed architectural styles influenced by Jeffersonian architecture, Georgian architecture, and Greek Revival architecture, with designs echoing Monticello, Montpelier, and Shirley Plantation. Notable residences and outbuildings aligned with craftsmen and architects such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and regional builders who also worked on Dungeness (Chesapeake Bay), drawing landscape practices from designers in Mount Vernon and plantings similar to those at Blandwood. Estates featured gardens, family cemeteries, and slave quarters linked to agricultural practices documented in estate inventories like those of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and correspondences with James Madison's Montpelier stewards.

Members of the Randolphs engaged with cultural institutions including the University of Virginia, the College of William & Mary, the Roanoke College, and patronized arts linked to Edwin L. Drake-era expansion and regional theaters akin to Barter Theatre. They corresponded with intellectuals such as John Adams, Thomas Paine, James Fenimore Cooper, and Washington Irving, and supported churches, schools, and philanthropic efforts comparable to those by the Beale family and the Carnegie Corporation. Family musicians, writers, and patrons contributed to local newspapers resembling the Richmond Enquirer and the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, and participated in societies like the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at University of Virginia and historical societies paralleling the Virginia Historical Society.

Post‑Civil War economic shifts, emancipation, and transformations in transportation—marked by the rise of the Norfolk and Western Railway and industrial centers like Roanoke, Virginia—diminished plantation revenues, paralleling declines experienced by families such as the Carter family and Lee family. Preservation efforts later involved local historians, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and organizations akin to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Historic American Buildings Survey, leading to restoration projects, archive donations to institutions like the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society, and inclusion in regional heritage trails near Blue Ridge Parkway and Appalachian Trail corridors. The Randolphs' papers and artifacts are held among collections associated with Monticello Library, university archives at University of Virginia, and county courthouses in Roanoke County, Virginia and Salem, Virginia, informing scholarly work on the American Revolution, antebellum politics, and Southern architecture.

Category:People from Roanoke, Virginia