About The Cabell Family Society, Inc.
The primogenitor of the Virginia Cabells, Dr. William Cabell, was born at Bugley Farm near Warminster, England in March 1699, and sailed to Virginia in 1723. He settled along the James River in Henrico County and married Elizabeth Burks of Hanover. Three years after his arrival their first child, Mary, was born.
By 1750, William and Elizabeth had four more children (William, Joseph, John, and Nicholas), and had established a settlement on the James River called Warminster. They built Liberty Hall, their home in what is now Nelson County, around 1742. Upon their deaths (Elizabeth in 1756, William in 1774), they were buried in the family graveyard at Liberty Hall.
Nearly 200 years later, in 1955, a falling tree limb knocked the monument of William and Elizabeth off its base. A handful of Cabell descendants formed an informal committee to repair the monument, but they realized an organization was needed to collect funds and maintain the graveyard. As a result, The Cabell Memorial Foundation was formed in 1957 with the charter:
As a Virginia Corporation, annual meetings have been held since 1957, usually during the third week of October. The major business at these meetings is election of the board of directors, but the biggest enjoyment has always been meeting old and new Cabell cousins, and sharing stories.
By the early 1970’s, the number of members had reached 200, and grew slowly over the next 30 years to about 300 at the end of the 1990’s. Over 600 people have been members at one time or another since the society began.
Source: The History Channel: Eleven Short Papers, by Randolph W. Cabell, 2000.