Biography
Born in Springfield, Virginia, he graduated from Hampden-Sydney College. He studied medicine for two years before turning to law. He later graduated from Princeton University in 1819 and was admitted to the bar in 1821. He practiced law in Virginia in both Prince Edward and Mecklenburg counties until 1829 when he moved to North Carolina. He later got involved politics and was elected to the thirtieth congress as a Democrat, serving from 1847 to 1853, and ran unsuccessfully for reelection in 1852. He was a presidential elector in the 1860 presidential election on the Democratic ticket for John C. Breckinridge and Joseph Lane. When his state seceded from the Union, he went with it to the Confederacy and was elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress. He was later elected to the first Confederate congress, serving from 1862 to 1864. He died in Oxford, North Carolina in 1876 and was interred at Shiloh Presbyterian Churchyard in Granville County, North Carolina.He was an ancestor of Isabelle Hall Fiske (Barbara Hall), the cartoonist, artist, and co-creator of Quarry Hill Creative Center.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Watkins Venable
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