Archibald Alexander

Ancestor Number

A001134 »

Date of Birth

February 4, 1708

Place of Birth

Ireland

Date of Death

Before February 1, 1780

Place of Death

Rockbridge County, Virginia

Spouse(s)

Margaret Parks, Jane McClure

Children

Elizabeth, William, Ann, Joseph, Hannah, Phebe, Margaret, Isabella, Mary, Margaret, John, James, Samuel, Archibald, Jane

Service during theAmerican Revolution

High Sheriff and Justice of the Peace of Augusta County, VA in 1776 and later appointed Justice of the Peace of Rockbridge County, VA in 1778

State of Service

Virginia

Donor

Molly Thornberry Schiller

Archibald Alexander was born on February 4, 1708, in Manor Cunningham, County Donegal, Ireland, the son of William Alexander and Jean McNutt. The Alexander family originated in Scotland, Archibald’s grandfather having immigrated to Ireland in the early part of the 17th century.

He married his first cousin, Margaret Alexander Parks, in Ireland on December 31, 1734. They emigrated from Ireland to Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1736. After 11 years, in 1747, the family removed to Augusta County (later Rockbridge County), Virginia. After the death of his first wife in 1753, he married his second wife, Jane McClure, in 1757. He had seven children by his first wife and eight by his second; all but three of his children survived to adulthood.

Alexander was a farmer, settling 980 acres in Borden’s Grant in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. He was an elder of the Timber Ridge Presbyterian Church. Prior to the Revolutionary war, he served as a captain in the military service of the Virginia Colony and participated in the “Sandy Creek Expedition.”

Shortly after publication of the Declaration of Independence, Alexander began serving as the high sheriff of Augusta County, Virginia. Subsequently, upon the formation of Rockbridge County from parts of Augusta and Botetourt Counties, he was commissioned as a justice of the county court of the newly created county and was appointed sheriff by Governor Patrick Henry. (See Waddell’s Annals of Augusta County, pp 242 and 254.)

Alexander was described as shorter than the common height, thickset, broad-breasted and strongly built. His face was broad and his eyes were large, black and prominent. His manner of speaking was very kind and affectionate.

Alexander died in 1780. He apparently was buried in the Muse Cemetery, the older burying ground for Timberidge Presbyterian Church, but his gravestone is now gone.