Series 16 - Richard McIlwaine family history

40pp

Richard McIlwaine Dunn, Jr. donated the excerpts of the book to Kerby A. Miller via letter of 5 July 1978.

Photocopied excerpts of Memories of Three Score Years and Ten by Richard McIlwaine (New York and Washington: Neale, 1908).
Per the donation letter of Richard McIlwaine Dunn, Jr.: ‘My great-grandfather Richard McIlwaine was not an emigrant, but his father, Archibald Graham McIlwaine, and his mother, Martha Dunn, were both Irish emigrants about 1823. Archibald Graham McIlwaine came to this country and settled in Virginia about 1823, while still a teenager. He did well and he was the founder of the Life Insurance Company of Virginia, which is now a large national insurance company. He was of some importance in the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, and for some years he was a trustee of Hampden-Sydney College, which is a presbyterian college in Virginia founded in 1775. His son Richard McIlwaine was a presbyterian minister and was president of Hampden-Sydney College for many years. He also was elected to our State Legislature in Virginia for one term. There is no positive count, but I will guess that through the years 25 members of the "McIlwaine family" have graduated from Hampden-Sydney College. There are still many McIlwaines and their kin here in Virginia. You will note that Martha Dunn was also an emigrant from Northern Ireland. A number of members of the McIlwaine and Dunn families moved to Petersburg, Virginia in the early 1800s. Petersburg was a Scotch-Irish town. My grandfather William Wilcox Dunn and my grandmother Ann Read McIlwaine were both from Petersburg, Virginia and second cousins. Richard McIlwaine visited his grandparents in Ireland on two occasions. In his old age he wrote his memoirs which included these visits to Ireland. I am attaching these two chapters from his memoirs and the first chapter about his ancestry and kinfolk in Ireland. On the first page of Chapter One of his memoirs he mentions that his grandfather's name, Richard McIlwaine, father of the emigrant Graham McIlwaine, is carved in the rear wall of the Cathedral (Episcopal) which was, as I understand, in Londonderry. I understand further that the Cathedral was damaged by Cromwell troops and that this Richard McIlwaine was the building contractor (undertaker) who rebuilt the church. For this job he was given two silver goblets. I have one of these cups and enclosed is a photo. The other is in the possession of descendants of Archibald Graham McIlwaine in Memphis, Tennessee in this country.’