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KEMP PLUMMER PLANTATION

 Warren County, North Carolina

Kemp Plummer, a lawyer and political leader, was a native of the Mobjack Bay area of Gloucester County, VA. Some sources list his birth date as 1767. His grandfather, William Plummer I, emigrated from England early in the eighteenth century and settled in Middlesex County, VA, where he married Elizabeth (Betsy) Kemp, descendant of Richard Kemp, deputy governor of Virginia for a year (1644–45). Kemp's father, William II, moved to Gloucester County and married Mary Hayes. Their children were William III, Mary, Anne, Elizabeth, Hannah (who married Nathaniel Macon in 1783), and Kemp (namesake of an uncle who had been a major in the French and Indian War). William II died in 1774, and about 1778 Mary Hayes Plummer moved her family to North Carolina. Kemp Plummer attended Hampden-Sydney College, graduating with the first class to receive diplomas from that new school in 1786. He then read law with Chancellor George Wythe at the College of William and Mary before being licensed to join the bar in Warrenton. The 1790 census reported him in Warren, unmarried, and the owner of thirty-eight slaves. Four years later he married Susanna Martin (1776–1838) on September 30, 1794, daughter of William Martin of Granville County and Ann Long, who was a daughter of Nicholas Long, commissary general of North Carolina during the Revolution. The young lawyer represented his county in the House of Commons the year he married, 1794.
As a lawyer Kemp Plummer practiced in all the counties surrounding Warren, becoming immensely popular with his clients and associates. He was known as "the honest lawyer." By 1815 Plummer had become a dominant spirit in the "Warren Junto," the close-knit collection of politicians who lived in and around Warrenton. Nathaniel Macon, James Turner, Weldon Edwards, William Hawkins, and William Miller were a few of the luminaries of the group. Together they dominated the political life of North Carolina during the era of the Virginia Dynasty.
Kemp and Susanna Plummer had a large family with 13 children, 10 of which survived to adulthood. One of their most illustrious grandchildren through their daughter, Lucy Martin Plummer who had married William H. Battle, was Kemp Plummer Battle, president of The University of North Carolina (1876–91).

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To ALFRED PLUMMER:

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To my daughter MARY ANN ALSTON:
WINNY & her child, on condition she support old JOICE

To my son KEMP PLUMMER:
DICK, son of MARY

To my dear daughter LUCY M. BATTLE:
girl JUDY

To my son ALFRED PLUMMER:
SUKEY, GEORGE (usually called GEORGE WADDY), and ISAAC

To my son THOMAS G. PLUMMER: '
man ALBERT (commonly called EPPES), and PHILLIS

To my daughter ANN M. FALKENER:
girl HARRIET (now in her possession) and her child

To my daughter SUSAN JANE PLUMMER:
ANNA and her children JULIA, LEWY and TOM & MARY

(Note: Susanna wrote multiple Codicils changing disposition of her slaves, this was from the latest dated ones.

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Estate of SUSAN PLUMMER, submitted by KEMP PLUMMER, Executor.
Warren County, February Court 1839
Account of Sales of Property:
Slaves:
BILLY sold to KEMP PLUMMER - $500
GEORGE sold to GEORGE RODGERS - $800
MARY, & her children MARY & MIMA - sold to AUSTIN PLUMMER - $710
LEWY sold to MICHAEL FERRALL - $700

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to my friend JOSEPH B. BATCHELOR my boy HARRY (son of CATHARINE which boy I purchased of MRS. ANN M. FALKENER)

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* Kemp Plummer Bible gives birth date as March, Thomas G. Plummer Bible reads April

Researched and transcribed by Deloris Williams