Letitia Shelby

Letitia “Leddi” Cox Shelby (1727-1777) was the wife of General Evan Shelby, and mother of General Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky.

Source: Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia (1901)

A weather-beaten stone lies near the centre of Maplewood Cemetery in Charlottesville, inscribed with the name of Letitia Shelby, and the statement that she departed this life on September 7th, 1777. This Cemetery was not laid out until 1831. Previous to that time families of the town were generally in the habit of interring their dead in their own lots. A public graveyard however is said to have existed on the road to Cochran's Mill, about where the residence of Drury Wood now stands, and from this place this stone was removed after Maplewood was established. It is declared by descendants of the Shelby family, that this Letitia was the wife of General Evan Shelby, and mother of General Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky. A curious inquiry arises how she came to be in Charlottesville, or in Albemarle County, at the time of her death.

Evan Shelby was an immigrant from Wales, and at first settled in Maryland, near Hagerstown. There his son Isaac was born in 1750. In the year 1771 father and son were both in southwestern Virginia, in the neighborhood of Bristol; and there the home of Evan Shelby continued to be during his life. It is natural to suppose that his wife, whose maiden name was Letitia Cox, accompanied them to their new home in the West. Whether she was visiting friends in Albemarle, or was passing through on a journey, at the period of her last sickness, it is perhaps impossible now to ascertain. But the plain, well preserved inscription on her tombstone leaves no doubt that this vicinity was the place of her death. A tradition in the Floyd family states, that about 1680 a Nathaniel Davis, who was also a native of Wales, married a child of Nicketti, a daughter of the Indian Chief, Opechancanough, the brother of Powhatan. Robert Davis was a son of these parents, and an ancestor of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy; and a granddaughter of Robert Davis was the wife of Evan Shelby. Probability is lent to this account by the fact, that Robert Davis had a son named Samuel, who would thus be the uncle of Letitia Shelby ; and Samuel Davis was the owner of several tracts of land in Albemarle, on the north fork of Rockfish, on Green Creek, and on both sides of Moore's Creek, adjoining the Carter lands. At the time of her death, Mrs. Shelby may have been visiting the family of this man.