James Powell Cocke III, born 1748; died January 13, 1829. He married twice: First, Elizabeth Archer, sister of Martha Archer, wife of Chastain Cocke, and of the father of Hon. Wm. S. Archer, (died 1773, without issue)
He married second, September, 1777, Lucy Smith, born Lucy Smith, the second wife of James Powell Cocke, was the daughter of Obadiah Smith, of Westham, Chesterfield county, who was a man of considerable property, and owned lands in Chesterfield, Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and a fourth plantation at the junction of Hico and Dan rivers, in the southeastern corner of Halifax. He died in 1777. His son, Obadjah, was a lieutenant in the Continental army. [There were also in the Continental Line two William Smiths, one of whom was certainly a brother of Lucy Smith. The other (of a collateral branch) was of Powhatan.]
It will be remembered that in a previous article (see April Number Magazine, page 411) we stated that Mary Cocke, daughter of William Cocke, married (about 1700) Obadiah Smith, The present Obadiah Smith, of Westham, in Chesterfield county, was his grandson, and the son of Luke Smith.
There was another Obadiah Smith, who was the contemporary and cousin of Obadiah Smith, of Westham. He died in 1765, and there was a litigation about his will, the case (Smith vs. Carter) being reported in 3 Randolph's Reports page 166.
James Powell Cocke and Lucy Smith, his wife, were, therefore, both descended from Richard Cocke' — the former through Thomas Cocke; the latter through William Cocke.' [The pedigree of Lucy Smith, as a descendant of William Cocke, is given farther on under the head of the fine of William Cocke.]
On account of his health, James Powell Cocke, who seems to have lived at Malvern Hills, removed to the up-country in 1791. Malvern Hills had been sold some time before to Robert Nelson, brother of Governor Nelson, and James Powell Cocke (as is stated by Mr. R. Heber Nelson, grandson of Robert Nelson) received in exchange for it lands in the North Garden, Albemarle county.
But he did not leave Henrico until 1791, when he removed to Augusta county, having purchased the Spring Hill estate (840 acres), near Tinkling Spring, from the Rev. James Waddell, D. D., the celebrated blind preacher immortalized by Wirt. He paid for this land ;^i,o5o (l3,5oo), which he sold in 1793 for 15,333.33^, and which was bought by John Coalter in 1812 for 113,700 (Joseph Addison Waddell in Staunton Spectator, February, 1885). [The Rev. James Waddell bought this property from heirs of John Preston, who lived on it, and who was progenitor of the Preston family of Virginia. Died c. 1780.]
James Powell Cocke was a member of the Board of Trustees of the old Staunton Academy, which consisted of the following distinguished names: Rev. John H. McCue, Gabriel Jones [a famous man in that day], Alex. St. Clair, Archibald Stuart, Robert Gamble, William Bowyer, General Robert Porterfield [married half-sister of J. P. C], James Powell Cocke, John Tate, Robert Grattan, Gentlemen.
In 1793 James Powell Cocke sold his plantation in Augusta, removed to Albemarle, and lived at Edgemont, on the Hardware river, near the Green Mountain, thirteen miles south of Charlottesville — a handsome old place still in good preservation, where his monument stands in the old family burying-ground.
James Powell Cocke and Lucy Smith had issue:
James Powell Cocke,' born October 10, 1779; died 1811 married Martha Ann Lewis died 1856; connected with Lewises and Randolphs, of Albemarle,
Another son born and died, 1783.
Mary Cocke, born 1785; died in infancy.
Martha Cocke,' born 1788, and died in infancy.
Chastain Cocke, born 1790, and died in infancy.
Smith Cocke, born 1792 died in Kentucky, 1835; educated at Washington College.
Chastain Cocke, born February, 1795; died (unmarried) at Edgemont, December 16, 1838.
Mary Cocke, born October 21, 1796; died March 5, 1888.
Martha Cocke, born June 14, 1799; died July 12, 1874.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cocke-580
