Abram Trigg

Abram Trigg (1750 – unknown) was an American planter, lawyer, militia officer, and politician who represented Montgomery County, Virginia, in the Virginia Ratifying Convention and later served six consecutive terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1797 to 1809. His public career spanned the Revolutionary era and the early decades of the republic, during which he participated actively in the legislative process as a member of the Republican Party and represented the interests of his Virginia constituents in a formative period of American political development.

Trigg was born in 1750 on his father’s farm near New London in what was then Lunenberg County, in the Colony of Virginia, a region that became part of newly formed Bedford County in 1754. He came from a prominent family of English origin; his grandfather, also named Abram Trigg, had emigrated from Cornwall, England, around 1710. His father, William Trigg (1716–1773), served for many years as a judge in Bedford County, and his mother, Mary Johns Trigg (1720–1773), bore eight children during their marriage. The Trigg family produced several notable public figures. Abram’s brother John Trigg would later serve alongside him in Congress, while another brother, Stephen Trigg, became a member of a land commission in Kentucky in 1779 and was killed while commanding a regiment at the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. Yet another brother, William Trigg, was ancestor to Congressman Connally Findlay Trigg and Richmond shipbuilder William Robertson Trigg, further extending the family’s political and commercial influence in Virginia and beyond.

Details of Trigg’s early formal education are not well documented, but his subsequent admission to the bar indicates that he received sufficient legal training to qualify for practice in colonial and early state courts. He was admitted to the bar and began his legal career in the then-vast Montgomery County, Virginia, a frontier jurisdiction carved from earlier western counties. There he established himself as both a lawyer and a planter, residing on his estate known as “Buchanan’s Bottom” on the New River. Like many landowners of his class in late eighteenth-century Virginia, Trigg farmed using enslaved labor. The 1787 Virginia tax census records that he owned five enslaved people, six horses, and twenty head of cattle in Montgomery County, holdings that were slightly fewer than those of Daniel Trigg—possibly a relative—who served several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Trigg’s public service began at the local level and in the militia during the Revolutionary War. He held various county offices in Montgomery County, including service as a clerk and judge, and he occupied other local positions of trust as the region developed. During the Revolutionary War he served in the Virginia militia, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel of militia by 1782. In the postwar years he continued his involvement in the state’s military organization and ultimately held the rank of general of militia in Virginia, reflecting both his standing in the community and his experience in frontier defense and local command.

In 1779 Trigg married Susannah Ingles, daughter of William Ingles and Mary Draper Ingles. His mother-in-law, Mary Draper Ingles, was widely known on the Virginia frontier for having escaped from Indian captivity in 1755 and walking approximately 800 miles to return to her home after her capture during the French and Indian War. Abram and Susannah Trigg had ten children, further linking the Trigg family to other prominent frontier and New River Valley families through marriage and descent.

Trigg entered state-level politics as a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788, representing Montgomery County at a critical moment in the formation of the United States. At the convention he aligned with Patrick Henry and the Anti-Federalists, voting against ratification of the proposed United States Constitution out of concern for the scope of federal power and the absence, at that time, of a bill of rights. Despite his opposition, the Constitution was ratified, and Virginia joined the new federal union. Trigg’s Anti-Federalist stance foreshadowed his later affiliation with the Republican (often called Democratic-Republican) Party, which generally favored limited federal authority and a strict construction of the Constitution.

In national politics, Trigg was elected as a Republican to the Fifth Congress and to the five succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1797, to March 3, 1809. He represented Virginia during the administrations of Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a period marked by intense partisan conflict between Federalists and Republicans, debates over foreign policy, and the consolidation of the new federal government’s institutions. In 1797 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives unopposed. He was re-elected in 1799 with 88.47 percent of the vote, defeating Federalist candidate William Preston. In 1801, 1803, and 1805 he secured re-election without opposition, reflecting strong support in his district. In 1807 he was again re-elected, this time defeating Federalist Daniel Sheffey. Over his six terms in Congress, Trigg contributed to the legislative process as a steady Republican voice from western Virginia, participating in the democratic process during a significant period in American history and consistently representing the interests of his constituents from Montgomery County and the surrounding region.

After leaving Congress in 1809, Trigg appears to have returned to his legal and agricultural pursuits at “Buchanan’s Bottom” on the New River in Montgomery County. The precise details of his later life, including any additional public offices or activities, are not well documented in surviving records. He died at an unknown date and was buried on the family estate. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the exact time of his death, his career as a Revolutionary-era militia officer, Anti-Federalist delegate, and long-serving Republican congressman situates him among the notable figures who helped shape Virginia’s and the nation’s political development in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.