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David J. Saunders (January 25, 1811 – June 12, 1873) was a Virginia businessman and politician. He served two terms representing the City of Richmond in the Virginia House of Delegates, and was President of Richmond's City Council during the American Civil War. After the city's surrender and during two periods during which Union military authorities removed long-time and pro-Confederate mayor Joseph C. Mayo, Saunders in effect managed the city, especially its waterworks and gasworks.

Early and family life

Born in Virginia early in 1811, possibly to John H. Saunders, the principal of Richmond's male orphanage and his wife Sally (the institution's matron). David J. Saunders married Maria Hope in Louisa, Virginia, on December 10, 1829. They had at least two sons and two daughters. David J. Saunders probably owned four slaves in 1840. He owned at least one enslaved person in 1850. By 1860 Saunders owned at least 39 slaves.

Career

By 1850 Saunders operated a grocery in Richmond, Virginia, while his 12 and 8 year old sons David Saunders Jr. and John Saunders and their sisters Sarah (age 14) and Maria (age 10) attended school. The grocer and distiller who prospered in Richmond shortly after this man's death was Edmund Archer Saunders (1831-1898), son of Isaac Taylor Saunders and who before the war operated a grocery at "Piney Grove" in Charles City County. E.A. Saunders' mansion in what was then Richmond's West End is now Founders Hall of Virginia Commonwealth University.

American Civil War

Richmond's voters elected Saunders as one of their three representatives (a part-time position) in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1859. He failed to win re-election in 1861, although he again won election in 1863.

After the Confederate government left Richmond on April 2, 1865, departing Confederate troops burned the tobacco storehouses as mayor Mayo and city council president Saunders had feared and despite their pleas. The resulting conflagration destroyed much of the city. Early the following morning, Mayo rode his carriage eastward out of the city, seeking a Union officer to whom to surrender Richmond, as well as plead for assistance in suppressing the fire. Occupation authorities soon removed Mayo from office, although when the Union-sympathizing Virginia Governor, Francis Pierpont, arrived in Richmond on May 26, he allowed mayor Mayo to resume office.

When Congressional Reconstruction began, Virginia's military administrator, Gen. John Wesley Turner, responded to complaints about vigilantes rounding up blacks and charging them as vagrants in the mayor's court (where mayor Mayo threatened to return them to slavery) by instructing his subordinates not to obey directions from mayor Mayo nor other city officials. General Turner issued another order prohibiting the organization of the new city council when Richmonders appeared to elect lawyer and former Confederate colonel Nathaniel A. Sturdivant as mayor and six other former Confederates to lesser positions. Under pressure from federal authorities, Sturdivant declined to accept office, so Gen. Turner asked Saunders to continue as city manager, operating the gas and water works.

Governor Pierpont formally removed mayor Mayo from office, then on July 3, 1865, appointed Saunders Richmond's mayor to replace him. However, when municipal elections were again held on April 6, 1866, voters attempted to return Mayo to office. The military governor during Congressional Reconstruction (now Gen. John Schofield) again removed Mayo from office on May 4, this time appointing New York-born George Chahoon as Richmond's mayor on May 6, 1866. Meanwhile, banker William H. MacFarland succeeded Saunders as city council President. However, even federal census-takers in 1870 still considered Saunders the city's mayor.

Death

Saunders died in 1873.

References

1. Virginia Select Marriages 1785-1940 but document (which might list parents) not viewable online at ancestry.com
2. The 1840 federal census, which does not enumerate dependents' names, includes a Richmond Ward 3 white male head-of-household aged between 20 and 30 years indexed as "Daniel V. Saunders" (in handwriting that appears "David J. Saunders"), whose household included eight free whites and four enslaved persons.
3. Virginia's state slave schedules are not available online, but both the 1850 and 1860 lists do show him as a slaveowner in Henrico County according to ancestry.com. However, no corresponding 1850 federal slave schedule entry appears available, either through an oversight, misindexing or because the enslaved persons were in either Louisa County or western Hanover County, Virginia.
4. 4 men between 45 and 60 years old, additional adult males aged 35, 28 and 22 aged 21 years as well as seven women aged between 30 and 40 years, and females aged 18 and 16 as well as 2 16year old boys, 2 14 year old boys, and a 13 year old and 10 year old boys, as well as three 11-year old girls, and additional girls aged 9, 7, 6 and four 2-years old, as well as two 5-year old boys and three 3year old boys. The carryover page for "D.J. Sanders" may include a 65-year old black female, year-old black and mulatto infants. 1860 U.S. Federal Census, slave schedules, Richmond Ward 3, Henrico County, Virginia.
5. The regular 1860 census entry is missing, although his father may have been John H. Saunders, the 75-year old principal of the male orphanage in Richmond's Third Ward, with his wife Sally D. Saunders as matron.
6. 1850 U.S. Federal Census for Richmond (independent city), family 2050
7. A Guidebook to Virginia's Historical Markers. University of Virginia Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-8139-1491-6.
8. James A. Schultz, Founders Hall: Virginia Commonwealth University (U.S. Dept Education, 1995) p. 4 available at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED377801.pdf
9. Cynthia Miller Leonard, Virginia's General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond, Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 471, 485.
10. Dabney p. 201
11. Michael B. Chesson, Richmond After the War: 1865-1890 (Virginia State Library, 1981) p.92
12. Chesson p. 93
13. W. Asbury Christian, Richmond: Her Past and Present (Richmond: L.H. Jenkins, 1912) pp. 272, 275
14. Christian p. 300 gives the year as 1868, and also at p. 194 states Saunders as city council president attended the transfer of President Monroe's body to the new Hollywood cemetery in 1858.
15. Chesson p. 94
16. 1870 U.S. Federal Census for the City of Richmond, Virginia,

• 1811 births
• 1873 deaths
• People from Henrico County, Virginia
• Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
• Members of the Virginia House of Delegates
• People of Virginia in the American Civil War
• 19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly