Daniel French Slaughter (October 15, 1799 October 13, 1882) was Virginia planter and politician from two distinguished families of politicians and soldiers.
Early and family life
The son of Capt. Philip Pendleton Slaughter (1758-1849) and his wife, Margaret French Strother (daughter of French Strother), Slaughter was born into the First Families of Virginia, his grandfathers (uncles and cousins) having helped settle Culpeper County and fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was educated at a school at Cloverdale (in what had once been Capt. Philip Slaughter's Springfield farm), probably by classical scholar John Robertson, because by the time 1818, former Presbyterian church pastor Samuel Davies Hoge succeeded him in 1818, Daniel French Slaughter was attending the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Dr. Daniel Slaughter lived on Slaughter Mountain (also called "Cedar Mountain" particularly after the American Civil War) and married twice. He first married Letitia Madison, a niece of President James Madison, in 1828, and they had sons Phillip Madison Slaughter (who was a lawyer by 1850) and James Edwin Slaughter (1827-1901). In 1855 the widower married Mary Wallace Winston (1819-1897), granddaughter of revolutionary Capt. Thomas Wallace. They had three daughters Mary Wallace Slaughter (1856-1938), Elizabeth French Slaughter Wallace (1858-1952) and Caroline Winston Slaughter (1861-1948) as well as two sons: John Mercer Slaughter (1859-1914) and Daniel Alexander Slaughter (1863-1920), who would also serve in the Virginia House of Delegates, as would his son, also D[aniel] French Slaughter (1900-1963) and whose son (this Daniel French Slaughter's great-grandson); also D. French Slaughter Jr. (1925-1998) would represent Culpeper County in the U.S. House of Representatives.
