Members of the Vance family appear among the early settlers and public figures of several Virginia frontier communities during the eighteenth century. James Vance was established at Opequon by the 1730s and married into the Glass family, while David Vance participated in the organization of Frederick County government. Later, John and Joseph Vance appear among the Presbyterian settlers of the Holston River valley. The surviving account does not establish the precise relationship among these different Vance families.
The following account brings together the Vance family references scattered throughout William Henry Foote’s Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical, Second Series, arranging them by generation and family relationship.
James Vance of Opequon
James Vance was among the early settlers of the Opequon community, where he took up land as early as 1736 or 1737. He married a daughter of Samuel Glass and Mary Gamble, two of the early Scotch-Irish settlers of the region.
Through this marriage, Vance became closely connected with one of the principal families established along Opequon Creek. Samuel Glass had acquired a tract of approximately 1,600 acres near the head spring of the creek, and James Vance established his own residence a short distance farther downstream.
James and his wife became the ancestors of what Foote described as a numerous family. Many of their descendants eventually left the Shenandoah Valley and migrated west of the Allegheny Mountains.
James Vance remained associated with Opequon until his death. He was buried in the Opequon graveyard, where Foote noted that his grave lay immediately to the right of that of his father-in-law, Samuel Glass.
David Vance and the First Frederick County Court
Another early Virginia resident bearing the Vance name was David Vance, who participated in the establishment of civil government in Frederick County.
When Frederick County organized its first county court, David Vance was appointed as one of the original magistrates. On November 14, 1743, he and Morgan Morgan opened the first court at Winchester by administering the oath of office to the other appointed magistrates.
Those magistrates included Marquis Calmes, Thomas Rutherford, William M’Mahon, Meredith Holmes, George Hoge, and John White. After administering the oath to their colleagues, Vance and Morgan received the oath from the other magistrates, completing the formal organization of the county court.
David Vance’s presence among the first magistrates places him among the early civil officers responsible for establishing county government on Virginia’s northern frontier.
The Vance Families of the Holston River Valley
Members of the Vance family also appear among the settlers of the Holston River region during the later eighteenth century.
Foote refers to a substantial Vance, Newell, and Blackburn connection in this region. He characterized these interconnected families as numerous and respectable and noted their support of the Whig cause during the American Revolution.
Among this group were John Vance and Joseph Vance, both identified as heads of families by 1773.
That year, John and Joseph Vance joined other frontier settlers in formally calling Rev. Charles Cummings to serve the united Presbyterian congregations of Ebbing Spring and Sinking Spring in Fincastle County.
The members of the congregations agreed to support Cummings with an annual salary of £90. The presence of John and Joseph Vance among the signers places them within the organized Presbyterian community developing along the Holston frontier before the Revolution.
Genealogical Notes
The surviving references do not establish a genealogical relationship between James Vance of Opequon, David Vance of Frederick County, and John and Joseph Vance of the Holston River region. Their appearance under the same surname should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that they belonged to a single immediate family.
James Vance is specifically identified as the husband of a daughter of Samuel Glass and Mary Gamble, although Foote does not provide her given name.
The statement that James Vance became the ancestor of a numerous family indicates a substantial line of descendants, many of whom migrated west of the Allegheny Mountains, but the individual descendants are not identified in the account summarized here.
John and Joseph Vance are associated with the larger Vance, Newell, and Blackburn family connection of the Holston region, but Foote does not specify their exact relationships to one another or to the other Vance families mentioned elsewhere in his work.
Because these references occur in different geographical and historical contexts, additional land, probate, church, and court records would be necessary to determine whether the separate Vance groups shared a common ancestry.
Source
This family genealogy was compiled from references appearing throughout William Henry Foote’s Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical. Foote’s scattered biographical, family, church, and settlement references have been brought together here and arranged by generation to make the genealogical relationships easier to follow.
Foote, William Henry. Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical. Second Series. Second edition, revised. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1856. Available online at AccessGenealogy, Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical. Accessed 7 August 2026.