Col. Joseph Martin, born in Henry County in 1785, who served in the War of 1812.
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Joseph built his home he called "Greenwood", a two-story Flemish-bond brick house built in 1808–1810 at Axton, Henry County, Virginia. The house is based on a symmetrical three-bay Early Republic style and has a centered single-leaf wood door with a full surround.
The houses portico is supported by paired Ionic columns. The windows are 9/9 sash windows with splayed brick lintels. The home features two exterior-end chimneys with disengaged stacks. It has seven fireplaces.
Around 1940, a basement excavation caused a cave-in, and the house was disassembled and moved from its location at Axton in Henry County to nearby Martinsville, named for Col. Joseph Martins' father.
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Joseph was born in 1785 and served in the War of 1812. Col. Martin served in both the Virginia House of Delegates and for eight years in the Virginia Senate.
He also served as a member of the constitutional convention of 1829–1830, and three times as a presidential elector.
He was lifelong friends with Archibald Stuart of Patrick County, Virginia, father of Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart, as well as with United States President and Virginia native John Tyler.
During the War of 1812, Col. Martin commanded a regiment of militia.
Col. Joseph Martin married Sally (Hughes) Martin, daughter of Col. Archelaus Hughes of Hughesville, Patrick County, Virginia, and a noted Revolutionary War soldier and patriot. Col. Martin and Sally Hughes Martin had eight daughters and four sons.
Of the 12 children, two married members of the Hairston family; two married members of the Pannill family; and another two married members of the Dillard family.
An oil-on-canvas portrait of Col. Joseph Martin, painted by the American artist Rembrandt Peale, survives and is in the collection of the Bassett Historical Center, Bassett, Virginia. Also surviving is the porcelain dinnerware service from Col. Martins' home "Greenwood," manufactured by John Ridgway & Co., Staffordshire.
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General Joseph Martin died at his Leatherwood plantation in 1808, and was buried in the family cemetery there. Buried alongside him at the graveyard at Belmont are three other Joseph Martins... Colonel Joseph Martin, son of the general, and his son Joseph and grandson Joseph, who lived at Greenwood plantation.
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Col. Joseph Martin, member of the Virginia House of Delegates, the Virginia State Senate and the Virginia Constitutional Convention 1829–1830. He had a daughter, Martha Martin, who married her cousin William Cleveland, son of Benjamin Cleveland, hero of the Battle of Kings' Mountain; son Major Brice Martin, Tennessee pioneer, and surveyor in 1801 of the disputed boundary between Virginia and Tennessee; Dr. Jesse Martin Shackelford, founder of Martinsvilles' Shackelford Hospital, later Martinsville Memorial, among others.
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