John Banister (26 December 1734–30 September 1788), member of the Convention of 1776 and member of the Continental Congress, was born probably near the town of Petersburg. His parents were Wilmette Banister and John Banister, a son of noted botanist John Banister and in his own right a prominent planter, business associate of William Byrd (1674–1744), and one of the original trustees of Petersburg. John Banister was educated in England and on 28 September 1753 was admitted to the Middle Temple in London, where he studied law but was not called to the bar. He returned to Virginia and there married Elizabeth Mumford early in 1755. Following her death he married Elizabeth Bland late in the 1750s or early in the 1760s. They had at least one son and probably two daughters before she died in the summer of 1777.

After Banister returned to Virginia he embarked on a long career as a tobacco planter and businessman. He created an industrial complex of sawmills and flour mills along the Appomattox River on the western edge of Petersburg. Banister owned many enslaved men, women, and children and probably employed craftsmen such as coopers and millers. Visitors to Petersburg during the 1770s and 1780s often commented on the mills and on his beautiful house, Battersea, which he constructed during the late 1760s or early 1770s. As Banister prospered, he gradually assumed larger and more-important political roles. He became a vestryman of Bristol Parish on 1 December 1764 and a justice of the peace for Dinwiddie County late in 1769. He served in the House of Burgesses with one brief interruption from 1766 until the American Revolution. His first campaign, in 1765, produced an often-quoted reference to the candidate's "swilling the planters with bumbo," or rum punch, in order to win votes. Banister consistently supported protests against British policies during the 1760s and 1770s and attended all five of the Revolutionary Conventions during 1774, 1775, and 1776. In the last convention he voted for independence and served on the committee that prepared the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the first constitution of Virginia. He was also elected to the House of Delegates for the sessions of October 1776 through January 1778 and again from May 1781 through December 1783.

On 17 November 1777 the General Assembly elected Banister to the Continental Congress to succeed Benjamin Harrison, and it reelected him on 29 May 1778. Banister attended Congress at York and at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 16 March to 24 September 1778, though he spent a month from mid-August until mid-September in White Plains, New York, on a committee conferring with General George Washington on the reorganization of the Continental army. Banister signed the Articles of Confederation in Philadelphia on 9 July 1778. Before he resigned his seat in Congress, Banister entered into a commercial arrangement with Robert Morris and Silas Deane, among others, to engage in Franco-American trade. The agreement placed Banister politically at odds with the powerful Lee family, with whom he had never been on good terms anyway, and drew him into the bitter controversy over Deane's conduct as American agent in France.

On 24 September 1778 Banister took a leave of absence from Congress and then resigned shortly after his return to Virginia. He married Ann "Nancy" Blair, of Williamsburg, in February 1779. They had two sons. During participation as a militia colonel in the defense of Petersburg from a British invasion in the spring of 1781, Banister lost some of his valuable property. Thereafter, he lived at the Dinwiddie County plantation, Hatcher's Run, that he had inherited from his father.

On 5 June 1782 the General Assembly elected Banister to the Council of State, but he attended only a few meetings before resigning early in November. He also served in 1784 as the first mayor of Petersburg under its new charter. Banister suffered serious financial losses during and after the Revolutionary War, and his health deteriorated. According to one report, he had become mentally incapacitated by early in 1788. He spent the spring of that year in the West Indies. John Banister returned to Virginia in June and died on 30 September 1788 at Hatcher's Run, where he was buried.

Sources Consulted:
Brief biography in Charles Campbell, The Bland Papers (1840), 1:xxvii–xxviii; inaccurate biography in Frederick Horner, The History of the Blair, Banister, and Braxton Families (1898), 95–121 (portrait); birth recorded in Churchill G. Chamberlayne, ed., Vestry Book and Register of Bristol Parish, Virginia, 1720–1789 (1898), 287; John Banister Papers, Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond; Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789 (1976–2000), vols. 9–10; transcript of will in Willie Graham and Mark R. Wenger, "Battersea: A Historical and Architectural Study" (1988 typescript in Library of Virginia); death date in Duncan Rose to Thomas Jefferson, 26 Feb. 1789, in Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (1950– ), 14:592; undated death notice in Richmond Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, 16 Oct. 1788.

Portrait in Horner, The History of the Blair, Banister, and Braxton Families (1898), opp. p. 95.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Richard L. Jones.

How to cite this page:
Richard L. Jones, "John Banister (1734–1788)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 1998 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Banister_John_1734-1788, accessed [today's date]).

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