Francis Everod Rives (January 14, 1792 – December 26, 1861) was a VirginiaDemocratic politician and businessman who served two terms in theUnited States House of Representatives. After making his fortune as a slave trader, Rives became a planter and soon won election and re-election multiple times to both houses of theVirginia General Assembly before his two terms representingVirginia's 2nd congressional district, and afterward represented several counties near Petersburg in theVirginia Senate as well as served as the city's mayor. Rives also helped establish the state-charteredPetersburg Railroad.

Born inPrince George County, nearPetersburg, Virginia, Rives received a private education appropriate to his class. He also served as an ensign in the state militia during theWar of 1812, stationed in Norfolk.^[1]

Rives in October 1833 married Eliza Jane Pegram Rives (1802–1874), who survived him and bore several children, including a daughter, Mary Chieves Rives Frazer (1821–1851).

In 1818, Rives and his neighborsPeyton Mason Sr. and Jr. formed a slave trading partnership. The business known as "Peyton Mason and Company" bought bondspeople in Virginia and walked them further south. Rives twice personally drove coffles of enslaved people throughFayetteville, North Carolina and westward to Tennessee and some all the way down theNatchez Trace toNatchez, Mississippi.^[2]

Having thus made his fortune, Rives became a planter himself, and also sought political office. Prince George County voters elected and re-elected Rives as one of their (part-time) representatives in theVirginia House of Delegates from 1821 to 1831. He then joined the Democratic party and successfully won election to theState senate, where he represented Prince George and neighboringIsle of Wight,Southampton,Surry andSussex Counties from 1831 to 1836, and later from 1848 to 1851.

Rives may have worked as an agent for the slavetrading firmFranklin and Armfield in the 1830s.^[3] In the 1840 census, Rives considered himself a resident of Sussex County and 27 of the 37 people in his household were enslaved.^[4] In the 1840s and 1850s, he made Petersburg his official residence. In 1840 he listed his occupation as "Law", and he and his wife lived with a young doctor, an elderly non-relative and young girl (possibly all servants),^[5] in 1860, Rives listed himself as "Gentleman" and lived with three other white adults in central Petersburg.^[6] Rives also owned 13 enslaved people in the city in 1850,^[7] and N.F. Rives an additional 8 persons (6 of them under 12 years old) in Petersburg,^[8] A decade later, F.E. Rives owned 33 enslaved people in Petersburg.^[9] Moreover, in 1850 John E. Rives owned 34 enslaved people in Sussex County.^[10] In 1860, G.E. Rives owned 6 slaves in Prince George County,^[11] and John E. Rives owned 35 slaves in Sussex County.^[12]

Rives won election and re-election as aDemocrat to theTwenty-fifth andTwenty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1837 – March 3, 1841), but chose not to seek re-election in 1840. While a Congressman, he served as chairman of the Committee on Elections (Twenty-sixth Congress).

In addition to his plantations, Rives worked to build and manage railways in Virginia andNorth Carolina. He was a principal of thePetersburg Railroad, and sometimes accused of chicanery for his efforts to boost Petersburg at the expense of railroad competitors as well asPortsmouth, its port city rival. Petersburg voters elected him as the city's mayor, and he served from May 6, 1847, to May 5, 1848.^[13]

Francis Rives died in late 1861, possibly on November 30 atLittleton in Sussex County,^[14] or on December 26, 1861, in Petersburg.^[15] He is interred inBlandford Cemetery in Petersburg.

• 1837; Rives was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 80.61% of the vote, defeating fellow Democrat William B. Goodwyn.
• 1839; Rives was re-elected with 57.6% of the vote, defeating Whig James W. Pegram.

• List of mayors of Petersburg, Virginia

• United States Congress."Francis E. Rives (id: R000284)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

 This article incorporatespublic domain material fromBiographical Directory of the United States Congress.Federal government of the United States.

• 1792 births
• 1861 deaths
• Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia
• People from Prince George County, Virginia
• Democratic Party Virginia state senators
• Democratic Party members of the Virginia House of Delegates
• Mayors of Petersburg, Virginia
• 19th-century American slave traders
• 19th-century United States representatives
• 19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from August 2019
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress