Chiswell Langhorne

Who was Chiswell Langhorne?

Colonel Chiswell Dabney Langhorne was an American railroad industrialist. He was the father of Nancy Witcher Langhorne and the maternal grandfather of both Joyce Grenfell and Michael Langhorne Astor.

Langhorne was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the eldest son of John Scarsbrook Langhorne and Sarah Elizabeth Dabney. The family were wealthy slave-owners before the American Civil War. The Confederate General Jeb Stuart was a relative.

The Langhorne family lived in greatly reduced circumstances after the war. Chiswell, however, made a new fortune working first in the tobacco auctioneering business and then in railroads.

As a youth he entered the Confederate Army and served with distinction during the war. Soon after the Civil War he went to Danville, Virginia and resided at Langhorne House. The sale of loose-leaf tobacco by auction on a warehouse floor originated in Danville just before the Civil War. The practice, which was called the "Danville System", was quickly and widely adopted. It is said that Langhorne originated the auctioneer's fast-talking "chant" which proved very effective at evoking a heightened sense of bidding and was also copied everywhere.