Rochelle’s brother, James, was court clerk at the time of the Nat Turner trial.

In 1817, as a private businessman Clements Rochelle petitioned the Virginia General Assembly for permission to lay out a town along the Nottoway River. The town was to be called Monroe. This town survived for only a few years but it did have a post office and was the subject of at least one petition for an increase in the town’s boundaries. However, by 1824, the land within the town was owned by a gentleman from Massachusetts, perhaps a creditor who foreclosed on the loan (Parramore 1978: 54- 55).