The Strange Case of Not Adams

This time of year, I decompress and concentrate on writing my next book projects. One of them has been percolating in my mind for many years and it involves The Strange Case of Not Adams. Sometimes you find a new writing project when researching another. As usual J. E. B Stuart leads me to many other topics.

On September 11, 2001, I was in the Library of Virginia doing research on Civil War General James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart in the Special Collections Department. Governor John Letcher was a cousin of Stuart and I was looking through Letcher’s papers. I did not know about the terrorist attacks until noon when I came up for air upon hearing two of the staff discussing it.

I came across this entry in Virginia’s Civil War Governor’s papers. “An important function of the governor was issuing reprieves and pardons. Copies of court cases, clippings, petitions, and correspondence supplement the pardons. All the pardon papers are filed separately in the chronological series at the end of each month. One significant pardon involved the case of Notley P. Adams of Patrick County who was charged with arson. Letcher pardoned Adams in December 1863, after he served three years in the penitentiary. A map of the area in Patrick County where the crime was committed is included in the papers. The governor also received and issued proclamations and requisitions regarding escaped convicts and fugitives.”

I had never heard of Notley P. Adams before that day, so I requested to see the materials. They arrived in three large folders including over four hundred individual sheets documenting the pardon request by Adams to Governor Letcher.

Since that time twenty years ago, the Library of Virginia has microfilmed the whole collection and you can scan the documents to pdf files and that is what I did in the fall of 2019. That has led to this book with easier access to this case about my home county of Patrick in far southwest Virginia.

            In Virginia, Patrick County likes to put biblical names on places. Ararat for the “Mountains of Ararat,” where Noah’s Ark landed in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament.  The Dan River comes from Dan, the fifth son of Jacob, which is related to judgement. Dan was the founder of the Tribe of Dan, the second largest tribe of Israelites. Among his descendants was Samson.

            The community of Meadows of Dan in Patrick County applies a romantic name to the land drained by the Dan River. Just before the War Between The States erupted in 1861, one man was accused of arson. In April 1859, Notley Price Adams was accused of burning of the vacant home of Jefferson T. Lawson near the Patrick and Floyd county lines near the Dan River and the Laurel Fork.

            Local tradition says Notley Price Adams stood before the judge and was asked to state his name.  “Not Adams” he replied. The aggravated judge said, “Well, then who are you,” which he heard again, “Not Adams.” The exasperated judge stated, “Well, if you are not Adams, who are you?” The question reverberates down to us today.

            This book tells the story of Adams and the times he lived in Patrick County, Virginia, where the more things change, the more they stay the same. When a small clique of people in the county seat try to destroy a man using trumped up evidence to convict him of a crime. This story is set in the War Between The States when Virginia tried to leave the Union. Patrick County was going to leave Virginia if it did not secede and become The Free State of Patrick.

Remarks at Danube Presbyterian Church May 20, 2007

Let me begin by thanking the congregation of Danube Presbyterian Church and especially Reverend Fred Gilley for inviting Kenny and myself to come to speak about our region’s history. Looking about this room, I think I know almost everyone here from Ethel Cox and her three beautiful daughters, who used to baby-sit me. Some baby uh Ethel? It is good to see Mildred and Charles Hill, whose father we will talk about, and Verna Anderson, who I have shared some fun historical things over the years. I see Diana Goad, who I use to work with and young Wes Burkhart, just in from college, whose parent’s I went to high school with.

            Today as we sit on the banks of one of Patrick County’s great rivers, I will speak to you today about the geography, specifically the route of the Mount Airy and Eastern Railway, “The Dinky” and some human interest stories about the train. Kenney will speak about the chronological history of the railroad and what it did in Kibler Valley.

            We are into biblical names for our rivers in Patrick County. The railroad traveled the distance between the Dan named for a tribe of Israel to the Ararat, where Noah’s Ark landed on the mountains of. The Ararat River travels from Bell Spur Church in Patrick County to Siloam, North Carolina.

            The railroad began on Riverside Drive near present day Cross Creek Apparel. I use to work there in the dye house when I got out of college on third shift. Like the railroad, the textile mills will soon be gone as well. I have twelve web pages built about the railroad, and at the beginning, I found out the local genealogists Esther Johnson grew up there at the beginning of the railroad, and she wrote about it.

            The Mount Airy and Eastern traversed 19.50 miles to Kibler Valley. The present day railroad tracks used to go to the North Carolina Granite Corporation. The narrow gauge Dinky pulled beside this railroad so that lumber and other material could be transferred.

            The railroad followed the present day Riverside Drive, North Carolina Highway 104, past Renfro Corporation and along the Ararat River. The train followed past Johnson’s Creek, where a water tower, one of over a dozen, supplied water for the steam locomotives.

            Next, the train carried passengers often to the White Sulphur Springs on excursions. The resort hotel is known for the foul smelling Sulphur water that smelled of rotten eggs. People had been coming to this place since the time Jeb Stuart’s mother lived here in the 1850s.

            The railway passed near the Sparger House, which was once a tobacco farm and site of a tobacco factory before the days of Reynolds Tobacco and multi-national conglomerates. Near here, Totsey Hill and his large family lived on a farm I use to romp on with the Guynn kids, Teddy and Ann, as their mother Bertie was one of Totsey and India’s children.

            One story about Totsey involves his brother Rob, who is Charles Hill’s father. Once a hot air balloon appeared over the Blue Ridge Mountains coming from Maryland until Rob Hill decided it must come down and with his trusty rifle he brought down. I have this photo of many people “long necking” around the basket of a brought down by Rob Hill.

            The Dinky Railroad continued on up crossing the Ararat River and heading towards the Virginia/North Carolina border, where it changes from state to commonwealth in Edith Brown’s pasture dissecting the line surveyed by Thomas Jefferson’s father Peter, Joshua Fry and an entourage of North Carolinians and Virginias in 1749.

            The rails or working on the rails brought many people to our area. Among them was John Edward Dellenback, who came to work on the railroad and then worked at Pedigo’s Mill. John married Serelda Mary Wilson and was the father of Charlie, who is the father of George, Walter, Eddie, and Mary.

            The railroad passed by Laurel Hill, the birthplace of James Ewell Brown “Jeb.” Just across the road from Patrick County’s most historic site is a washed out trestle on the land of Eric and Amy Brown Sawyers. The railroad makes a curve and turns from the Ararat River to Clark’s Creek across the land of Porter Bondurant.

            I have known Porter most of my life, but Kenney Kirkman and Desmond Kendrick did not. So when Porter loaded us up on his John Deere Gator, I could see the fear in the city slicker’s eyes to have a man alive during World War One who actually rode the Dinky driving them around scared them to death. I also came to find that they were truly from town when Porter offered them free watermelons from his patch along Clark’s Creek. Porter grew watermelon on steroids, and I was left standing in the patch digging for the biggest one I could find when my city friends declined Porter’s generous offer.

            Gordon Axelson, who is here today with his wife, my former high school science teacher, who, by the way, does not look like she is old enough to have been my science teacher, videoed Porter and his old sister Carrie Sue Bondurant Culler. Both of them rode the railroad, and it was one of the most memorable scenes of the research we did was to see a 92-year-old man being corrected by his older sister about their lives as kids.

            The railroad continued along Clark’s Creek across the land of Dan Smith, Dwight Jessup, and a large trestle crossed the creek as the railroad made its way to the Holly Tree Road. The railroad continued up the creek across the bottomland of Diane King and then Howard King to the Homeplace Road. We were lucky to have Nick Epperson, whose family built the house here in Kibler Valley, who, like many people, sat down and talked to us about what he knew relating to the railroad and let us see his photos. In the 19 plus miles that Kenney and I walked most of the path of the railway, we never once ran into a landowner who was unfriendly or did allow us on their property. In fact, most we very enthusiastic and shared what they knew about the train.

            We never encountered a mean dog. We met some very friendly dogs while walking the Isaac property. There are places that the railroad is not noticeable as cleared fields, and the flood control dam on Clark’s Creek erased traces of it.

            Next, we walked across the property of Anthony Terry and James Clement. Later, Anthony discovered more than ¼ mile of the track while clearing a fence line for James and Charles Clement across the spot we had walked. We assume that the railroad was taken up and sold for scrap metal or, as Porter told us, “We sold it to the Japanese, and they shot back at us during World War Two.”

            The railroad followed up the headwaters of Clark’s Creek just across from   Church and towards the “Crossroads” the intersection of Squirrel Spur’s Road/Unity Church Road with the Ararat Highway. There was a siding in this area, and there are several stories about it.

            One story about the railroad involved several of the Clement boys, who discovered several cars on the siding loaded with lumber. The boys investigated the cars one and discovered how to release the brake, and down the tracks, towards Mount Airy they went with their load of lumber until they realized that starting a railroad car was much easier than stopping one. The Clement boys abandoned train while the cars continued on derailing somewhere around Anthony Terry’s place, leaving lumber spread out across the bottom.

            The train made its way up to the crossroads, where Bob Childress once worked in a blacksmith shop in sight of the Clark’s Creek Progressive Primitive Baptist Church. One famous story about “The Man Who Moved A Mountain” was that he brought the youth choir from this African-American church to his rock churches in a time of segregation. I often wonder if Childress heard those young Black voices before he found a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and began to spread the word about Christianity and made the courageous move of inviting them. When the railroad came by the church, there was a school for the African-American children that is today falling down behind the modern brick church. There are some things that show that we have made progress in this country, and the railroad witnessed it.

            Another man of African descent, John P. Hairston, was a saw miller that heard that “Old Man Carter” was looking for experienced lumbermen. He came on the Dinky to make a living near the Dan River.

            The railroad’s path continued across the land or Romey and Barbara Bowman Clement. Bobby, who is here today, shared her photos and knowledge of the railroad and our local history. She is what everyone involved in history should be a sharer, not a hoarder of it. She is a treasure for the people of Patrick County.

            The railroad made its way parallel down the hill towards Fall Creek, making a wide turn before crossing the Ararat Highway below Greg Radford’s house. The largest washed out trestle we found is on Darryl and Sandra Clement’s property.

            Down Fall Creek, the railroad went in a roadbed still visible in the winter past a sawmill once operated by Andy Griffith’s grandfather Nunn. Near Jerry Love’s cabin, the railroad turned away from the creek just above the flood plain. The railroad crossed the Dan River in this area into what we call Meadowfield.

            The Love brothers, Jim and Jerry grew up in the white house at the foot of what we call Bateman’s straight on the Ararat Highway. They shared their stories and access to their property about the railroad. We came to believe there was a Wye (Y) shaped rail system at Meadowfield. One spur went up the Dan River to Kibler Valley, and another followed the path of the present day road to the point that it cut behind Jerry Love’s house and across the Kibler Valley Road and into what is today the Primland property.

            William Leftridge Bateman, the son of William and Sally Bateman, came to work in the general store at Meadowfield, owned by Thomas Lee Clark. He married Judy Ann Joyce in 1906. Bateman purchased the Meadowfield store, and by 1910 there was a grist mill, fertilizer house, lumber yard, post office, water tank, and the boarding house, of which the latter is the only thing left standing. In 1916, a flood caused by a tropical storm destroyed the railroad and other structures at Meadowfield ending Bateman’s dream of an industrial. One of the Bateman’s daughters, Lena Mae, married James Beasley, and they ran the store at the “crossroads.” She spoke of her father’s store at Meadowfield selling overalls, shirts, shoes, turkeys, chicken, and even crossties and tanbark.

            The Dinky railroad followed the eastern bank of the Dan River past the Zeb Stuart Scales Bridge and towards the Sawmill Road. This part of the railroad bed is still in pristine condition and easy to walk in the winter. The path followed by Anthony Terry’s boyhood home and probably in the roadbed of the present Sawmill Road and back across the Primland property.

            Kenney walked across the property of Leroy Pack into Kibler Valley, still following the Dan River. The railroad made its way past Danube Presbyterian Church. When you think of Danube Vienna, the Sound of Music and Austria might come to mind and not narrow gauge railroads and Presbyterians, but the railroad has come from a river named for a mountain Noah’s Ark landed on to a river with the same name as a great river of Europe or a tribe of Israel.

            One of those who came to this valley was John Bishop Wilson, who was educated by Dr. Floyd Pedigo, who grew up near Stuart’s Birthplace. Wilson married Mahala Pack and went to work for the Epperson’s here in the valley. When the railroad stopped, Wilson bought some property, ran a one room store, built a house, worked on clocks, watches, and guns. He became the Superintendent of Sunday School at the Danube Presbyterian Church.

            Kenney will talk about the chronological history of the railroad and about Kibler Valley, but I have tried to tell you about the path the train took getting her to the valley. I followed him around through nearly twenty miles of woods and fields with a clipboard and marking on a map. We ran into no hostility or even a mean dog, but we did meet and talk to a lot of great people like the congregation of Danube.

            Reverend Gilley, you may not realize that it is hard to find verses about railroads in the Bible, but I had one recommended to me. Matthew Chapter 7 Verses 13-14 goes like this: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the age and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

            Maybe to paraphrase would be narrow is the gauge that led this church to life.

WIlliam Letcher Comes To Laurel Hill

J. E. B. Stuart’s Great-Grandfather, William Letcher Comes To Laurel Hill

The story of the first people of European descent from J. E. B. Stuart’s maternal family at Laurel Hill begins in Great Britain. Giles Letcher was born in Northern Ireland, but like so many people, he came to Virginia and settled near Petersburg. He married Hannah Hughes of Welsh descent and started a family. Letcher began a “successful mercantile business,” but family tradition holds Giles Letcher lost it to fire. In 1741, he purchased 135 acres north of the James River in Henrico County and began a slow migration up the river to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. By 1747, Giles Letcher owned land, and the following year witnessed a deed transfer in Goochland County. In 1781, he bought 265 acres on Raccoon Creek, a tributary of the Rivanna River, in Fluvanna County.

The Letcher family connected the Stuarts to many important personages. Giles Letcher's first son, Stephen, was the father of Governor Robert Letcher of Kentucky. Robert Letcher served in the U. S. Congress as Minister to Mexico and on January 1, 1825, acted as a go between with Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams in the “corrupt bargain” that led to Adam’s election as President in 1826. Robert Houston married Margaret Davidson and their son Samuel Houston, brother of Mary Houston Letcher, and his wife Elizabeth Paxton were the parents of General Sam Houston (1793-1863) of Texas. Sam Houston served as Congressman and Governor of Tennessee, then moved to Texas and became a leader of the independence from Mexico. He served as President of the Republic of Texas, Senator, and Governor from the State of Texas. In 1861, Houston opposed secession from the United States.

The third son of Giles Letcher, John, married Mary Houston, an aunt of Sam Houston, of Texas fame. John and Mary’s son, William Houston Letcher, married Elizabeth Davidson and produced Virginia’s first Civil War Governor John Letcher. Giles and Hannah Letcher had another son, James, and a daughter, Sarah.

William Letcher was born to Giles and Hannah Letcher around 1750, this author believes, in Goochland County. William, the second son, was described as a man of fine appearance and much beloved and esteemed.

On November 20, 1778, William Letcher married Elizabeth Perkins and moved to Henry County, present-day Patrick County. Elizabeth, born on May 13, 1759, to Nicholas and Bethenia Hardin Perkins, grew up at Perkins Ferry in Halifax, now Pittsylvania County.

The first Nicholas Perkins came to Virginia in 1641 and settled in Charles City County. His son, also Nicholas, married Sarah Childress, lived in Henrico County, and produced a son Constantine. He married Ann Pollard, lived in Goochland County, and they were the great-grandparents of General Stuart. William and Elizabeth were both descended from Nicholas Perkins and Sarah Childress. Sarah Perkins married Thomas Hughes, and their daughter Hannah married Giles Letcher.

Elizabeth’s brother Peter Perkins married Agnes Wilson and built the historic home Berry Hill near Danville on land willed to him by his father. The name of the property comes from a large number of soldiers from both sides of the American Revolution believed buried on the property. Today, a large cemetery holds many prominent members of the family, including J. E. B. Stuart’s sister, Columbia, who married into the Hairston clan.

On August 2, 1856, John Letcher, future Governor of Virginia, wrote of William Letcher, “He chose for his residence a spot in the southwest corner of Patrick County, Virginia, called The Hollow. It derives its name from the circular bend, which the mountains make around it. The Blue Ridge makes a semi-circular sweep halfway around it on the west and the Slate Mountain and Little Mountain on the east and south. The Ararat with its waters, as clear as crystal, and as swift as the arrow shot from the bow, traverse this whole valley from north to south and then empties into the Yadkin. On one of the gentle swelling hills, that lifts its head on the banks of this stream Mr. Letcher established his home.”

          On July 25, 1779, Letcher appeared on the payroll list of Captain David Carlin’s Henry County Militia. In telling the story of William Letcher, each generation and biographer of General Stuart promotes him one grade in rank. He begins as Captain in J. E. B. Stuart’s first biography and is a colonel by the last one in 1986. The highest rank found in official papers from Carlin’s Militia lists him as a corporal.

Others listed include James and William Steward along with John and Edward Stewart. These other Stuarts lived west of the Ararat River on a tributary appropriately named Stewart’s Creek near the present-day welcome centers along Interstate 77. In 1786, Surry County, North Carolina records showed Charles and Edward Stewart living close to their parents John and Susannah Fulkerson Stewart. John came from Delaware via Augusta County, Virginia, after certainly crossing from Scotland via Northern Ireland. Other Stewarts listed in Surry County records are as follows: James, William, John, Hamilton Stewart living in Captain Hugh Armstrong’s District, Nathaniel Stewart is listed as the head of household including Charles, Nathaniel, Jacob, James, and Joshua in 1786. Interestingly, Daniel Carlin lived on the waters of Stewart’s Creek.

It is possible there is a distant relationship between these Stewarts and General Stuart’s family through Thomas, the son of Archibald Stuart “The Immigrant” or his brother John, who settled in Halifax County, but the author has been unable to make the direct connection.

            In August 1779, Henry County recommended William Letcher to the Governor of Virginia as a Commissioner of the Peace along with other prominent persons including Abram Penn, Patrick Henry, Archaelous Hughes, and John Marr. On November 25, Letcher took the oath of office as Justice of the Peace and attended a counterfeiting trial.

No evidence exists that the Letchers owned land along both sides of the Ararat River. In April 1749, John Dawson, Joseph Cloud, and James Terry received a land grant of 12,000 acres from Virginia. In June 1753, David Bell took possession of 2,816 acres that included present-day Laurel Hill.

It is through the Perkins family that William and Elizabeth Letcher came to present day Patrick County. John Marr married Susannah Perkins, sister of Elizabeth Perkins Letcher. Constantine Perkins married John’s sister Agatha Marr. Marr’s sons had a business relationship with the Perkins Family. John Marr died in Henry County before 1797. Marr, a land speculator, got the land that is the Laurel Hill Farm in 1790 from John Dawson. Two years later, he owned over 3,000 acres in the county.

           The Perkins family connection stayed active in the area. In 1801, Thomas Perkins bought a plantation in adjoining Surry County and named it Mount Airy. In 1819, Thomas’ son Constantine inherited Mount Airy along with land on present-day Main Street, where he built the first of many lodging establishments (most named Blue Ridge). The Perkins home, Mount Airy, was found on high ground above the Ararat River between Hamburg Street and Quaker Road in Mount Airy, North Carolina. In 1780, Thomas Smith bought 400 acres nearby for fifty shillings. The property had a large granite outcropping. Today it is the largest open-faced granite quarry in the world run by the North Carolina Granite Corporation in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

            Elizabeth and William Letcher left little documentation except for a list of possessions and the noteworthy events in their lives. They grew corn and tobacco in the bottomland along the river. They held livestock, including twenty head of cattle, ten hogs, and five horses. There were nine slaves named David, Ben, Witt, Abraham, Dick, Look, Nunn, Randolph, and Craft. William Letcher’s estate inventory located in the Henry County courthouse includes many of the household and farm items that you would expect. Among these items were saddlebags, rifles, three feather beds, and a looking glass.

On March 21, 1780, Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, Bethenia. This small child became the connection that led to her famous grandson's birth at Laurel Hill over fifty years later. That same year the American Revolution would come to Laurel Hill with tragic consequences.

J. E. B. Stuart’s Mother: 

Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart (1801-1884)

Born on January 4, 1801, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, to David and Bethenia Letcher Pannill, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart came into the world less than twenty years since the treaty with Great Britain brought the United States of America into being. Eighty-three years later, she would pass on after seeing the nation nearly torn apart by civil war, and her youngest son become famous because of it. Sadly, she would outlive all her children except one daughter named for her mother Bethenia and a son William Alexander Stuart, who took the mantle of family provider for many of his siblings, their widows, and his mother.

In the summer of 1817, she married Archibald Stuart on June 17. Stuart got the marriage license the day before, having it witnessed by Thomas G. Tunstall. On March 24, 1818, around one in the morning, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart gave birth to her first child at Bethenia Letcher Pannill’s home, a daughter named Anne Dabney Stuart, named for Archibald Stuart’s mother. Bethenia Pannill Stuart came into the world as the second child of Elizabeth and Archibald Stuart on September 10, 1819, at Seneca Hill in Campbell County, Virginia. The third child and third daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, Mary Tucker Stuart was born on July 20, 1821, at the home of Judge Alexander Stuart near Saint Louis, Missouri.

The first son born to Elizabeth Stuart, David Pannill Stuart, came into the world on at one in the morning on September 10, 1823, at Chalk Level in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. William Alexander Stuart was born at midnight on May 3, 1826, the first of the Stuart children born at Laurel Hill in Patrick County. John Dabney Stuart was born at dawn on November 15, 1828, at Laurel Hill.

Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart gave birth to Columbia Lafayette Stuart on May 28, 1830, at Laurel Hill. The eighth of Elizabeth’s children, James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, was born at 11:30 p.m. or a.m., depending on which version of the family bible you view on February 6, 1833. A ninth child, an unnamed son, was born on April 21, 1834, but died on July 17. This author believes this baby lies near the grave of William Letcher. Virginia Josephine Stuart was born at Laurel Hill on April 20, 1836. In July 1838, Elizabeth gave birth to her last child, Victoria Augusta Stuart.

Two years later, memorable events occurred at Laurel Hill. Young James and his brother William Alexander Stuart found the hornet’s nest that the latter made famous telling of his brother the future General’s aggressive nature. Virginia Josephine Stuart died that May. Elizabeth Stuart lost many of her children, but this was the only girl to die at Laurel Hill. Archibald Stuart’s sister Anne Dabney, the wife of Judge James Ewell Brown, died that year too. Death was an increasingly hard part of life for the Stuarts. Three years later, Bethenia Letcher Pannill the daughter of “The Patriot” William Letcher and mother of Elizabeth Stuart, died at her home in Pittsylvania County. That same year, 1845, David Stuart Pannill, the oldest son and Anne Stuart Peirce, the oldest daughter of Elizabeth and Archibald Stuart, both died ironically at the same time in the same place Pulaski, Virginia.

Archibald Stuart died on September 20, 1855, at Laurel Hill. Elizabeth buried him there high on the hill with the vista of the Blue Ridge and began to move on with her life. In far-off Kansas Territory, James E. B. Stuart married Flora Cooke on November 14, at Fort Riley with the Episcopal Reverend Clarkson officiating.

On March 24, 1856, Elizabeth appointed Attorney Samuel G. Staples and her son William Alexander Stuart as her representative in handling her affairs. She remained at Laurel Hill. The tax record reports that eleven slaves over twelve years of age were living on the farm. There were seven horses worth $450 and household furniture listed at the same amount.

The following year she wrote to a “Dear Friend” in September from Laurel Hill that Mary T. Stuart Headen and William Alexander both came by, and Mary stayed giving her a “great deal of company for me” along with Victoria, who is present too. Mrs. Stuart was in mourning as on August 2, Columbia Lafayette Stuart, the wife of Peter W. Hairston of Cooleemee Plantation in Davie County, died. Peter buried Columbia at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Elizabeth wrote to Bettie Hairston, “My home looked very sad when I came here, and the Yadkin will look still more so. Cousin Peter…felt is more depressed than ever…the longest summer I ever experienced.”

News from Lieutenant Stuart arrived at Laurel Hill, and Elizabeth Stuart passed it on to Elizabeth “Bettie” Hairston, “I received a letter from James’s wife the other day, and she writes me that James had received a slight flesh wound in an attack against the Indians and in saving the life of a brother officer…the weather is now so warm and out Sulphur Spring is in full blast.” At this writing, The White Sulphur Springs is developing into a housing development after lying dormant for many years after being a resort hotel up through the twentieth century. Earlier that year remembering the spiritual matters of his former neighbors James wrote his mother, “I wish to devote one hundred dollars to the purchase of a comfortable log church near your place, because in all my observation I believe one is more needed in that neighborhood than any other that I know of; and besides, ‘charity begins at home.’ Seventy-five of this one hundred dollars I have in trust for that purpose, and the remainder is my own contribution. If you will join me with twenty-five dollars, a contribution of a like amount from two or three others interested will build a very respectable free church.” The future Confederate General showed interest in his birthplace asking his mother, “What will you take for the south half of your plantation? I want to buy it.”

Elizabeth L. P. Stuart was thinking of selling her ancestral home. In 1858, Victoria wrote in a letter dated April 17 that her mother was going to sell or “bargain her land” Laurel Hill to “a gentleman of Patrick Court House” and moved to Wytheville in fall, no doubt to live with or near William Alexander Stuart. The sale fell through, and it would be another year before Laurel Hill passed from her hands forever.

Marriage was in the air for the Stuart children. John Dabney married Anne Eliza Kent on January 12, 1858, and Victoria married Nathaniel Boyden on September 13. The family did not forget Archibald Stuart. Elizabeth wrote to James W. Ford about a portrait of Mr. Stuart expressing interest in buying it. She mentions that her son Lieutenant Stuart will be in next summer (1859) and may wish to purchase it.

On July 9, 1859, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart sold the 1500-acre Laurel Hill farm to Robert R. Galloway and Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth, for $12,000. She reserved three parcels, including one acre on the Volunteer Road “for the purpose of erecting a church,” remembering her son James offer of $100. The other two reserved parcels include the graveyard of William Letcher and “others” and the graveyard of Archibald Stuart. The author believes that the children of Elizabeth and Archibald Stuart rest today with Letcher and not with Stuart as the birthplace labels the children. The deed does not mention the slave cemetery. The two new owners divided the property into two equal halves with Hollingsworth getting the Elizabeth Stuart section and Galloway getting William L. Pannill section added in 1828 with William L. Pannill getting Pittsylvania County lands of Elizabeth L. P. Stuart.

After the sale of Laurel Hill before moving to Danville, local tradition holds that Elizabeth spent a week with her old friends David Birnett and Margaret Saunders Hatcher at what is today the Dan Valley Farm in Claudville. A relative of the Hatcher Family, J. O. Hatcher, brother of Alice Hatcher, whom this author interviewed, later owned Laurel Hill.

In 1861, Mrs. Stuart was in Richmond. On February 4, she wrote to her former son in law Peter W. Hairston with her left hand as her right was injured, about the approaching War Between the States. She wrote about being “alarmed at the prospect of Civil War” and thought the “panic” would push “Carolina and Virginia to go to war with each other.” A few months later, she wrote Robert E. Lee on April 23 about her son James Ewell Brown Stuart telling Lee that, “As soon as he hears of the Secession, he will fly to place himself by your side. Can you save a place for him…educated under your eyes and was with you at Harper’s Ferry. He is greatly attached to you and to all of your family.”

The next year 1862, she was in Danville, where she met Pere Louis-Hippolyte Gache, a Catholic priest detailed to Danville Hospitals. The former Chaplain 10th Louisiana Infantry wrote from Lynchburg on November 18, 1862, about the “wondrous events in Danville” “a place where Protestantism reigned with such absolute sway…notions which the local people have of Catholicism are derived from ridiculous and slanderous fables…people honestly and sincerely believe Catholics are low scoundrels…I met only one person there who was an exception to this rule Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart, the mother of the general who has done such wicked things to the poor Yankees.” Gache described Mrs. Stuart as a High Church Episcopalian, who visited the convent in Danville, searching for a book. She explained to Gache that once she had lived in Saint Louis, Missouri and while there read a book about St. Ignatius Loyola and wanted to reread it. The book was not at the Danville convent, but the Jesuit priest described her as a “marvelous old lady…charming.”

Gache stated that Mrs. Stuart told him she believed “most of the doctrines that Catholics hold, and the Protestants reject…I believe in miracles, in the Communion of Saints, and I also believe in confession.” Sadness came to the home of William Alexander Stuart in Saltville that year as his wife, Mary Taylor Carter Stuart, died on July 2. The following year he married Ellen Spiller Brown, the widow of Judge James Ewell Brown’s son Alexander Stuart Brown on September 3, 1863.

In Danville in 1863, Elizabeth Stuart was the center of a humorous story involving the future mascot of Virginia Tech. Mrs. Stuart rented a house on Wilson Street in Danville. A visitor told that she had a turkey gobbler tied to her rosewood bedpost to prevent theft for food, as the food was becoming scarce in war-torn Virginia. Mrs. Stuart explained, “a friend from the country sent it to her for a Christmas turkey.” Elizabeth faced the death of her most famous child the next year with the death of James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart on May 12, 1864, after receiving a wound at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.

The years passed, and by 1868 Elizabeth wrote to “Dear Cousin Kitty” March 21 from Lynchburg that she had been sick in Baltimore. She told her relative that “one of the greatest miseries of poverty is that I cannot assist those that I would take the greatest pleasure in assisting.” The following year she wrote to Marshall Hairston on January 5 from Saltville offering to sell land inherited from “Uncle Robert” valued at $3.66. Elizabeth had joined the family at Saltville. William Alexander Stuart was keeping the promise he made to his brother James that he would take care of their family included his mother, his sister Mary and sister in law, Flora, at his Saltville home.

Mrs. Stuart visited her children. In February 1876, she made her way to the home of John Dabney Stuart called West End in Wythe County. The next year John died on October 2, 1877, and rests today in Wytheville.

Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart died on August 20, 1884, at Elk Garden, Virginia, the home of William A. Stuart in Russell County. Her will divides her estate between her son John (who preceded her in death) and daughter Mary including a large bedstead, bureau, washstand, chairs, tables, feather bed and a traveling trunk along with a few exceptions including a gold watch to her grandson J. E. B. Stuart Jr.

She rests in the cemetery named for Patrick Henry’s sister Elizabeth Russell in Saltville, along with many of her children. The family moved Archibald Stuart from Laurel Hill in 1952 to lie beside her. Her daughter in law Ellen Spiller Brown Stuart wrote in the family bible that she was “one of the most intellectual and cultured women in Virginia.”

Jeb Stuart's Christian Faith

Jeb Stuart’s Christian Faith         

Many years ago, at the Hillsville Flea Market, I had a man approach my tent. After looking over my titles, he came across “God’s Will Be Done: The Christian Life of J. E. B. Stuart.” He asked me, “How could a Christian fight for slavery” and walked off. My response to him was that he was a man of his time and when you apply today’s principles to a man, who lived 150 years ago, that is Presentism and is not the way you should ready history. I always find it amazing that people today think they are so perfect that in 150 years, no one will look back on them and not see problems. For instance, that smart phone in your pocket was made by slave labor in China. Does that make you a horrible person?

                Let’s look at James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart’s life as a Christian. Stuart joined the Methodist Church while at Emory and Henry College. His father, Archibald Stuart, came from a long line of Presbyterians. His mother, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, was a strict, religious, and disciplined woman with a love of nature. You can see many of these traits in her most famous offspring. Elizabeth was Episcopalian, a “High Church Episcopalian,” meaning she was almost Catholic in her outlook. Local tradition holds that she attended services on Lebanon Hill in Mount Airy, North Carolina, where the Episcopalians met in the old Methodist meeting house. This congregation would form Trinity Episcopal located on Main Street today.

On first arriving in New York at the tender age of seventeen with the temptation of New York City not far off, Stuart wrote to a cousin, "I expect that you as well as all my old friends about Emory have come to the conclusion that I have renounced the cross since I came to this place usually considered as so great variance with religion. But I rejoice to say that I still have evidence of a savior's pardoning love. When I came here I had reason to expect that many and strong temptations would beset my path, but I relied on him whom to know is life everlasting to deliver me from temptation and prayed God to guide me in the right way and teach me to walk as a Christian should."

At West Point, Stuart befriended Oliver Otis Howard, a self-righteous and opinionated abolitionist from Maine hated by most of the Southern cadets. Howard and Stuart faced each other across several battlefields during the years 1861 to 1864. Nothing shows Stuart's Christian faith more than his friendship with Howard. One reason that Stuart got along with Howard was that they attended bible study together. Howard managed the Freedman’s Bureau after the Civil War and became President of the African-American school that bears his name today, Howard University. The latter wrote in his autobiography, "I can never forget the manliness of J. E. B. Stuart…He spoke to me, he visited me, and we became warm friends.” Stuart and Howard did Bible study together.

He wrote to Howard about their faith after graduating, “I was gratified to learn that you were accomplishing so much good in a Christian sphere at West Point. I wish you from my heart God’s Speed. I devotedly trust that we both may in our day and generation be instruments of good.”

Howard wrote nearly fifty years later of his friend Stuart, “J. E. B. Stuart was cut out for a cavalry leader. In perfect health, but thirty-two years of age, full of vigor and enterprise, with the usual ideas imbibed in Virginia concerning State Supremacy, Christian in thought and temperate by habit, no man could ride faster, endure more hardships, make a livelier charge, or be more hearty and cheerful while so engaged. A touch of vanity, which invited the smiles and applause of the fair maidens of Virginia, but added to the zest and ardor of Stuart's parades and achievements. He commanded Lee's cavalry corps - a well-organized body, of which he was justly proud.”

After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Stuart eventually joined the First U. S. Cavalry in the Kansas Territory, where he founded a church in what is today Junction City, Kansas. The church is still there, and a plaque at the entrance honors the work of Lieutenant Stuart in its formation.

Stuart joined the Temperance Movement and gave speeches about the temptation of alcohol. During his time on the prairie, Lieutenant Stuart said during this time, "from the first I prayed God to be my guide and I felt an abiding hope that all would be well with us.”

While stationed on the prairie, Stuart never forgot where he came from as he sent his mother one hundred dollars and asked her to match it to start a church near Laurel Hill in a letter. “I wish to devote one hundred dollars to the purchase of a comfortable log church near your place because in all my observation I believe one is more needed in that neighborhood than any other that I know of; and besides, ‘charity begins at home.’ Seventy-five of this one hundred dollars I have in trust for that purpose, and the remainder is my own contribution. If you will join me with twenty-five dollars, a contribution of a like amount from two or three others interested will build a very respectable free church.” In 1859, when Mrs. Stuart sold the property in 1859, she sat aside one acre along the Volunteer Road, now The Hollow Road, for that church, but the church was never built.

The year 1859 was decisive in Stuart’s life professionally and spiritually. In April, Stuart and family left on the seventh for an extended trip east on a leave of absence for six months with permission to apply for two extensions.

Flora Cooke Stuart wrote in the margins of David French Boyd’s The Boyhood of J. E. B. Stuart that Bishop Hawkes confirmed J. E. B. Stuart in his mother’s Episcopal Church in 1859 in Saint Louis. Stuart wished to attend the Episcopal Convention in Richmond in 1859.

During the War Between the States, Stuart bought his men copies of the scriptures from his own pocket. He attended revivals and continued his faith in a very public way. When Stuart died on May 12, 1864, after being mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, the previous day, his last words were “God’s Will Be Done.” Robert E. Lee wrote of Stuart to the Army of Northern Virginia, “To military capacity of a high order and all the nobler virtues of the soldier he added the brighter graces of a pure life, guided and sustained by the Christian's faith and hope.”

If you would like to learn more, my book “God’s Will Be Done: The Christian Life of J. E. B. Stuart” covers his entire life focusing on his Christian faith.

1932 Virginia Historic Highway Marker on display in Martinsville.

Stuart’s Birthplace: A Marker And A Personal History

                In December 1932, the Commonwealth of Virginia placed a Historical Highway Marker at the farm of George Elbert “Sug (pronounced Shug)” and Icy Bowman Brown along Highway 773, now the Ararat Highway in Ararat, Patrick County, Virginia, to commemorate the birthplace of James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart. Three hundred miles away in Georgia, my mother, Betty Jane Hobbs Perry, was six months old, and thirty-seven years later, she would take me to the farm and leave me with Icy and Sug. It changed my life.

                The Virginia Historical Highway Marker, I believe, was written by Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of Robert E. Lee and George Washington and historian of the Army of Northern Virginia, Douglas Southall Freeman. “A short distance west is the site of the home of Archibald Stuart Jr., a statesman of a century ago There was born, February 6, 1883, his son, James Ewell Brown Stuart, who became Major General commanding the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia and whose fame is a part of the history of that army. Stuart closed his career by falling in the defense of Richmond, May 11, 1864.”

                My mother told me when I was about nine or ten years ago that I became obsessed with the Virginia Historical Highway Marker. She encouraged my interest in history, buying me books and taking me to historical sites, while my mother was playing golf on weekends. She said she left me with Icy and Sug Brown hoping to quench the thirst I had for the history in my neighborhood. She created a monster.

                That day and many days afterwards, I would spend time with Sug and Icy soaking up all they could tell me about the farm and the history it contained. Icy kept scrapbooks full of information about this history. One interesting tidbit, she documented in her scrapbooks was the fact that the Stuart family moved Archibald Stuart, who died in 1855, to Elizabeth Cemetery in Saltville, Virginia, to lay beside his wife, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart. I have never seen any documentation anywhere else about the move.

                Spending time with Sug Brown was a different animal entirely. He lived on the Laurel Hill Farm his entire life and remembered many things about the site. He walked me around and told me where he remembered things were located on the farm, such as the location of Archibald Stuart’s grave. After archaeology was completed by the College of William and Mary in the 19090s, Brown was proved right 100% on what he told me. I was lucky to have had access to them the Browns and to learn from them as they lived on the farm where J. E. B. Stuart was born and grew up.

                In 1988, I went public with my idea to preserve part of the Laurel Hill Farm with an article in the Winston-Salem Journal. Two years later, with members of the local Civil War Round Table, we formed the 501c3 non-profit corporation called the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc. In 1991, we raised the money to purchase 60 acres of the farm.  Today, seventy-five acres are preserved on both sides of the Ararat River including the grave of William Letcher, J. E. B. Stuart’s great-grandfather, who lost his life to Tories, pro-British sympathizers, during the American Revolution. The site is open dawn to dusk every day and interpreted with multiple signs about the history of the site that is on the Virginia and National Registers of Historic Places.

                In 2001, I wrote the new text for the Virginia Historical Highway Marker that replaced the 1932 marker that stirred my interest in history. I tried to get the original sign, but was ignored by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. I thought the marker was destroyed, but it landed in a warehouse in Roanoke, Virginia. The regional office of the VDHR cleared out its warehouse several years later and tried to contact the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace about the sign, but received no reply. At this time, I have not been part of the organization I started in over a decade. One of the staff of VDHR contacted Gerald Via of Roanoke and asked him if he had any interest in the marker. He told them he did not, but he knew someone who did. My friend, Gerald Via, called me up and asked me to bring my truck to his brother’s garage in Floyd County, Virginia, where he gave me the sign. I placed it on display in the Martinsville Henry County Courthouse Museum in Martinsville thanks to my friend, Debbie Hall. The sign is now in my personal possession.

                J. E. B. Stuart was born 187 years ago today, and the site of his birth is the only place in the nation that remembers him and his family history. A granite marker graces the base of the flagpole near the house site honoring my parents and their contribution. I want no recognition at the site because every time I drive by it on my way to my parents, I see the new marker that I wrote, and I know that I helped save the site.