Virginia

Biography of Rufus Benton Peery

Rufus Benton Peery. There appears on other pages of this publication a history of Midland College at Atchison. In this connection is found an appropriate place for some reference to the career of the president of that well known Kansas institution, Rufas Benton Peery, who after a long and distinguished service as a missionary and, minister of the Lutheran Church took the president’s chair in 1912. Mr. Peery is of old American stock and Revolutionary antecedents. He was born at Burkes Garden, Virginia, April 9, 1868. The Peerys originated in England and in 1741 three brothers, Thomas, William and Edward … Read more

Biography of Robert M. Bronaugh

Robert M. Bronaugh of Baileyville had been a factor in the life of Kansas for considerably more than half a century. His people were in fact territorial pioneers. He fought when the country needed his fighting ability as a young man during the Civil war, and after that took up farming and latterly business connections with Baileyville, where he is still a merchant and is vice president of the Baileyville State Bank. He comes of old French stock and of aristocratic ancestry in America. Mr. Bronaugh was born in Schuyler County, Illinois, May 6, 1844. His paternal ancestors some generations … Read more

Biography of Patrick Connor

Patrick Connor. Every one in the Rantoul vicinity of Champaign County knows the home of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Connor. It is located in section 19, five miles northwest of Rantoul and near the schoolhouse to which Mr. Connor sent his own children and with which he has been officially identified. This is a fine farm, comprising 320 acres, and from the road the large white house is almost screened by the fine trees which surround it and most of which were planted and set out by Mr. Connor’s own hands. All these worthy and creditable possessions are the result … Read more

Biography of Capt. Thomas Jefferson Smith

Capt. Thomas Jefferson Smith, of Champaign, is one of the few men still living in Illinois who made their first briefs and arguments in a court room prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. In many ways his has been a remarkable life. He began practice before the war, enlisted soon afterward and gave the best in him to the perpetuation of the Union, came out of the war with the rank of captain, and at once began practice at Champaign, where he has now lived for over half a century. Captain and Mrs. Smith never had any children. … Read more

Biography of Hon. John Stewart

HON. JOHN STEWART. – This gentleman was born February 12, 1800, in Virginia, that grand old state which has given birth to heroes and cradled the world’s best since the white man first took possession of this fair land of ours. There our subject was nurtured through all his infancy and until his fifteenth year, when his parents moved to Terre Haute, Indiana. He resided in that state until 1837, learning the blacksmith trade, which calling so nearly broke down his health that he abandoned it and engaged in trading cattle. He first earned his title of captain in the … Read more

Biography of James P. Stephens

JAMES P. STEPHENS. – This original owner of a large portion of the townsite of East Portland, Oregon, was born in 1806 in Virginia, and removed to Indiana when but a boy of eight, and came still farther west to Hancock County, Illinois, in1832. In 1830 he married Miss Elizabeth Walker of Ohio, and passed on to Missouri, and in 1843 made preparations to come to Oregon. Failing, however, to reach the rendezvous in time, the journey was postponed until the next year. Crossing the plains in 1844, he endured the hardships of that toilsome year, and reached Oregon City … Read more

Biography of Hon. Isaac Ingalls Stevens

HON. ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS. – Governor Stevens was born at Andover, Massachusetts, March 18, 1818. He graduated from West Point in the class of 1839, of which he stood at the head, and immediately thereafter was commissioned second lieutenant of engineers. In 1840 he was promoted to a first lieutenancy. In the war with Mexico (1846-1848) he served on the staff of General Scott and for gallant and meritorious services at Contreras, Churubusco and Chapultepec earned the brevet rank of major. He was severely wounded in the capture of the City of Mexico from the effect of which he suffered … Read more

Biography of W. B. D. Newman

W.B.D. NEWMAN. – This well-known pioneer and veteran of the Indian wars comes of primitive stock of old Virginia, where the English family settled on the south bank of the Potomac, and where the father of our subject was born in 1793, and grew up to be a stout defender of the young American republic in the war of 1812. The mother, Matilda Downing, was also of Virginia, having come from that state to Kentucky. William was born in 1827 in the latter state, and two years later accompanied his parents to Ohio. Meeting with the loss of his mother … Read more

Biography of Hon. L. M. Ringer

HON. L.M. RINGER. – There is moral earnestness about a man who is able to hold his own convictions in the face of his neighbors and friends. We find such a man in Mr. Ringer. Born June 17, 1834, in Washington County, Maryland, he moved as a child to Amherst County, Virginia, there receiving his education, but later making his home in Stoddard  County, Missouri, engaging in the mercantile business. When the war broke out in 1861, that community was strongly for secession. Mr. Ringer was obliged either to enter the rebel army or to leave. He chose the latter … Read more

Biography of Salem L. Ketterman

Salem L. Ketterman, one of the oldest residents of the village of St. Joseph, has been there continuously for forty-four years. He has all the time been closely associated with its welfare and has lived to see many changes recorded in the history of Champaign County. The only other man still living in St. Joseph who was there when he first settled is Mr. T. Jefferson Wooden. Mr. Ketterman is a native of the old State of Virginia, having been born in Hardy County, March 19, 1847, a son of John and Belinda (Full) Ketterman. His parents were also natives … Read more

Slave Narrative of Laura Abromsom

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Laura Abromson, R. F. D. Location: Holly Grove, Arkansas (receives mail at Clarendon, Arkansas) Age: 74 “My mama was named Eloise Rogers. She was born in Missouri. She was sold and brought to three or four miles from Brownsville, Tennessee. Alex Rogers bought her and my papa. She had been a house girl and well cared for. She never got in contact wid her folks no more after she was sold. She was a dark woman. Papa was a ginger cake colored man. Mama talked like Alex Rogers had four or five hundred acres … Read more

Slave Narrative of Lucretia Alexander

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person Interviewed: Lucretia Alexander Location: 1708 High Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 89 Occupation: Washed. Ironed. Plowed. Hoed “I been married three times and my last name was Lucretia Alexander. I was twelve years old when the War began. My mother died at seventy-three or seventy-five. That was in August 1865—August the ninth. She was buried August twelfth. The reason they kept her was they had refugeed her children off to different places to keep them from the Yankees. They couldn’t get them back. My mother and her children were heir property. Her first master was … Read more

Biography of William H. Smith

William H. Smith, of Marysville, is a man with a long and notable record in Kansas affairs. He came to Kansas with his arm in a sling as a result of a wound received at Malvern Hill during the Civil war. His home had been in the state for over half a century, and during that time he had been a pioneer farmer, merchant, public official and banker. A Pennsylvanian by birth, he is a grandson of James Smith, who came from County Tyrone, Ireland, and founded the family in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. William H. Smith was born in that … Read more

Slave Narrative of Henry Banner

Interviewer: S. S. Taylor Person Interviewed: Henry Banner Location: County Hospital, Little Rock, Arkansas [HW: Forty Acres and a Mule] “I was sold the third year of the war for fifteen years old. That would be in 1864. That would make my birthday come in 1849. I must have been 12 year old when the war started and sixteen when Lee surrendered. I was born and raised in Russell County, Ol’ Virginny. I was sold out of Russell County during the war. Ol’ Man Menefee refugeed me into Tennessee near Knoxville. They sold me down there to a man named … Read more

Biography of William A. Baker

The commercial interests of Moscow are well represented by William Alexander Baker, a leading and enterprising merchant, whose well directed efforts, sound judgment and reliable dealing are bringing to him a creditable and satisfactory success. For twelve years he has carried on operations in Moscow, where he deals in both new and second-hand goods. He is a native of Virginia, born in Augusta County, July 13, 1855, of Scotch-Irish descent. His grandfather, Guinn Baker, was the founder of the family in the Old Dominion, and was an industrious and respected farmer and a valued member of the Methodist church. He … Read more

Biography of John M. Silcott

Almost forty years have passed since John M. Silcott took up his residence in Idaho, and he is therefore one of the oldest and most widely known pioneers of the state. He came in the spring of 1860 to establish the government Indian agency at Lapwai, and has since been identified with the growth and development of this section. He is a Virginian, his birth having occurred in Loudoun County, of the Old Dominion, January 14, 1824. His French and Scotch ancestors were early settlers there, and during the Revolution and the war of 18 12 representatives of the family … Read more

Biography of Ernest L. Ballard

The clerk of the district court and ex-ofificio auditor and recorder of Owyhee County, Idaho, residing in Silver City, is a native of the state of Virginia, his birth having occurred in Lynchburg on the 1st of February 1862. His ancestors, leaving their home in England, crossed the briny deep to the New World and became residents of Pennsylvania at the time William Penn founded the colony. They participated in the events which go to make up the early history of the Keystone state, and representatives of the name also fought for America in the war of 1812. Removing from … Read more

Biography of William L. Ryder

Prominent among the businessmen of Payette is William Louis Ryder, who for eight years has been closely identified with the history of the city as a representative of one of its most important business interests. He is a man of keen discrimination and sound judgment, and his executive ability and excellent management have brought to the concern with which he is connected a large degree of success. The safe, conservative policy which he inaugurated commends itself to the judgment of all, and has secured to the company a patronage which makes the volume of trade transacted over its counters of … Read more

Tutelo Indians

Tutelo Tribe: Significance unknown but used by the Iroquois, who seem to have taken it from some southern tongue. Also called: Kattera, another form of Tutelo. Shateras, a third form of the name. Tutelo Connections. The Tutelo belonged to the Siouan linguistic family, their nearest connections being the Saponi and probably the Monacan. Tutelo Location. The oldest known town site of the Tutelo was near Salem, Va., though the Big Sandy River at one time bore their name and may have been an earlier seat. (See also North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania.) Tutelo History. In 1671 Fallam and Batts … Read more

Saponi Indians

Saponi Tribe: Evidently a corruption of Monasiccapano or Monasukapanough, which, as shown by Bushnell, is probably derived in part from a native term “moni seep” signifying “shallow water.” Paanese is a corruption and in no way connected with the word “Pawnee.” Saponi Connections. The Saponi belonged to the Siouan linguistic family, their nearest relations being the Tutelo. Saponi Location. The earliest known location of the Saponi has been identified by Bushnell (1930) with high probability with “an extensive village site on the banks of the Rivanna, in Albemarle County, directly north of the University of Virginia and about one-half mile … Read more