The Foland Family of Scottsville: Part IV

Mount Walla, Scottsville, Virginia. Courtesy Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Need to catch up? Click here: The Foland Family of Scottsville: Part I

James Morton Callahan’s biography of Clarke Valentine Foland continues:

Peter V. Foland married Elizabeth Clarke Stratton, who was born in Scottsville and died in March 1921, at the age of 75. She was the daughter of James and Harriet (Wood) Stratton, of Fluvanna County, Virginia Harriet Wood was the daughter of Thomas Wood of that county. Through his father Clarke V. Foland is a descendent of Randolph Jefferson, the only brother of Thomas Jefferson, sons of Peter Jefferson. James Stratton, his maternal grandfather, was a veteran of the Mexican War. Clarke V. Foland was next to the youngest in a family of seven children. His brother James G. is a machinist at Hendricks, West Virginia.

Harriet (Wood) Stratton was born about 1810-1815. Was her father, Thomas Wood of Fluvanna County, the same Thomas Wood who was the father of Elizabeth A. Wood, who married Peter Field Jefferson, Jr.?

Elizabeth A. (Wood) Jefferson was born about 1816-1818 and her sister Cynthia (Wood) Singer was born about 1825. They are the right ages to be sisters to Harriet. If this is the case, Bettie Stratton and Peter Foland were related by marriage.

In 1875, Harriet (Wood) Stratton gave a deposition concerning Peter’s grandfather, Peter Field Jefferson. At the time Harriet was sixty-six years old and lived with the Folands at Mount Walla. She testified that she had known Peter Field Jefferson all of her life. This would doubtless be true if she were his son’s sister-in-law.

This direct connection to the Wood family also helps explain Maria (Singer) Ellis’ close connection to the Foland home at Mount Walla.  If Harriet (Wood) Stratton was the sister of Cynthia (Wood) Singer, Maria was her niece and first cousin to Bettie (Stratton) Foland.  Maria died at Mount Walla in 1942, age ninety-eight.

Can a Slate River Ramblings reader shed any more light on the Wood family of Fluvanna County?

Coming Next: The Foland Family of Scottsville: Part V