Dr. Robert C. Jones – Hill Winfrey Account, Courtesy Jeremy Winfrey
In 1937, Rosa G. Williams preserved a fragment of the accounts of Dr. Robert C. Jones for the Virginia Historical Inventory. Mrs. Williams located his dwelling on Hwy 20, 1.4 miles north of Ransons, on the east side of the road.
Dr. Jones’ patients included familiar Buckingham residents such as the Winfrey, Scruggs, and Turner families. In August of 1846, his accounts reveal that he consulted with a Dr. Talley.
Like most 19th century doctors in central Virginia, Jones pulled teeth, treated slaves, prescribed medicine, made house calls and night visits.
Unlike many physicians of his era, the 1860 census reveals him to be a wealthy man, owning $25,000 in real estate and $75,000 in personal property, including sixteen slaves.
Can a Slate River Rambling reader offer more details about Dr. Jones, his family, his education, and the source of his wealth?
Mount Tabor Baptist Church, Photo by Joanne Yeck
My ancestor, Norborne Eugene Harris, and members of his family attended Sharon Baptist Church in northeastern Buckingham County. His sister, Amanda (Harris) Bolling, helped establish Mount Tabor Baptist Church near Arvonia. In 1886, it joined Sharon in the James River Baptist Association. Rev. Robert L. Wood wrote about Amanda’s contribution in A History of the James River Baptist Association 1832-1982:
About 1880, Mrs. Amanda Bolling began teaching a group of children Bible stories on Sunday afternoons. They met in a one-room log school house. The class grew in number and more teachers were added until there was an organized Sunday School. William Hall was the first superintendent. A revival was held in a brush arbor adjacent to the school house with the result that Mount Tabor Church was constituted in 1886 and a building was completed in 1887.
Mount Tabor organized a Woman’s Missionary Society in 1896, one of the first eight in the James River Association. The first WMS president was Mrs. Pinkie Skidmore, daughter of Mrs. Amanda Bolling.
Also, in 1896, a field of churches was formed with Mount Tabor, Mulberry Grove, Sharon and Goshen. This field continued to exist until 1951 when Mulberry Grove left the field. The three remaining churches continued on the field until February, 1971, when Goshen left the field.
Courtesy Longwood University
During the Civil War, Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute closed its doors for the last time. The college’s music instructor, composer Arnaud Préot, successfully continued his career and became President of Farmville Female College, today Longwood University. His tenure there lasted from 1862-69.
Longwood University’s website provides this brief biography:
The second principal of Farmville Female College and the seventh overall president, Arnaud Preot, a native of Lille, France, took over for the recently departed George La Monte in the midst of the Civil War. He had previously taught at Walkhill Academy in Pennsylvania and was a professor of music and languages at Southworth College in Petersburg, Va. He moved to Buckingham County in the 1850s to teach music at the Female Collegiate Institute, which faltered at the beginning of the war. Preot took a job as a music and French teacher at Farmville Female College and was then named president.
Under Preot’s tenure, the faculty was enlarged and a three-year degree program for select students was instituted. Tuition and fees at the college had been raised by that time to $63 for music and language tuition, and $64 for board. By 1864-65, enrollment had increased to 87 students, in addition to a number of other scholars seeking certificates of proficiency. Preot resigned the presidency in 1869 to teach at Danville Female College. When that institution closed the next year, he accepted a position on the faculty of Roanoke Female College, eventually serving as principal there.
Information for this biography included several sources, among them was Longwood College: A History by Rosemary Sprague.
Click here for more about the history of Longwood University’s Presidents.
Search Slate River Ramblings for more about Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute.
Courtesy Bill Coleman
The celebrated teacher and heiress, Miss Laura E. Gregory, had a prosperous brother named Emmet who conducted business in Buckingham County. The American Almanac (1882) ran the following advertisement on the back of the edition:
Emmet D. Gregory, Enonville, Va. Dealer in Dry Goods, Groceries, Hardware, Table and Pocket Cutlery, Drugs, Medicines, Paints and Oils, Dried Fruits, Garden Seeds, &c. Customers will find our stock complete, comprising many articles it is impossible here to enumerate, and all sold at moderate prices.
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Emmet D. Gregory was a founding member of Andersonville Masonic Lodge #242. In 1893, he held the position of Worshipful Master. At that time, A.E. Coleman was the Tiller and his brother, J. Lee Coleman, was the Secretary.
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In 1902, E.D. Gregory was postmaster of Dillwyn, Buckingham County. By 1912, he was mayor.
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In 1920, he placed the following advertisement in the Manufacturers Record:
LARGE bodies of iron-ore, pyrites, gold and copper lands for sale on easy terms: mineral lands of all kinds, etc. Send for catalogue of farms and mineral lands. Emmet D. Gregory. First National Bank Bldg., Dillwyn, Va.
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Does a Slate River Ramblings reader know exactly where Emmet Gregory’s wondrous store was located?
Many thanks to Hal Coleman for introducing me to the Gregory family.
Continued from 24 July 2014 . . .
On May 25, 1902, the Richmond Dispatch went on to explain how Miss Laura E. Gregory of Buckingham County became an heiress as a result of her romantic correspondence.
REMEMBERED HER IN HIS WILL.
[Even in Alaska, Charles E. Wilmot] had not forgotten the throbbings of his early love, as his will testified. The administrators of his estate wrote to Buckingham and asked if such a person as Miss Laura K. Gregory was living. The letter was forwarded to the lady in question, who replied. The second letter brought the tidings that her friend, Mr. Charles E. Wilmot, had died in Alaska, leaving his immense fortune to be equitably divided among three legatees–Miss Laura E. Gregory, her name sake, Laura E. Van Etten, and Mr. C. A. Harbrenck. The last two are the niece and nephew, respectively, of the deceased.
Miss Van Etten, who is a young lady of sixteen summers, is now travelling in Europe.
Steps were taken on May 3rd, by the administrator, to settle up the estate, which is reported to be worth sixty thousand dollars.
A WELL-KNOWN TEACHER.
Miss Gregory, who is forty years of age, is well known in our locality, where she has taught for twenty years. She holds a teacher’s professional certificate, but on account of the feeble condition of her widowed mother, she resigned her post, and became the Florence Nightingale of our rural locality. . . . This story reads like fiction, but the truth of the facts can be fully substantiated by the best people of the community.
Coming Next: Mr. Emmet D. Gregory
In 1902, Baltimore’s Sun announced:
“A $60,000 Romance. Miss Laura Gregory Receives a Fortune from Man She Never Saw.”
The story even found its way to New York City where the Daily People printed:
“$60,000 from a Love Correspondence.”
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Details varied; however, the Richmond Dispatch ran the fullest story on May 25, 1902:
A PRETTY ROMANCE.
WELL KNOWN BUCKINGHAM LADY THE BENEFICIARY OF A WILL.
BEQUEST FROM OLD LOVER.
Miss Laura E. Gregory Attracted the Attention of a Kansas Man by Her Newspaper Articles–
Correspondence and Courtship Followed–The Unusual Sequel.
ARVONIA, VA.. May 23.—
Just seventeen years ago, Miss Laura E. Gregory, of Buckingham county, contributed several articles on the Education of Women and Woman’s Suffrage in the Kansas City Times. Her writings attracted the attention, and won the heart of Mr. Charles A. Wilmot, general superintendent of a large gold mining company, who wrote and asked the privilege of corresponding with the “Virginia girl.”
The request was complied with, and for a period of twelve or thirteen years they learned to know each other well, and it is needless to say became engaged. Miss Gregory was the recipient of a handsome ring and many gold and silver specimens, and curiosities of the far West.
Mr. Wilmot had planned trips to claim his Virginia fiancée, but for reasons then unknown, he never arrived. Thus the correspondence ceased for several years, and it seemed as if the little romance would fade from the life of our Buckingham daughter. It is now learned that he had left Colorado to seek greater wealth in the far off country of Alaska, where he recently died.
To be continued . . .
Antioch Baptist Church, Courtesy Historic Buckingham
Rev. Spencer’s biography in Virginia Baptist Ministers concludes:
He was tall and robust in figure, quiet in manner, simple in dress, deliberate in speech, reliable in character, with a heart as true as steel, as simple as a child. He loved folks, and his brethren, and was loved by them. His father, Rev. John Spencer, and he covered, in their life spans, one hundred and eleven years and in their work as preachers a century. Two of his churches, Wilderness and Union, had been his father’s churches; his other “flocks,” Antioch and Pleasant Grove, were not so old. In these churches there was little opportunity for growth in numbers, partly because so many converted and baptized in all this countryside moved to the cities and there became active, useful members. . . .
All through Bro. Spencer’s life, at his churches, the annual protracted meeting was a chief event of the year, social as well as religious, when large crowds gathered, all denominations being represented and often in the hottest weather there were three sermons, three services each day.
Visiting Monticello this summer?
Don’t forget to save time for the wonderful Monticello Museum Shop.
Signed copies of The Jefferson Brothers are available as well as comprehensive selection of books about Thomas Jefferson and his world.
Not in Virginia?
Copies of The Jefferson Brothers are always at Braughler Books.
Rev. John James Spencer’s biography was included in the collection Virginia Baptist Ministers. It begins:
JOHN JAMES SPENCER (1840–1919) Buckingham County, Virginia, was his birthplace, his field of labor, where all his life was spent, and under its sod his body sleeps its last sleep. Here he was converted, baptized, licensed, ordained, married twice. From here he went forth to the Civil Was (Company B, 25th Virginia Battalion) and to his home he returned after the surrender at Appomattox Court House.
Buckingham is a large county and in his day was without good roads and (save a short spur) without a railroad. Back and forth, he went in his work as a preacher, for some forty-nine years, traveling according to his calculation 7,500 miles; think of the saddlebags, the buggy, the mud and the creeks, the heat of summer and the snow and rain in winter, the long silent stretches of pine and oak forest that were friendly to deer and foxes.
For years he was an “institution” at Buckingham Court House where everyone knew him and he knew everybody. Not long before his death he wrote: “Under my ministry a large number have been converted, 3,000; I have baptized over that number, married as many, and I have no idea how many I have buried.” As far as he knew not one of the couples he married was ever divorced.
To be continued . . .
The post of the Guthrie family at Rosny resulted in a flurry of comments and corrections.
Remembering her youthful visits to Rosny, Mary Carolyn Mitton recalled a rhyme taught to her by her Grandpa Spencer. It cleverly preserved family history, chanting the names of the children of Rev. John J. Spencer:
“Albert Sidney, Robert Lee,
John Y., Willie T.,
Minnie Walker, Nannie Byrl,
Mary Frances, Alice Pearl”
The family’s allegiance to Confederate heroes is apparent in their choice of the names Albert Sidney and Robert Lee. Three of the siblings are pictured above: Mary Frances “Dixie” (Spencer) Guthrie, John Yancey Spencer, and Mildred “Minnie” Walker Spencer.
Coming Next: Rev. John J. Spencer (1840–1919)
slate river ramblings . . . . 