Colonel Charles S. Roller, Jr. continued his family’s longstanding educational tradition as owner and operator of Augusta Military Academy in Fort Defiance, Virginia. A Virginia Military Institute graduate and World War I Army veteran, he taught at several universities before purchasing the academy in 1949. The biography also details his family genealogy and son’s legacy at the school.
Foote records two distinct Virginia families whose surnames are easily confused. The Read family was established at Bushy Forest in present-day Charlotte County and became prominent in county government, Revolutionary service, education, and the ministry. The Reid family entered Rockbridge County through several migrations and became connected by marriage with the Alexander and McDowell families. Foote does not establish a relationship between the Read and Reid lines.
Foote records the Logan surname in three prominent but unconnected settings: John Logan among the first settlers and ruling elders of New Providence, Benjamin Logan among the Presbyterian householders of the Holston Valley before his removal to Kentucky, and Rev. Robert Logan in the Bethel and Fincastle communities. Foote does not establish a family relationship among these men.
The McPheeters family traced its origins from Scotland through Ireland and Pennsylvania before establishing a substantial household in the Bethel settlement of Augusta County. Its best-documented descendant was Rev. William McPheeters, D.D., whose career connected Virginia’s Presbyterian churches and schools with Kentucky and North Carolina.
Foote records two distinct Scott family groups in Virginia. The better-developed household was that of Rev. Archibald Scott, pastor of the associated Bethel and Hebron congregations in Augusta County. A separate line centered upon Colonel Thomas Scott of Charlotte County and his work with Hampden-Sydney College. Foote does not establish a relationship between these families.
The Virginia Waddell family references preserved by William Henry Foote center upon Rev. James Waddell, D.D., the celebrated Presbyterian teacher and orator remembered as the Blind Preacher of Virginia. His ministry connected the Northern Neck with the Shenandoah Valley and central Virginia, while the marriages of his daughters linked the family with the Presbyterian ministers Archibald Alexander and William Calhoon.
The Greenlee family was among the earliest pioneer families of the Timber Ridge settlement in present-day Rockbridge County, Virginia. James Greenlee and his wife, Mary M’Dowell, arrived with the M’Dowell family in 1737 and established themselves within the new settlement near the headwaters of the James River. Through Mary, the Greenlees were closely connected with one of the most prominent families in the early history of Rockbridge County.
Members of the Lyle family were prominent in the early Scotch-Irish Presbyterian communities of western and central Virginia. The family first appears in the surviving account at Timber Ridge in present-day Rockbridge County, where Daniel, John, and Samuel Lyle supported the congregation served by Rev. John Brown. Later generations and branches were associated with the South Branch of the Potomac in Hampshire County, the Buffalo and Briery congregations in Prince Edward County, Bedford County, and Kentucky.
The Campbell family of Holston was one of the most prominent Whig families of Virginia’s southwestern frontier during the Revolutionary era. Descended from a Scottish family that had settled in Ireland, the Virginia Campbells established themselves first in Augusta County and later near the headwaters of the Holston River. Their descendants included soldiers of the Revolution, county officers, judges, and governors in Virginia and Tennessee.
The Alexander family traced its origins to Scotland and later Ulster before several members emigrated to America in the eighteenth century. Archibald Alexander, born in Ireland in 1708, came first to Pennsylvania and then settled on the South River in Virginia about 1747. His descendants became closely associated with Timber Ridge, Rockbridge County government, Washington College, the Presbyterian Church, and several prominent educational institutions.