Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-02-19
Long Ago.

Mr. EDIToR:-For fear Hon. A. H. H.
Stuart may not see the reference made t.
him as being able to give the history of
those citizens of Staunton present at Mr..
Abram Smiths first marriage, October 1st,
1907, permit me to give YOU some facts
touching some of them. M S Mary Hunt
phreys was the widow of DR.. - Hum
phreys, in his day a prominent physician,
who lived ON the hill not far from Mr..
Stuart present residence, or perhaps nearer
to the W. A. Harris's school. She was a
daughter of the Rev. John Brown, the first
Pastor of New Providence, and gr nd
daughter of John Preston. After her hus-
hands death, her oldest son, the late David
&c Humphreys, of Midway, Woodford
county, KY, at the time II years old, re-
moved about 1916 to Kentucky. n He told
the writer that he had the first Sunday suit
of Casinet. furnished by Joseph and Silas
I'll. Smith, whose clerk be had been for some
time at the Burwell corner; that he bad fifty
cts. left on reaching Lexington. His widow,
d Miss Scott, of Lexington. died a month or
two since, and Mary-Mrs. Day, of New
JERSEYS the sole survivor of a family of
two sons and two daughters. Mr. Alexan-
der, owner If the famous stock farm, ''Wo-
burn" married Lucy, the other daughter
and some years since Mss Fullerton, Of
Chillcothp, 0. He is the sole survivor of
his family, and the writer may give your
readers some interesting fac in regard to
this Alexander family, who. they will be
surprised to know, resided at one time near
Deerfeld, and the father, William Alexan
der, removed to Kentucky with Mrs. Hum
phre,s. In March. 1916, in the interview
with David G. Humphreys, he said to the
writer, che could remember every man,
woman, aud child, horse. COW, and dog,
when his mother lpfG StauntOn, in its cor
porate limits" Night after night, for a
week, we burned midnight oil, and, in H.
lustration Of my interest in him. called one
evening to spend the night, at the desire of
an ol friend of his in Augusta, who, on
leaving his door in February on horseback
for Kentucky, said to me: eff you find
yourself in fifty miles of David G. Hum
phreys, my esteemed friend, call and sac
him on my account
did SO, intending to go to Cincinnati
the next morning. did not get away in
week, and then only on the condition that
would meet him and his wife and sister in
Louisville the next week, and accompany
them ON the steamer Peytona to New Or
leans | did SO The sister was the STEP
mo- her of MIS-. President Lincoln Mrs
Catharine Mathews was the widow of Samp-
son Mathews, and Elizabeth Reid was his
divorced wife. who again took her maiden
name. Will NJ. Stuart give us a more full
history of each? Dir. Jacob D. Williamson,
as he afterwards became, as l suppose he
had not at this date studied medicine, the
writer k"ew intimately. He owned the
fine estate in the end of Rockingham, just
SOU Invest of New Market. Having no
children, he had a nephew, young Lemon,
raised near to MarGinsburg. to take his
name and heir his fine state. He did so; he
educated him at Lexington; l forget il at
Col ege or the Institute. The young man,
at the close of his course, married the oldest
daughter of the late Mat hew Viii e. She
survived her husband. DR.. Williamson
several times represented Rockingham in
the Legislature. O-L.