Fellers, Mason
Lee
Mason Lee Fellers, the
subject of this sketch, is a native of Bedford County,
Virginia, a son of Peter and Angelina M. (Cook) Fellers, and
was born in Bedford County, on February 8th, 1824, and died
May 7th, 1859; his mother was born in Botetourt County,
Virginia, August 11th, 1832, being a daughter of Charles and
Lydia Cook. Two children were born to Peter and Angelina
Fellers, the subject of this sketch and a sister, Mary O.
Fellers, who married Edward Nininger of Roanoke County. When
Mason Lee Fellers was seven months old his father died. In
1867 his mother was married to George Riley, who died in
August 1901.
At the age of
seventeen years he came to Roanoke County and went to live
with his brother-in-law on Tinker Creek. The winter months
were spent in obtaining an education and in laying for himself
the foundation for his successful after life. For a short
period he attended the Huntingdon Normal College at
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. One year he clerked in a store at
Hollins and one winter taught a public school in Roanoke
County. In 1879 he bought a farm, two and one-half miles north
of Roanoke, on which he has since lived and prospered, and
which is regarded as one of the most valuable farms in the
county. It comprises one hundred and twenty acres and is in a
high state or cultivation. Besides the avocation of farming,
Mr. Fellers has been actively engaged in other business
pursuits, that of trucking, manufacturing brick, operating
large stone quarries, and contracting for stone foundations.
On December 30, 1880, he married
Sudie E. Nininger, daughter of William G. and Eliza Nininger,
of Daleville, Virginia. The following children were born to
this union: Mary E., married to L. N. Kinzie, of Troutville,
Virginia; William B. Fellers, M. D., practicing his profession
in Roanoke, Virginia; Stanford L., a law student at Washington
and Lee University; Bessie H., who resides with her parents.
Mr. Fellers is a man of
indomitable energy, keen foresight, and all his acts of life
have been governed by a high sense of honor. He emerged from
the boom of the early nineties almost hopelessly bankrupt and
over $17,000 in debt. With a high sense of honor he set to
work to pay off this large sum with no assets other than a
small farm. Stock in defunct land companies was paid and a
$3,000 security debt hung over him. The continuous growth of
Roanoke in recent years was of great value to Mr. Fellers. He
cut up a portion of his farm into small tracts, from which he
realized the sum of $20,000. With other lands in which he
invested his holdings are easily worth from $50,000 to
$60,000.
Mr. and Mrs. Fellers are
communicants of the Brethren Church. He is a School Trustee
for Big Lick District, an ardent advocate of the education of
the masses, and stands for the progress and uplift of his
county in every way.
Transcribed by: Peggy
Luce
FISHBURNE, REUBEN
H.:
Farmer, merchant,
soldier, manufacturer, capitalist, and philanthropist, aptly
describes Reuben H. Fishburne, a member of the first Town
Council of Big Lick, and at present a wealthy citizen of
Roanoke, who has retired from active business life. He was
born in Franklin County, Virginia, February 27th, 1835, being
a son of Samuel and Frances Fishburne His parentage was of
sturdy old Virginia stock, and the son inherited largely the
noble qualities of his ancestry.
Mr. Fishburne belongs to a long lived race of people. He
enjoys the unique distinction of having eight grandparents and
great grandparents living at the time of his birth, seven of
whom he grew up to know intimately. The eighth he never knew
personally, as she moved away from the neighborhood a short
time before he was born.
On April
27th, 1873, he married Emma Virginia Phillips, daughter of
Joshua and Sallie Clark (Hughes) Phillips of Campbell County,
Virginia. To this union five children, one son and four
daughters were born, namely: Blair J., Annie L., Fannie T.
(deceased), Sallie C., and S.
Ella.
Fraternally Mr. Fishburne is
a Pythian. Religiously he is a member of Greene Memorial
Methodist Church, and a former member of the Board of
Stewards. He placed the city under lasting obligations to him
for the town clock, which he installed in the tower of Greene
Memorial Church, in connection with his gift of the chimes and
pipe organ to the congregation.
As
a boy he attended the old field schools of Franklin County,
obtaining a fair education. For a number of years he was
engaged in farming pursuits, and when the war broke out
between the states, he was one of the first to respond to his
country's call, joining Company A, Thirty-Seventh Battalion,
Virginia Cavalry, and serving under General William E. Jones
until the time of his death, June 5th,
1864.
During the first years of
the war, the Thirty-Seventh Battalion was engaged in Southwest
Virginia and West Virginia, and in the Valley of Virginia,
during the last year or more of the bloody conflict. Mr.
Fishburne's company was in the Hanging Rock skirmish with
Hunter's Army, an account of which is given elsewhere in this
volume.
The war over, he returned
to his home in Franklin County where he sought to rebuild the
losses he sustained during the four years of conflict. For a
short time he was engaged in mercantile pursuits at Rocky
Mount. In 1873 he removed to Big Lick where he engaged in the
manufacture of tobacco, both "plug" and "smoking." For more
than fifteen years the firm of Fishburne Brothers, composed of
R. H. and T. T. Fishburne, continued the business, after
which, and for an additional sixteen years, only high-grade
smoking tobacco was manufactured until the year of 1905, when
the subject of this sketch retired from active business life.
Since then he has traveled extensively, and has been deeply'
interested in the welfare of his old comrades in gray, who
fought with him for the "lost
cause."
During the year 1910 he
published a history of his old company in a neatly bound
volume, a copy of which was presented to each survivor, as
well as to the widows of his deceased comrades. It was largely
through his beneficence that the handsome monument recently
erected in memory of the Confederate dead of his native
county, now graces the Courthouse Square at Rocky Mount. In
latter years he has extended help whenever needed to his old
comrades in arms, it affording him much pleasure to draw on
his own resources for their
benefit.
As a builder of Roanoke,
he as a member of the firm of Fishburne Brothers, was among
the few who subscribed liberally towards securing the terminus
of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, and he has been interested
financially and in an advisory capacity with a number of the
city's leading institutions, being a director of the National
Exchange Bank, the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company, and the
Brand Shoe Company, as well as a stockholder in many others of
the leading financial institutions of the city.
[History of
Roanoke County by George S. Jack, Edward Boyle Jacobs;
published 1915; Submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea
Stawski Pack.]
FLEMING, COLONEL
WILLIAM
It is not generally
known that the remains of Colonel William Fleming, a
Revolutionary hero, and a great Indian fighter, lay buried a
short distance to the northeast of the city of Roanoke. He
came to Virginia in 1755, landing at Norfolk. In Scotland he
had studied medicine and surgery, but not being fond of the
practice, entered the army as an ensign in the First Virginia
Regiment of the Colonial service. He was a lieutenant in the
"Sandy Creek" expedition in 1756, and was also surgeon of the
expedition. He continued in the service for eight years and
was at the taking of Fort Duquesne. In 1763 he married Nancy
Christian, daughter of Israel Christian, and in 1770 purchased
"Bellmont," a farm near the present site of Roanoke, now
partly owned by Frank Read. The original farm contained about
two thousand five hundred acres. Colonel Fleming was one of
the county justices when the Botetourt County Court was
organized February 13th, 1770.
In the battle of Point
Pleasant, Colonel Fleming commanded the Botetourt companies
under Captains Matthew Arbuckle, John Murray, John Lewis,
James Robertson, Robert McClanahan, James Ward, and John
Stuart. He was wounded in this battle whilst leading a charge
on the Indians, in the beginning of the engagement, receiving
two bullets in the arm and one in the lungs. Colonel Charles
Lewis and Colonel John Field both being killed, the command
devolved on Colonel Fleming, who continued in the field, and
the exertion of giving commands forced the lungs through the
wound. When relieved from the command his condition was
considered hopeless, and owing to the scarcity of surgical
aid, nothing was done for him. A servant who had often
attended surgical operations with him dressed the wounded
colonel's injuries, and he finally recovered. The bullet in
his breast was never extracted and not only caused great
suffering through his life, but was at last the cause of his
death.
In 1781 he attended
General Lewis, being present at his death. He was a member of
the Council of Virginia under Thomas Jefferson, and was in the
State Senate for many years.
He died in August, 1795, aged sixty-six years. He
was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, February 18th, 1729. His grave
and that of his wife are in the old Bellmont burial ground on
the banks of Tinker Creek in Roanoke County.
[History of Roanoke County by George S. Jack,
Edward Boyle Jacobs; published 1915; Submitted to Genealogy
Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
Fuqua, C.
E.
The subject of this sketch,
one of the farming residents of Washington County, was born in
Bedford County, Virginia, on July 25, 1835. He married, atBig
Spring, Virginia, June 22, 1858, Lucy Gordon,
who was born near Salem,
Roanoke
County, Virginia, December 27, 1835.
The record of their children is: Mary F., married Charles B.
Stone, of Abingdon, on January 18, 1881, and died December 4,
1883; Frank M., died November 11,1861, aged ten months; Eolia
S. and Gordon C., living at home.
The
father of Mr. Fuqua was Hezekiah Fuqua, of Bedford County, son
of Joseph Fuqua, who was a soldier of the Revolutionary war,
and in battles of Brandywine and Cowpens. His mother was
Sarah, daughter of Simon Noel, formerly of Bedford County. A number of the
Noel family served in the war of 1812. The Fuqua’s were
Huguenots, emigrating from France under religious
persecution, settling first in South Carolina. Mrs. C.E.
Fuqua is a daughter of John Gordon, of Roanoke County, whose father was Isaac
Gordon, of Manchester, Virginia. The Gordon’s of
Virginia trace their ancestral line to a Gordon of Scotland,
made a Peer by King Malcolm for bravery, serving after as a
trusted guard of honor, near the person of the King. One
branch of the Gordon family emigrating from
Scotland in
colonial days, settled in Manchester, another branch founded
Gordonsville, Virginia. The mother of Mrs.
Fuqua was Eleanor, daughter of John Zircle, of Roanoke County, the family coming from the
Shenandoah Valley.
C.
E. Fuqua was six months in service in light artillery, C. S.
A., in 1862, then discharged for disability, after that served
as railroad supervisor. His brother C. T. Fuqua was killed in
battle of Seven Pines; another brother was killed in the seven
days fighting around Richmond; still another was
captured in 1865, and sent north as prisoner of
war.
[Source: Virginia and
Virginians:
History of Volume 2; by Robert Alonzo Brock, Virgil
Anson Lewis; publ. 1888; Pgs.722-764;
Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea
Stawski Pack]
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