Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1922 Excerpt: ... TO MY BELOVED DAUGHTER HELEN Who has been my amanuensis in preparing this Family Narrative,--has written about two-thirds of it from my dictation,--and aided me essentially in completing it;--I now most affectionately dedicate it, with my paternal blessing. FRANCIS J. BROOKE. Richmond, May 1st, 1849. 1WAS born on the 27th of August, 1763, at Smithfield, the residence of my beloved father, upon the Rappahannock, four miles below Fredericksburg. Tradition said it was called Smithfield after Capt. John Smith, otherwise called Pocahontas Smith; but as there is nothing in the histories of Virginia stating that Capt. Smith was ever so high up the Rappahannock, I think that tradition was in error. I think it was so called after a Capt. Laurence Smith, who in 1679 had a military commission to defend the frontier against the Indians in that region. It was an estate belonging to one Tanner, who was in England, and authorized his agent to sell it, and it was bought by my grandfather, Taliaferro, who then resided at Epsom, the adjoining estate, and he gave it to my mother--God bless her. The estate now belongs to Mr. Thomas Pratt: the old house in which I was born is burnt down, and he has built a new one, not so large, and higher up the river. When I was a boy there were the traces of a fortification, including a fine spring, as a defense against Indians. My father was the youngest son of my grandfather, who came to this country with a Mr. Beverly, at the time Gov. Spotswood came, about the year 1715; he became the Surveyor of the State, and was with the Governor when he first crossed the Blue Ridge, for which he received from the Executive a medal, a gold horse-shoe set with garnets and worn as a brooch, which I have seen in the possession of Edmund Brooke, who belon...
Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.
