Col. William C. Preston

A Patriot of the American Revolution for VIRGINIA with the rank of COLONEL. DAR Ancestor # A092992

Col William Preston

• BIRTH 25 Dec 1729 County Donegal, Ireland
• DEATH 28 Jun 1783 (aged 53) Botetourt County, Virginia, USA
• BURIAL Preston Cemetery at Smithfield Plantation Blacksburg, Montgomery County, Virginia
• MEMORIAL ID 7727600 · View Source

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7727600/william-preston

FindAGrave Information:
Soldier, Surveyor. He was a Captain of a Company of Rangers of Augusta County, Virginia in the French and Indian War. He was a Burgess for Augusta County in 1765 and 1766-1768 and for Botetourt County in 1769-1771. He was County Lieutenant, Sheriff and Surveyor of Fincastle County, Virginia 1772-1776 which included the present State of Kentucky. In 1773 he purchased land at Draper's Meadows in present-day Montgomery County, Virginia, and established a plantation known as "Smithfield". He was County Lieutenant, Justice, and Surveyor for Montgomery County from 1776 until his death. He served as a Colonel of the Virginia State Militia in the Revolutionary War from Montgomery County. He died while attending a muster of the Montgomery County Militia.

The historical marker in Blacksburg, Virginia pictured at the right reads as follows: "One mile west is "Smithfield", old home of Col. Wm. Preston, who materially guided the destiny of the Virginia frontier from the French and Indian War through the Revolution. On this estate two Virginia Governors were born: James P. Preston, 1816-19; John B. Floyd, 1848-52, the latter was the son of another Virginia Governor, John Floyd, 1830-34, who while in office advocated before the Legislature abolition of slavery in Virginia."

Most of the papers of William Preston were collected by Lyman Draper and are a portion of the Draper Manuscripts known as the William Preston Papers. His biography, "William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots" was published by Patricia Givens Johnson in 1976. The inventory of his estate included 273 books. His was one of the largest libraries in Virginia.

Colonel William Preston (December 25, 1729 – June 28, 1783)[1] played a crucial role in surveying and developing the western colonies, exerted great influence in the colonial affairs of his time, enslaved many people on his plantation, and founded a dynasty whose progeny would supply leaders of the South for nearly a century.[2] He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and was a colonel in the militia during the American Revolutionary War. He was one of the fifteen signatories of the Fincastle Resolutions.[3]

He was a founding trustee of Liberty Hall (later Washington and Lee University) when it was made into a college in 1776

Personal life
William Preston was born on Christmas Day in 1729, in Limavady, Ireland, to Col. John Preston and his wife, Elizabeth Patton. Elizabeth's father, Henry Patton, was a prominent shipwright and merchant, and her brother, James Patton, served with distinction in the Royal Navy. The Crown granted him between 100,000 and 120,000 acres in America to permit British colonization beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains.[5] The family immigrated to Augusta County, Virginia in 1738.[6] Subsequent French and Indian resistance and reversal of British policy limited the impact of the family's grants, but Prestonsburg, Kentucky was named in John's honor.[7] In 1755, William survived the Draper's Meadow massacre, an attack by the Shawnee against a settlement that was part of a property (later known as Smithfield Plantation), that he inherited from his uncle, Colonel James Patton, who died in the incident. He served as a captain with the Virginia Regiment on the Sandy Creek Expedition in 1756, keeping a journal which serves as the only complete record of that campaign.[8]

Remaining in Virginia, William married Susanna Smith on January 17, 1761, and together they had 12 children. He and his family moved to Smithfield Plantation, in present-day Blacksburg, Virginia, in 1774, and it served as his final home.[9] He previously lived at Greenfield Plantation in Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia.[10]

At least 216 people were enslaved as workers at the Smithfield Plantation.[11] In August 1759, William Preston purchased 16 enslaved people from a slave ship in a single purchase.

Political and military life
Preston was elected to the Virginia Colony's House of Burgesses in 1765 to represent Augusta County and served until the county was divided around 1770.[12] In 1775, Preston was one of the signatories of the Fincastle Resolutions.

Preston served in both the French and Indian War and American Revolutionary War. During Lord Dunmore's War of 1773–1774, while fighting against the Shawnee Indians, he urged Virginians to join the militia to enact revenge on the Indians and plunder their stock of horses. A colonel in the militia, one of Preston's greatest contributions to the American Revolutionary War was his ability to suppress the Tories (British loyalists) from an uprising in southwest Virginia during the Revolution. He also helped fight Lord Cornwallis and the British in the Carolinas.[13]

He served as a founding trustee of Liberty Hall (chartered in 1782), formerly named the Augusta Academy, when in 1776 it was renamed in a burst of revolutionary fervor and moved to Lexington, Virginia.[14] Other founding trustees Preston worked with were prominent men in the area, including Andrew Lewis, Thomas Lewis, Samuel McDowell, Sampson Mathews, George Moffett, and James Waddel.[4] It is the ninth-oldest institution of higher education in the country.[14]

Legacy
Preston died during a military muster near Price's Fork, Virginia, in 1783. The cause of death is unknown, but it is believed that he either suffered from a heat stroke or a heart attack. He is buried in the family cemetery on Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg, Virginia near Smithfield Plantation. His final home, Smithfield Plantation, has been restored and is listed on the U.S. Historical Registry, and it is open for tours from April through the first week in December.[15]

Many prominent Americans descended from Preston and his wife Susanna, for whom the plantation is named. They were parents or grandparents to governors, senators, presidential cabinet members, university founders, university presidents, and military leaders. The Prestons' son James Patton Preston was governor of Virginia from 1816 to 1819 and helped charter the University of Virginia. Their grandson William Ballard Preston was a congressman, Secretary of the Navy under Zachary Taylor, and later a senator from the Confederate States of America. William Ballard Preston also offered the Ordinance of Secession to the Virginia Legislature that resulted in Virginia joining the Confederacy, and he co-founded a small Methodist college, the Olin and Preston Institute, which was in financial difficulty by 1872. The trustees relinquished its charter and donated its property to the state, which reorganized the campus as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. Today, it is known as Virginia Tech.[16]

Preston was memorialized on July 27, 2011, with the Colonel William Preston highway in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The city of Prestonville, Kentucky, was erected on one of his land grants and named in his honor. Before 1800, it was the most important town in the county and larger than Port William. One of the first roads built in this section of the state was from the mouth of the Kentucky to New Castle in Henry County.

Further reading

• The Smithfield Review, Volumes I-XV.
• Johnson, Patricia Givens, William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots. 1976
• Osborn, Richard Charles, William Preston of Virginia, 1727–1783: The Making of a Frontier Elite. UMI Dissertation Services. 1990

See also

• William Preston (poet)
• Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara

References

* Colonel William Preston Gravestone, Preston Family Cemetery, Smithfield Plantation, Blacksburg, Virginia

• The Smithfield Review, Volume XIV, "The Fincastle Resolutions," Jim Glanville. page 91
• The Smithfield Review, Volume XIV, "The Fincastle Resolutions," Jim Glanville. page 81
• Williams, Richard G (2013). Lexington, Virginia and the Civil War. The History Press, 2013. Retrieved online https://books.google.com/books?id=SnlXXMRrD3MC&pg=PA22
• Preston, F.L. "John Preston 1699-1747". 2007. Accessed 28 September 2013.
• Osborn, Richard Charles. William Preston of Virginia, 1727–1783: The Making of a Frontier Elite.1990, Dissertation, University of Maryland College Park. pages 9–10
• Rennick, Robert. Kentucky Place Names, p. 242. University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 1987. Accessed 1 Aug 2013.
• Lyman C. draper, "The expedition of the Virginians against the Shawanoe Indians, 1756," Virginia Historical Register and Literary Companion, Vol. V, Number II. Richmond: McFarlane & Fergusson, April 1852
• Family Tree, Historic Smithfield Plantation Museum
• Michael J. Pulice & John R. Kern (April 2010). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Greenfield" (PDF).
• "Historic Smithfield Plantation History". Historic Smithfield Plantation. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
• Johnson, Patricia Givens. William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots, 1976. pages 89–108
• The Smithfield Review, Volume XII. "William Preston, Revolutionary (1779–1780)," Richard Osborn. pages 5–24
• "A History: Washington and Lee University". Wlu.edu. Retrieved February 28, 2011.
• "Historic Smithfield". Smithfield Foundation, Inc. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
• Kinnear, Duncan Lyle. "A Short History of Virginia Tech". Retrieved September 15, 2017.
• https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/87624/LD5655.V...
• https://www.google.com/search?q=James+Patton.un*+v.+and+John+Gooch+...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Preston_(Virginia)

married by Rev. Patrick Henry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Preston_(Virginia)

Col. William Preston (December 25, 1729 – June 28, 1783) played a crucial role in surveying and developing the colonies going westward, exerted great influence in the colonial affairs of his time, ran a large plantation, and founded a dynasty whose progeny would supply leaders for the South for nearly a century. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and was a Colonel in the militia during the American Revolutionary War. He was one of the thirteen signers of the Fincastle Resolutions, a predecessor to the United States Declaration of Independence.

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Only son. Came to US w/parents 1738. Built his home "Smithfield" in what is now Blacksburg, Virginia (original name of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Was first named Olin and Preston Institute - then Virginia A&M - finally Virginia Tech.

http://members.fortunecity.com/labach/prestona.htm

William1 Preston (John2, Archibald3), son of John Preston and Elizabeth Patton, was born in Newtown-Limavady, Donegal, Ireland December 25, 1729. William died June 28, 1783 in Botetourt Co., VA, at 53 years of age.

http://members.fortunecity.com/labach/prestona.htm

He married 17 Jan. 1761, Susanna Smith, daughter of Francis and Elizabeth (Waddy) Smith who was born 23 Jan. 1740, Hanover Co., Va. and died 19 June 1823, "Smithfield," Montgomery Co., Va. William Preston received a rudimentary education during the early years of his mother's widowhood but was later placed by his uncle, Col. James Patton, with the Rev. John Craig, pastor of Tinkling Spring Church. Because of his advanced age, a classical education was not attempted, but he was instructed in history, mathematics, and penmanship. When Col. Patton was sent in 1752 to Log Town, sixteen miles below Pittsburgh, to make a treaty with the northwestern Indians, William went along as his uncle's private secretary. In 1750 he became clerk of the Vestry of Augusta Parish, and he continued to hold that office until 22 Nov. 1766.

William Preston's death occurred while attending a muster of the Montgomery County militia in company with Gen. Evan Shelby and his son John Preston. The day was warm and after several hours on the reviewing field, near Michael Price's house about three miles from "Smithfield," he complained to his son of a severe pain in his head and desired to lie down on a bed at Price's. Shortly afterward he attempted to mount his horse to return home but fell back into his son's arms and was again laid on a bed at Price's house. He lost the power of speech but made motions to be bled. His wife was sent for and was recognized by him but shortly after this his breathing became labored and about midnight he died.

http://www.virtualology.com/williampreston/

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Preston-412

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,60525::0

GEDCOM Source

1,60525::90964573

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,2204::0

GEDCOM Source

1,2204::879672

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,60525::0

GEDCOM Source

1,60525::90964573

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,2204::0

GEDCOM Source

1,2204::879672

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,60525::0

GEDCOM Source

1,60525::90964573

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,60525::0

GEDCOM Source

1,60525::90964573

GEDCOM Source

@R-1097868080@ U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 1,2204::0

GEDCOM Source

1,2204::879672

GEDCOM Note

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Susanna Smith

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