Private John Hite, II

Louise Pecquet du Bellet. Some Prominent Virginia Families. Lynchburg, VA, USA: J.P. Bell Company, 1907, p. 341

John Hite. Jr., only son of Col. John Hite, of "Springdale," was b. June 28, 1751; d. June 12, 1808. Married, first, Susanna Smith; second, Cornelia Reagan. For some years he lived near his father and was interested in the mill built in 1788. In 1773 he and his sister, then the widow Hughes, became converts to Methodism and built the first Methodist meeting-house in the Valley, with their own means. The Methodists then, as now, were abolitionists, so John Hite, Jr., in conformity to the rules of the church, set his servants free and settled them near his own home. In a short time they became idle and improvident and many of them vagrants, so he was compelled to take them back to his plantation and assume control of them. Some time later he removed to Massanutten Spring, in Rockingham County, where he bought land and built a mill and a store. He was the father of a large family, all of whom removed further west, most of them settling on the Ohio River.

John Hite married, first, Susanna Smith: secondly, Cornelia Reagan and died in Rockingham County in 1805.