J. E. B. Stuart’s family, like people today in southwestern Patrick County, went into North Carolina as the closest village was a mere five miles away from their home, Laurel Hill. Oral tradition holds that the future general’s mother, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, wore her everyday bonnet when she left Laurel Hill for a ride into nearby Mount Airy, North Carolina. Oral tradition tells that the mother stopped at Linger Longer, the home of Joseph H. Fulton, a few miles closer to town near Jones School, and changed into her best bonnet from the everyday bonnet she wore at home.
If James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart accompanied his mother, riding his horse, crossing the state line between North Carolina and Virginia along the Ararat River. Their journey might have been to pick up the family mail, attend church, or for shopping excursions with his sister, Victoria, in what became known as the “Granite City.”
The village of Mount Airy that Elizabeth L. P. Stuart knew got its very name from a member of her family. Thomas Perkins wrote the following passage in his will dated April 17, 1816, listed on page 138 of Surry Will Book Number 3, “To my son Constantine Whitehead Perkins I give my land, including the seat where I now live, called and known by the name of Mount Airy.” The source for most of this material is The Descendants of Nicholas Perkins by William Hall.
Thomas Perkins’s son Constantine left another mark on the small North Carolina town of Mount Airy in the form of the lodging establishment he started. The Blue Ridge Inn or Blue Ridge Hotel would be the first of four establishments on the corner of Main and Oak Streets over the next one hundred and fifty years. In 1819, there is evidence that the town was to become Perkinsville.
Local tradition abounds about young James E. B. Stuart and Mount Airy. During the preservation efforts begun in the 1990s, many older ladies of the town would tell this author stories of their ancestors dancing “The German” with Stuart at the Blue Ridge Hotel. Tradition suggests that when the dashing, still clean shaven West Pointer came to dances, the local ladies would “fall down in a swoon”.
The strongest local tradition involving the Stuarts in Mount Airy is that the family attended church services there. Elizabeth L. P. Stuart was a “High Church” Episcopalian, and the evidence suggests that she attended the forerunner of one of Mount Airy’s oldest buildings, Trinity Episcopal Church. Evidence suggests that the Episcopal congregation met in the Lebanon Methodist Church. Today, only the stairs that led up to the church remain on Lebanon Hill.
The first entry in the parish register of Trinity Episcopal Church reads, “The first account on any service of the Episcopal Church in Mount Airy was during the Episcopate of Bishop Ives, the year not remembered, when in old Lebanon Methodist Church (north of town) he confirmed the sisters of General Stewart of Patrick County, Virginia.”
The late Robert Merritt graciously shared his research material with the author on this subject. Robert points out that Ted Malone of the Diocesan House says, “Bishop Ives confirmed the sisters of J. E. B. Stuart before one of them married Peter Hairston.” This would be Columbia Lafayette Stuart Hairston (1830-1857), who married Peter Hairston in 1849, three years before the traditional confirmation date. It is doubtful that Columbia returned to Mount Airy from Davie County to receive confirmation in 1852.
However, when dealing with oral traditions, is it possible that Ives confirmed another younger sister of General Stuart in 1852? Victoria, born in 1838, is the obvious choice, but Virginia, who was born in 1836 and died in 1842, did not live long enough. Merritt points out that 1852 is possible, as the journals of Bishop Ives from that year are missing. He did travel to the northwest counties of North Carolina, especially “Wilkesborough” and the “Valley of the Yadkin,” south of Mount Airy. He does mention Ives visiting Surry County twice at Rockford along the Yadkin River on the southern boundary of the county, but there is not one instance of Ives visiting Mount Airy. The record written in 1896 about the confirmation, forty-four years after the event, leads this author to believe that possibly one of General Stuart’s sisters received confirmation.
Five years later, on September 18, 1857, Victoria Stuart wrote Bettie Hairston about Mount Airy. She wrote, “We got home very safely the day after we left Beaver Creek. I have not been anywhere since except to preaching.” She wrote of her “Brother James” telling Bettie of his wounding at the hands of the Cheyenne at a battle along the Solomon River in Kansas. The following year, she noted in another letter dated April 17, 1858, “Excuse my nice letter paper, as it is the best Mount Airy affords.” Victoria made sure to tell Bettie about her former beau, the now-married Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart of the First U.S. Cavalry, casually mentioning, “Brother Jim has gone on the Utah expedition.”
One thing about the Stuarts and Mount Airy is not in doubt. They picked up their mail in the town. J. E. B. Stuart, on September 29, 1854, wrote, “Write to me as soon as you can at Mount Airy, North Carolina.” Four days later, Stuart again mentioned the town, writing to Bettie, “Your long expected and anxiously looked for letter I found here on my arrival yesterday. I attended the Post Office at Mount Airy, North Carolina, regularly, the short time I remained at home but was as often disappointed by finding no letter.”
At the end of 1854-1855, Bettie Hairston was not the only young woman who noticed James Ewell Brown Stuart. Elizabeth Anne “Lizzie” Gilmer (1835-1898) wrote often in her diary, now in the collection of the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History, about the Stuarts. She wrote of a visit with the Stuarts on March 31, 1855, “Took a very pleasant ride out to Mrs. Stuart’s with Brother John and Miss McQueen. No doubt our visit would have been more pleasant if one absent member of the family could have been there.” Was the missing member the twenty-one year old recently graduated Lieutenant Stuart? We will never know for sure, but it is hard to imagine that a young man recently graduated from West Point, walking around Mount Airy in uniform, would not have caught her attention.
On January 13, 1855, “Lizzie” Gilmer wrote about church services on Lebanon Hill, “After the doors were closed for the night, the arrival of Mrs. Stuart and family was announced; and it seems many, many faces made their appearance. How rare do we meet with one whose mind belongs to that high idea with which she may so justly be classed.” “Lizzie” Gilmer visited Laurel Hill on February 24-25, 1855, and wrote, “We were received with so much kindness. Life has some green spots. I never enjoyed a visit more. Vic (Victoria Stuart) is almost my ideal of beauty – so good and so noble too. The friendship of such a one is one of the strongest ties that bind me to earth.” Both “Lizzie” and “Vic” attended the Salem, North Carolina, Female Academy, as did Bettie Hairston in the early 1850s.
The Stuarts knew the home of Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth, Elizabeth Stuart’s family physician, where the present-day post office sits. Dr. Joe, who, with Robert Galloway, purchased Laurel Hill in 1859. Robert Galloway’s homes, at 731 and 739 North Main Street, still stand just up the street from the Moore House, built circa 1862. Galloway built an opera house on Main Street and donated the land across the street for what is today First Baptist Church.
Today, you can visit the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History and see an exhibit about the Civil War that includes J. E. B. Stuart, located next to where the Blue Ridge Hotel once stood, and where Stuart visited many times.
