By Beverly Belcher Woody
While researching the life of Dr. W. M. Akers, I learned that he purchased the home of William Wallace Moir and Caroline Virginia Martin Moir to convert into the Stuart Hospital. This home once stood on Blue Ridge Street, between Stuart Baptist Church and the present Blue Ridge Regional Library. That discovery sent me back to a line of research I had begun years earlier involving a remarkable woman with deep Patrick County roots: Lucinda Staples Redd Preston.
In a letter published in The Enterprise in the early 20th century, an anonymous writer born in 1851 in Taylorsville (now Stuart) stated that in the “old Moir homeplace, William Ballard Preston married Lucinda Staples Redd.”
Yet, A History of Patrick County, Virginia (p. 355) records that the wedding occurred in 1837 at the Waller Redd home, which once stood near the present First Horizon Bank, which is between the church and the library.
This raises a fascinating question: Was the old Stuart Hospital—formerly the Moir home—also once the home of Waller Redd? If so, the structure may date to around 1816, the year that Waller Redd married Keziah Staples.
Waller Redd, born in 1777 in Henry County, was the son of Revolutionary War Major John Redd and Mary Winston Waller, daughter of Colonel George Waller and Ann Winston Carr—making her a first cousin of Patrick Henry.
Keziah Staples, born in 1792 to Samuel Staples and Lucinda Stovall Penn, was almost certainly born in Patrick County’s first notable residence, the Stonewall House.
The Stonewall House was built by Colonel Samuel Staples, who became the county’s first Circuit Court Clerk. Construction began in 1775, when Taylorsville was still part of Pittsylvania County. Stone from the foot of Stuart Mountain was hauled by ox wagon—only one load per day. After a year, enough had been gathered for the foundation. Over the next ten years, ox teams hauled stone until the walls—an impressive 24 inches thick—were completed. When finished in 1792, George Washington was President of the United States. The house stood until 1964, when it was razed to make way for the bank at the head of Main Street.
Waller Redd and Keziah Staples were married on December 27, 1816, in Amherst County. Their only child, Lucinda Staples Redd, was born on October 12, 1817. Keziah died just months later at age 28 and was buried in the Stuart Town Cemetery on Chestnut Avenue. Waller died in 1823, leaving six-year-old Lucinda an orphan.
In November 1837, Lucinda married William Ballard Preston, who would later serve as Secretary of the Navy under President Zachary Taylor. Together, they had six children:
Captain Waller Redd Preston (b. 1841), a University of Virginia student who served in the 14th Virginia Cavalry and was tragically killed at Bremond, Texas, in 1872.
Ann Taylor Preston (b. 1843), who married Dr. Walter Coles in 1864 and died four years later at age 28.
James “Patton” Preston (b. 1845), also a member of the 14th Virginia Cavalry, who never married and later managed Smithfield Plantation.
Lucinda Preston (b. 1847), who married William Beale and raised four children at “Tressalia” in Botetourt County. She was chosen as hostess of the Virginia Building at the Jamestown Exposition in 1907 (300th anniversary of the first landing).
Janie Grace Preston (b. 1849), who married Aubin Lee Boulware of King and Queen County and lived in Richmond, where her husband served as an attorney and bank president.
Little Keziah Preston, born in 1854, died in 1861 at age six.
Nowadays, historical Smithfield Plantation is open for tours from spring through fall. https://www.historicsmithfield.org/
Below is the fully preserved obituary written by Lucinda’s cousin, Samuel Granville Staples (1821–1895), with only minimal corrections to spelling and punctuation:
“On the 17th day of October, 1891, at Smithfield (her residence) in the County of Montgomery, Mrs. Lucy S. Preston (widow of the Hon. William Ballard Preston, deceased) departed this life after an illness of ten days. The disease that terminated her life was pneumonia, and during its early stages her case was not regarded as hopeless; but, being at the advanced age of seventy-four years, her condition was too feeble to resist the effect of the disease, and the result was she died from sheer exhaustion.
During her entire illness she was attended by every member of her family, who bestowed upon her every attention that love and affection could prompt. She died calmly and peacefully, in the full possession of all her faculties, and just before she breathed her last she exclaimed, ‘Nearer, my God, to thee.’
Her mortal remains were borne to their last resting place, attended by a large concourse of relations and friends, and buried at the family cemetery in the grave of her late husband.
Her father, Waller Redd, was the son of Major John Redd of the County of Henry, of Revolutionary memory, who distinguished himself at the Battle of Yorktown and for gallantry was promoted on the field of battle. Waller Redd was for many years clerk of the superior and county courts of Henry and discharged the duties of the two offices with great acceptability. He was a man occupying the highest social position and died in the town of Martinsville (Henry County) on the 23rd of September, 1823.
The mother of Mrs. Preston, Keziah Staples Redd, was the daughter of Col. Samuel Staples, who, for a period of thirty-one years, filled the offices of clerk of the superior and county courts of Patrick with marked ability and fidelity and discharged their various duties to the entire satisfaction of both the bar and the county. He was a man of note, and of great personal popularity and influence in his day, was possessed of a sound mind and discriminating judgment, and died at Patrick Court House of paralysis on the 23rd of March, 1825, in the sixty-third year of his age, universally beloved and respected by all who knew him.
Keziah Staples Redd was a woman of rare intellectual endowments, of sound practical sense, popular among all her neighbors and friends, and died at the residence of Major John Redd in the County of Henry on the 26th of January, 1818, leaving not an enemy behind her.
At an early age Mrs. Preston, then an orphan, was under the guardianship of her grandfather, Major John Redd, but resided at the home of her uncle, Col. Abram Staples, at Patrick Court House, until she became of sufficient age to be sent to school, when she was sent to Salem Female Academy in North Carolina, a noted institution in that day. After attending the exercises of that academy for about two years, she was sent to Philadelphia as a pupil in an institution under the superintendence of Madame Sigourney, a teacher well known to possess all the qualifications necessary for the guidance and instruction of young ladies.
Having finished her education in Philadelphia, she returned to Patrick Court House and became an inmate in the house of her aunt, Mrs. Ruth P. Redd. There she remained, surrounded by every advantage that wealth and high social position could confer, until her marriage in the month of November 1837 to the Hon. William Ballard Preston of Montgomery.
Smithfield, the residence of Mr. Preston, was the resort of many of the first families of Virginia and South Carolina, such as the Hamptons, Prestons, McDowells, Floyds, Watts, and others of high repute, who habitually resorted there to spend the summer. Mrs. Preston discharged her household duties with liberal hospitality and with rare dignity and grace, until Mr. Preston was made Secretary of the Navy under President Zachary Taylor, when the family removed to Washington.
There, as the wife of the Secretary of the Navy, she maintained in the higher circles of society an enviable position, and she showed herself capable of a most elevated association with the more refined people of that city. Mrs. Preston was a lady of ordinary attractions and accomplishments. She had a well-modulated voice and was quite fluent in conversation. Her manners were refined, gentle, modest, and reserved, and she was usually retiring in her disposition.
There was a wonderful harmony in her character, and she possessed a wonderful degree that delicate tact in her general interaction with others that rendered all who met her easy in her company. She was of a calm and happy temperament, gentle in her character, and was possessed of many sterling virtues as well as sweetness of disposition. She was devoted to her children, her relatives, and her warm personal friends, and she was never so happy as when enjoying an unreserved conversation in their company.
As has already been stated, she met death with a calm and peaceful resignation to the Divine will, and she has gone to reap her reward among the spirits of the blessed, in that world above, which is a world of love, where hearts may be one forever. The writer of this feeble tribute to her memory was raised in the same home with her. He was her constant associate and playmate while they were children. He learned to love and cherish her as a sister, and the many happy hours they spent together during their early days will be fresh and green in his memory while life lasts.
“The pains of death are past,
Labor and sorrow cease,
And life’s long warfare closed at last,
Her soul is found in peace.”
Next week, we will try to discover more about the families who lived in the home that would become Stuart Hospital, namely the Moir family. If you have any questions, comments, or story ideas, you may contact Woody at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or 276-692-9626.
