Historian Tom Perry will discuss the lives of William Alexander Stuart, John Dabney Stuart, and James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 29, Ararat Ruritan Club, 4711 Ararat Highway, Ararat.
All born at Laurel Hill, Stuart’s Birthplace, in Ararat. Perry will discuss Stuart and his brothers and their careers during the War Between the States. William Alexander Stuart ran the saltworks in Saltville, Virginia, one of the two places that the Confederate States of America had for the vital natural resource. John Dabney Stuart was a doctor in the 54th Virginia Infantry in the Army of Tennessee. James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart rose to the rank of Major General and commanded all of the cavalry in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
This is a fundraiser for the Perry Family Scholarship.
Admission is free. Donations for the scholarship are accepted.
The event is sponsored by the Ararat Ruritan Club.
Contact Tom Perry at freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com or (276) 692-5300 for more information.
The Perry Family Scholarship: Betty, Erie, and the Student Essays will be released the same day as the talk.
Author and Historian Thomas D. Perry started the Perry Family Scholarship in 2021 when his parents died within two months of each other. Since then, eight students from Patrick County High School in Stuart, Virginia, have received $500 each. This book is divided into three parts. In Part One Perry writes about his mother, Betty Jane Hobbs Perry, who gave Tom his love of books and history. In Part Two Perry writes about his father, Erie Meredith Perry, an educator for thirty years in Patrick County. In Part Three the student recipients write a 1,000-word essay about the topic of their choosing from the Civil War in Virginia to the Holocaust. Recipients are required to write an essay to be considered for the scholarship. Funds from this book will go to the Perry Family Scholarship.
Scholarship recipients and their essays include:
* The Renaissance by Whitley Manns
* Transportation by Sydney Presa
* Nazi Leadership by Laurel Puckett
* The Holocaust was mass murder by Macy Hall
* Daniel Boone by Cole Snyder
* An Excursion to the White Sulphur Springs by James Caudill
* The History of Religion in the Middle Ages by Irene Smith
* The Civil War and Virginia’s Role In It by Nate Large
The 300-page book is available on Amazon for $19.99 at
https://www.amazon.com/Perry-Family-Scholarship-Student-Essays/dp/B0DG8G2FNJ.
