Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/237

 PROMINENT PERSONS

of his near kinsman, Gen. Joseph E. John- ston. During the war. he was appointed to membership on the university board of visitors, and served as rector. In that ca- pacity, in company with Professors Minor and Maupin. he met the Federal troops on the occasion of their entrance into Charlot- tesville, in March, 1865, and made a formal surrender of the venerable university build- ings to Gen. Phil Sheridan, who received Col. Preston and his colleagues with urban- ity and respect, and afforded to the property protection and safety. Col. Preston was twice a member of the Virginia legislature, and could have attained to more distin- guished position had he so desired. He preferred, however, to devote himself to his large family interests Yet he preserved a deep interest in all public aiTairs, and wielded a potent influence throughout his county and its vicinage. He was of high cultivation, of extensive reading in English and the classics, a graceful and eloquent speaker. He wielded a facile pen, and de- voted some years of his later life to the preparation and publication of one or more volumes relating to the history of southwest Virginia. He served many years as vestry- man in Christ Church, Charlottesville. He lived many years beyond the time allotted to mortal man. Col. Preston's first wife was a daughter of Gen. Edward Watts, of Roa noke, Virginia ; she died very soon after hei marriage. Some years later, Col. Preston married Anne M. Saunders, a daughter of C.-en. Fleming Saunders, of Franklin county, Virginia.

McClelland, Thomas Stanhope, born in Lynchburg. Virginia, Alarch 13, 1810, son of Thomas Stanhope McClelland, Esq., and

Margaret Washington Cabell, his wife. His father, who was a well-known lawyer, was born near Gettysburg, February 4, 1777, lisle, Pennsylvania. His mother was a daughter of William Cabell. Esq., of Union Hill, Nelson county, he being thus connected with the distinguished Cabell family of Vir- ginia. His early education was obtained at a crossroad school taught by an English- man named Young, from which school he went to Washington College, Lexington, \ irginia, when very young, where he re- mained three years and a half, and gradu- ated at the age of sixteen. He entered the I'niversity of Virginia in 1827, where he studied for three sessions. He subsequently attended the law school of Judge Baldwin iiT Staunton, Virginia, where he studied law, but never engaged in the practice of that profession. For a time he was engaged in the tobacco business, but subsequently re- moved to Buckingham county, where he lived as a farmer. While at Washington College, he was a member of the Graham Debating Societ}'. On November 5, 1849, he married Maria Louisa Graaf, of Baltimore, Maryland, by whom he had two daughters, Anna LaMotte, the wife of W. H. Whelan, Esq., and Mary Greenway McClelland, the well-known author of "Oblivion," and other brilliant stories, whose early death in 1895 removed one of the most promising of the modern American writers.
 * ind was educated at Dickinson College, Car-

Minor, John Barbee, who for fifty years was a teacher of law in the University of Virginia, among his students being many who became eminent in professional public lite, was born in Louisa county, Virginia, June 2, 1813, son of Launcelot and Elizabeth