Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/239

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPFIY

i«i

Virginia, and pursued a course of study in the law department of the University of Virginia ; now a practicing lawyer of Suf- folk ; married Lula Vanderslice Ivey. 3. Sydney, secretary and treasurer of a coal company in West Virginia. 4. Luther R., of whom further. Children of second mar- riage: 5. Eudora Custine, a teacher, unmar- ried. 6. Anna Benton, who became the wife of Alexander Myrick ; children : Britt and Theodore. 7. Dudley Digges, a civil and mining engineer, who married Flora Cam- den Bailey. 8. Thurman. who died at the age of twenty-six years. 9. Frances Louise. 10. Benjamin Riddick, a student of the Vir- ginia Polytechnic Institute, now a civil and mining engineer.

Luther R. Britt, youngest child of Exum (2) and Eudora (Riddick) Britt, was born in Suffolk. Virginia. October 18, 1865. He was educated in private schools and the Suf- folk Military Academy. He located in Nor- folk, Virginia, and was actively identified with its business and property interests, being engaged for a number of years in the wholesale grocery business and later as a real estate and bond broker. Mr. Britt mar- ried, December 16, 1890, Bessie, daughter of John and Susan A. (Lumsden) Peters. Child, ^largaret Lumsden.

John Benjamin Finder. On paternal lines ]\lr. Finder is of early Georgia ancestry, and on the maternal side is a direct descendant of John Adam Treutlen, governor of Georgia, one of the foremost revolutionists of that state. He was a member of the first provincial Congress of Georgia, which met in Savannah. July 4, 1775, and the promi- nence of his activity in the cause of independ- ence may be measured from the fact that he was described as a "rebel governor" by act of the royal government in 1780. He was elected governor of Georgia, May 8, 1777, over Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, by a large majority. The circumstances of his death are not known, but the belief is that he was murdered by Tories at Orangeburg, South Carolina.

(I) John Benjamin Finder's paternal revolutionary ancestor is Joseph William Finder, a cotton planter, who fought in the colonial army, a patriot strong and true.

(II) Joseph William (2) Finder, son of Joseph W^illiam (i) Finder, was born on

Wilmington Island, near Savannah, Georgia, in the Savannah river, in 1833, died in 1903. His early life was passed in the place of his birth, and he was there educated. In young manhood he became identified with the ser- vice of the Georgia Central Railroad, and rose to high position in the road. In such great favor was he held by the officials there- of that at the outbreak of the war in 1861, when he announced his intention of leaving for the front, the president of the road at- tempted to dissuade him, arguing that his services were of such great value to the road that he could best serve the Confeder- ate government by remaining at his post and directing the use of the campany's prop- erty for government purposes. Mr. Finder, however, was not to be turned from his original purpose, and he enlisted in the Savannah Volunteer Guards, serving throughout the four years' struggle. For the ten years prior to his death, which oc- curred in Richmond, he was a farmer and dairyman of Henrico county, owning and cultivating land just outside of the limits of the city of Richmond. He married, about 1867, Adelaide, born in Powhatan county, Virginia, daughter of Peter and Susan (Spears) Ellett, his first wife a Miss Turner, of Savannah, Georgia, who bore him one daughter, Susie, married a Mr. Harris. Chil- dren of Joseph William (2) and Adelaide (Ellett) Finder: Hattie E., married W. R. Allen ; Joseph William Jr., deceased ; Oc- tavia, married L. F. Hudson ; Annie, married Oscar High ; John Benjamin, of whom fur- ther ; Walter Spears ; Bena T., married Cole- man Johnston ; Catherine Belle, married Robert L. Rand.

(HI) John Benjamin Finder, son of Joseph William (2) and Adelaide (Ellett) Finder, was born in Goochland county, Vir- ginia, August 7, 1873. W^ien he was one year old his parents moved from the home at Cedar Point to Powhatan county, and here he first attended public school at the age of fourteen years going with his par- ents to Henrico county. Although his active business career began in Richmond when he was sixteen years of age, his studies were not completed until afterward, when he fin- ished a business course in a Richmond com- mercial college. His first connection was with hardware dealing, and in this he has since remained, in 1901 establishing the \''irginia-Carolina Hardware Company, be-