Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/433

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

323

farm until he was sixteen years of age, and obtained his education in the local schools. He then became clerk in the general store of A. B. Fowlkes & Brother. W. J. Fowlkes, for whom Mr. Pritchett worked as a boy, is now assistant cashier of the bank of which Mr. Pritchett is president. He spent less than a year in this store, then located in Dan- ville. \'irginia, where he entered the employ of P. W. Ferrell. a tobacconist. He re- mained with Mr. Ferrell eight years, acquir- ing business experience and some capital, both of which he later employed in a busi- ness venture of his own. He was twenty-five years of age when he established a grain and feed business in Danville, which he push- ed to a successful issue, and which has been the foundation on which he erected his later larger and varied business enterprises. This business was later turned over to, and is now managed by the founder's son, James Ira (2). In the thirty-three years that have elapsed since he first started in business for himself, Mr. Pritchett has been identified watli many business enterprises of Danville and vicinity, with many of these yet retaining active interest and control. He is a director of the Riverside and Dan River Mills ; director of the Danville Traction and Power Company ; director of the Danville and Western Rail- road Company ; director of the Crystal Ice and Power Company, and of the Morgan Iron and Pipe Company, of Lynchburg, Vir- ginia. He is a member of the company, Pritchett & Son; presidentof the Dan Valley Mills since 1893 ; president of the Piedmont Mills at Lynchburg since 1903, and a mem- ber of Pritchett & Company, millers, of Lynchburg. His wise executive ability has safely guided the companies over which he presides to safe business havens, and as a director of the other companies, he has ever been a tower of strength. He has the pro- gressive, yet conservative, spirit that blends so w'ell in modern business life, where the temptation to unwisely expand has brought many an otherwise stout financial craft to wreck and disaster. In x\ugust, 1913, he was elected president of the First National Bank of Danville, an institution of solid financial standing, but with which he had not been ofificially identified hitherto. This bank, capitalized at $200,000, shows a unique condition, having a surplus fund equal to its capital stock. This record of thirty-three years of business activity merely outlines

the more important connections, while the smaller but more numerous enterprises with wdiich he has been prominent, and the many he has aided by capital and advice, cannot be given. He has been a public-spirited pro- moter of Danville's best interests and an important factor in her development. His life has been one devoted to business, polit- ical life having had no attractions for him. although as an Independent in political action, he has neglected none of the duties of a good citizen. He is a member of the Masonic order, and of the Protestant Epis- copal church.

Mr. Pritchett married, in Danville, June 12, 1881, Eleanor A. Hickson, born in Strath- roy, Canada, but living in Virginia since childhood. Children : Richard H., born Oc- tober 29, 1 88 1, now a manufacturer of Balti- more, Maryland; James Ira (2), born Sep- tember 7, 1883, manager of the grain and feed firm, Pritchett & Son.

Samuel Dawson Puller. Son of a planter and slave owner of Gloucester county, Vir- ginia. Samuel Dawson Puller, after four years of military efi^ort, accepted manfully the great change in conditions that resulted and with all the energy of his great nature, began the rebuilding of his fortune. How- well he bore his part in the rebuilding of a new South and in retrieving his own for- tunes in the quarter of a century of active life left him this brief story of his life will tell.

Samuel Dawson Puller was born in Glou- cester county, Virginia, June 11, 1840, died August 12, 1892, in Norfolk, Virginia, son of Samuel Dawson and Mary (Hall) Puller, of Gloucester county, wealthy plantation owners, worked by slave labor. Lie was educated under private tutors and passed his minority in the usual manner of the young Virginian of his day. At the outbreak of the war between the states, he enlisted in the Fifth Regiment Virginia Cavalry, and ^ fought for the Confederacy during four years of strife and bloodshed that follow^ed the attack on Fort Sumter. He was wound- ed several times, received many promotions, was aide on the staiT of General Thomas L. Rosser, and when the end came was rank- ing as colonel, although he had not been commissioned. He was a gallant officer and true soldier of Virginia, risking his life freely and promptly wdierever and whenever