Greenbrier County, West Virginia The ANDERSON Family by George SMITH, ca. 1900 ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Transcribed and submitted by Carolyn (Anderson) Clark, EMAIL: April, 1999. ************************************************************************** This biography was written circa 1900 by George S. Smith who appears to have been a pastor, apparently to and for his daughter, to acknowledge her family heritage. We have no knowledge that this has ever been published. (Items) have been added for clarification or as information not available to Mr. Smith. See also bio. for The Lipps, Lippe, Leaps written at the same time by Mr. Smith. Furnished by Ann (Lipps) Huff and Barbara (Lipps) Tabor The ANDERSON Family (James and Peter L.) The ANDERSON family are Scotch in their origin but a branch of this large family had settled in the North of Ireland. In 1738 there was a great emigration of these Scotch Irish people to America and special inducements were offered to those who would settle in the valley of Virginia, then Orange County. A family of ANDERSONS consisting of John, James, George, Esther and Mary came to what was afterward Augusta County, from one of these, James or John, I am unable to say definitely which, James ANDERSON founder of the Greenbrier family descended. It is very likely that George Anderson was the father of the James and John who came with him to America. They were among the earliest settlers of Augusta County, Virginia. Here it is likely that James ANDERSON, the second was born. He was always spoken of as an Irishman but as he died in 1815, it is hardly likely that he was born before 1735, when the family settled in Augusta County. The ANDERSONS, according to Col. WADDELL’S sketch of Augusta County, were a very prominent family in that section and took part in both the French and Revolutionary Wars. James ANDERSON received a much better education than most of his young fellows on the frontier and he was able to teach a country school. He had as a pupil a beautiful daughter of a, for that time, wealthy farmer named Peter LIGHT, whose name was Elizabeth and Uncle George ANDERSON says she rode off with him and married. I find the record of his marriage in the list of licenses granted by the clerk in Augusta County. The parents of the young wife were reconciled and Mr. LIGHT gave his son-in-law a good set off. Greenbrier County was now settled and Captain ANDERSON and his brother John and his son William, then just of age came about 1779. He had a fine property to start with, he bought a farm on Sinking Creek, but decided to go into mercantile life and he mortgaged 8 negroes to a man named McNUTT and to a merchant in Fredericksburg named KUHN. He entered into politics and was a member of the Assembly. He sold his farm in Sinking Creek and bought in the meadows and afterward came to town where he practiced medicine. He bought four acres of land in what is now the heart of Lewisburg where old Mr. WESTFALL used to live, near the old McPHERSON home. His little cake shop was Dr. ANDERSON’S office. He finally removed to the meadows and there died in 1815. He was buried with military honors in the old graveyard on the Feamster place west of Lewisburg. He had quite a family......... William who was the founder of the Muddy Creek family Joseph was a shoemaker John Peter Light (Nancy Malinda married John Yates) George who was his youngest son a daughter who never married and I think a Mrs. Johnson Of these Peter Light ANDERSON was my wife’s grandfather. He was born about the time his parents moved to Greenbrier about 1786. (June 14, 1785) He married an excellent country girl, Rebecca (Francis) FLACK in 1812 and settled near Lewisburg on the place now occupied by Anderson B. LIPPS. He and his wife were very industrious, careful and economical and they made a most comfortable home for themselves. Their children were.................... Elizabeth “Betsey” Light married (Thomas) MATTICS Joseph married (1. Jurdena) BOBBITT (2. Mary WHANGER) Peter (Light, Jr.) married (Mary) PIERCY Mary Jane married John LIPPS (II) Rebecca Ann married Dearing (Daring?) Samuel Boyd married (Esther Catherine) Zickafoose Henry I. unmarried (died before Peter?) Susannah (Susan) married (James) Hinkle John L. married Mann Nancy married (John) Sparr Few men have ever lived a worthier life than Peter Light ANDERSON. A staunch Methodist who had the help and cooperation of a worth wife. He had his family devotions every day and his private devotions as regularly. He had a favorite horse named Dandy who was kept always for his special service. He was exceedingly careful about his neatness of dress and rode into the town to church and to see his daughters always will attend. He lived to be seventy-five and his old wife lived to be eighty-six. They were the finest of old style country people. With their large log house, their excellent spring, their garden with its old time herbs, the sheep in the pasture, the cows in the meadow, the fine fruit trees laden with apples and cherries, with no debts to harass, with money always on hand, with no extravagant habits, never going ten miles from home, concerned only about making an honest living and serving God the old people set before all an example of lovely character. After the death of the old man in 1861, his good wife who had a life estate in the farm endeavored still to remain there but finally decided to divide it among her children and live among them. She lived a widow twenty-three years. Old Grandma, as she was called was a very decided character, neat, industrious, energetic, and devotedly pious. She joined Society as a Methodist called it, when she was a girl and when the church divided in 1861, she stood by the old church and while all her children except her sons joined the Southern Methodist body she held to the old church. She was one of the half dozen members who composed the church which was virtually turned over to the negroes, but she went faithfully for a long time on preaching days. She however went to the Southern Church to worship and was never an “offensive partisan.” A dear old woman industrious as a bee, neat as a pin and firm as a rock. She had her shrowd made by her own hands and always kept money enough on hand to pay her burial expenses. She lived to be eighty-six years old. Her fondness for her Bible, her hour of prayer were never intermitting. She had great faith in Brandetis pills and in potato soup and stuck to her pipe as long as she lived. She was a poor girl but the family was originally an excellent Scotch Irish family of wealth. In this country home two miles from Lewisburg this worthy couple reared a fine family. There were scant opportunities to give children an education in those days and his boys and girls had to work for a livelihood and get what education they could in the country schools. They were all taught the rudiments of English and but little more. Mary Jane was the fifth child and the second oldest daughter. She was born in 1823 and was an exceedingly lovely girl. She was industrious, a girl of charming manners and deeply pious. She had reached the age of twenty-five when she married the young blacksmith John LIPPS. He brought her to Lewisburg and placed her in a hewed log house still standing near the old Methodist church. Here in 1849 your mother was born on December 7. I never knew a more admirable woman than she,(Mary Jane) was. Industrious, amiable, benevolent, pious, courteous, refined, she was a pattern of excellence. She cared nothing for the world but lived to do good to her children and those about her. She was a fond mother, perhaps too fond of her children, a faithful wife, and a devoted child. Her husband was very prosperous for many years and made ample provision for all the material wants of his family so that she was able to supply the needs of the poor about her which she did with a lavish hand. She directed the affairs of her household with great wisdom and saw to the education of her children, especially her girls, resolving that they should have advantages denied her. She was a plain, unpretending, lovely Methodist of the finest type. Her children grew to manhood and womanhood and married and left her. Perhaps the keenest pain of her life was when she gave your mother to me to come to what to her was an unknown land, the State of Georgia, but she did so cheerfully. (Her children are listed in the bio. of John Lipps II.) When all her children were married and settled except Rebecca and John and she had passed her seventieth year she was stricken with a mild stroke of apoplexy which affected her vision but otherwise had no effect. Her mind continued clear and as strong as usual but she was weary and wanted to go to her Heavenly Home. Your mother went to see her every two years and was to see her last year of her life. These visits, you my daughter, will well remember as the brightest of your childhood. She was not in pain but simply waiting the call to a higher place. At last it came and one severe January she was taken with an attack of La Grippe and in full senses, full of joy and rapture she passed to her reward as pure and noble a woman as ever adorned this earth. If my children follow the example of this ancestry they will have a noble record. George G. Smith Macon (Vineville) Georgia