PARSONS, COL. HENRY C.
Colonel Henry C. Parsons, several years owner of the Natural Bridge, was a native of Vermont. He was the author of "The Reaper," a volume of poems. Colonel Parsons was murdered at Clifton Forge, June 29, 1894, by a railroad man.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)

PAUL, CAPT. AUDLEY
Captain Audley Paul was a son of Hugh Paul, a Presbyterian minister, who migrated from county Armagh, Ulster, to Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was a very useful officer, and was in military service nearly all the time from 1754 until the close of the Revolution. He led his company several times against the Indians. He was under Washington in the battle known as Braddock's Defeat, and he endured the hardships of the Big Sandy expedition. His son relates in 1839 that his father received no compensation for these services. Captain Paul lived near the line of Botetourt. His brother John became a Roman Catholic priest in Maryland.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)

POAGUE, WILLIAM T.
William T., son of John B., and Elizabeth (Stuart) Poague, came out of Washington College in the class of 1857, and entered the practice of law in St. Louis. In the Confederate army he rose from the rank of private to that of lieutenant-colonel. He was with General Lee in his Greenbrier campaign, and was in all of Stonewall Jackson's battles. In 1885 he became treasurer of the Virginia Military Institute. Other positions of honor and trust were held by him.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)

PRESTON, COL. WILLIAM
The Preston group-family is noteworthy for the exceptional number of eminent persons it includes. Colonel William Preston, a soldier and surgeon of the Dunmore and Revolutionary wars, was the only son of John, the immigrant and his wife, a sister to Colonel James Patton. Thomas L., tenth child of Colonel William, was an alumnus of Liberty Hall Academy, a lawyer and died in military service in the war of 1812. Colonel John T. L. Preston, son of Captain Thomas L., began active life as a lawyer, but for forty-three years was professor of language and literature in the Virginia Military Institute, a school that he helped in no small degree to establish. During forty years he was known as the "town speaker," yet he was somewhat unsocial and did not always choose to be on the popular side. All his seven sons were educated at Washington College. His first wife was Sally L. Caruthers; his second was Margaret, the eldest daughter of President Junkin, of the same institution. The children who reached adult age were Thomas L., Franklin, William C., John A., Elizabeth, George J., and Herbert R. Thomas L., and John A., became ministers. Franklin and William C. were killed in the war, the first at New Market, the second at Second Manassas. Franklin, the best linguist of his age in the state, was assistant professor of Greek in Washington College. George J., and Herbert R., was the children of the second wife. Both settled in Baltimore, the first as a physician, the second as a lawyer.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)