SALLING, JOHN PETER
A mist of romance attaches itself to the name of John Peter Salling. That individual lived in the heroic age of American history, and therefore it is not strange that some embellishment has crept into the narrative contained in the volumes written on border history. It is represented that Salling explored the Valley of Virginia as early as 1726, had a long and most eventful captivity among the red men, and after his restoration was the pathfinder who drew the attention of John Lewis and others to the "New Virginia" beyond the Blue Ridge. Accepting the family tradition as being more trustworthy than the rhetorical tales we have alluded to, we arrive at the following as the most probable statement of the whole matter.
John Peter Salling was a weaver by trade, and was one of the few Germans who settled in Tuckahoe. Hearing of the new country beyond the mountains, and being of a venturesome turn, Salling went on a journey of exploration. He was so well pleased with the beautiful bottom just above Balcony Falls that he did not think it worth his while to go further. He returned to his home at or near Williamsburg and took steps to secure a morsel of this choice land. This was probably in 1741. It could scarcely have antedated the coming of the McDowell’s, since it would have been imprudent to make a solitary settlement forty miles from other people. Salling's earliest patent was not issued till 1746. A transfer of a portion of his land names 1741 as the date of patent, but no such deed appears to be on record. It would seem that the year of settlement rather than the year of patent is the one mentioned in the conveyance. We know that Salling was living here at the time of the McDowell battle in December, 1742. And since this incidental mention indicates that he was then at home, it would not seem that he was captured earlier than the following spring. While Salling and a companion were prospecting on the Roanoke, the former was taken by the Cherokees and remained a prisoner until 1745. He was being sent to France as a spy, the struggle known in America as King George's war not yet having come to a conclusion. The French vessel was captured by a British cruiser, and Salling was put ashore at Charleston, South Carolina. He now made his way back to Virginia, perfected his title to his land, went to live on it, and was not again disturbed.
Traditions agree that during his captivity, Salling was carried as far as the Mississippi and in some way fell into the hands of the French. The more florid account adds that a squaw of Kaskaskia adopted him as a son; that he several times journeyed down the Father of Waters, and was purchased by the Spaniards as an interpreter; that he was taken to Canada, redeemed by the French governor, and turned over to the Hollanders, of New York.
Henry Ruffner states that John Salling had a brother, Peter Adam Salling. This may have been the case, but Doctor Ruffner is incorrect in saying John was a single man. He had a wife named Ann, and at least five children. If there were two Sallings, it was the other who was a bachelor. John Salling, the only pioneer named in the records, had business dealings with the McDowell’s. That he was a man of force and consequence is manifest from his being commissioned an officer of militia. His will is dated Christmas day, 1754, and his death occurred shortly afterward, while he was still in the prime of life. He appears to have had no near neighbor of his own nationality. He spoke broken English, and his two daughters married Henry Fuller and Richard Burton. His sons, John and George Adam, had removed to North Carolina by 1760, probably because of the new Indian war, and only the third son, Henry, remained at Balcony Falls. The will, however, mentions an infant grandson of the name of John Salling. It also speaks of one Peter Crotingale as a tenant on one of his farms. The personality was appraised at $194.64, and it included four horses, four sheep, and twenty-two hogs. The last of the Sallings in Rockbridge was Peter A., who died without issue in 1856.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)

SMITH, FRANCIS H.
General Francis H. Smith was born at Norfolk, October 18, 1812, and was graduated with distinction from West Point in 1833. He was then placed in the artillery service, but soon resigned to accept the chair of mathematics in Hampden-Sidney College. The position was congenial and it was with some reluctance that he accepted a unanimous call to the superintendence of the newly organized Virginia Military Institute. His subsequent career is a part of the history of the institution over which he presided the extraordinarily long period of fifty years. The school was in the nature of an experiment when he became its head. He lived to witness an almost continuous growth, and to see it develop into the most famous military school in the United States with the single exception of West Point. General Smith died March 21, 1890, only three months after his retirement.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)

Major Isaac Noyes Smith
Major Smith, son of Col. Benjamin H. and Roxalana Noyes Smith, was born in Charleston, Kanawha county, Virginia, in April, 1832. He was educated at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, from which he graduated with high honors in both the academic and law departments. After completing his college studies, he returned to his home at Charleston, entered the law office of his father, and very soon became an active member of the Kanawha County Bar.
In 1860 he was elected a delegate from his native county to the Virginia Legislature at Richmond, but when the Civil War broke out in 1861, he volunteered in the Confederate Army as a private soldier, and was shortly thereafter promoted to Major of his regiment. When the war was ended, he was honorably discharged, returned to Charleston, and vigorously resumed the practice of the law in which he was remarkably successful. When his father, who was eminent in the profession, retired from active practice, Major Smith took his place as the senior member of the law firm of Smith & Knight, in which he continued as an active member until his untimely death, which occurred at his residence in Charleston, October 6, 1883. He came of an ancestry marked by strong, able and brave men, and his distinction at the Bar was only less than that of his illustrious father, who survived him.
Major Smith was united in marriage with Miss Caroline S. Quarrier in November, 1860, daughter of Hon. Alexander W. Quarrier, a prominent citizen for many years of Charleston. Major Smith was an official member of the Presbyterian Church, and was noted for uprightness, integrity and honor, as well as a successful lawyer. Several members of his family are still living in the city of Charleston. One of his sons — Harrison Brooks Smith — is a member of the long and well-established law firm of Price, Smith, Spilman & Clay of Charleston, that maintain a state-wide reputation as attorneys and counselors.
[Bench and Bar of West Virginia by George Wesley Atkinson, 1919 - Transcribed by AFOFG]

STUART, ARCHIBALD
Archibald Stuart left Ulster in 1731, and came to the Borden Tract in 1738, an amnesty having permitted him to send for his family. His wife, Janet, was a sister to the Reverend John Brown. Two sons were Thomas and Alexander, the latter born in 1735. Alexander was very tall and strong, and wielded a ponderous broadsword in the battle of Guilford, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. His son Archibald, who died in 1831 at the age of seventy-four, removed to Staunton in 1785. He was the father of Alexander H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Fillmore. Robert Stuart of Rockbridge and Judge Alexander Stuart of Missouri were brothers to Archibald, a grandson of whom was the dashing Confederate cavalry leader, General J. E. B. Stuart.
(Source: The History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, By Olen Morton, Publ. 1920. Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack)