ties, and entering the Virginia military institute was graduated in 1849. Manifesting at an early age an ability that warranted important trusts, he was commissioned in 1851 to sail to China as supercargo for Nye Brothers & Co., in the silk trade, and continued in this business for nine years, making voyages to China, Siam, and other countries. Abandoning this occupation in 1860 he returned to Virginia and at Lynchburg was married in the same year to Miss Nannie Saunders, daughter of the late James Saunders, M. D. With his wife he made a journey to Canada, and remained there until the following year. On their return to Lynchburg he suffered the loss of his wife by untimely death, and in the fall of 1861 he entered the Confederate service, in the engineer corps. He served at the important defensive position of Drewry's bluff, at the center of the Richmond and Petersburg line, until just before the abandonment of that position, when he was ordered to New River Bridge. Returning thence to Lynchburg, he was there at the time of the surrender, and was paroled in May, 1865. In the following August he made a trip to Europe and remained a year, after which he returned to Lynchburg and made that city his permanent residence. For two years he was occupied in the dry goods trade, and then entered the insurance business, in which he has since been engaged.
John W. Poole, during his lifetime a prominent citizen of Petersburg, was born in Dinwiddie county, Va., in 1842. After he had arrived at the age of twelve years he was a resident of Petersburg, where at the outbreak of the war he entered the Confederate service as a private in Company D of the Twelfth Virginia regiment. He served with this command during the year 1861, and in 1862 through the battle of Seven Pines, June 1st, and the Seven Days' fight before Richmond, including Oak Grove and Malvern Hill, and then, his health being seriously impaired by the arduous campaigning which he had experienced, he was transferred to the naval department, and placed in charge of the rope factory at Petersburg. He remained in this important service until the close of the war, and then was engaged in the mercantile business until 1880, when he took control of what is now known as the Powhatan corn mills, which he conducted until his death in 1892. His son, W. E. Poole, who continues the business under the old firm name of J. W. Poole & Son, was born at Petersburg in 1864, and was educated at McCabe's school. In 1894 he was married to Miss Mary E., daughter of J. W. Young, who was a prominent business man of Petersburg and a brave Confederate soldier. Mr. Young was born at Petersburg in 1839, and died at that city in 1893. During the first year of the war he held the position of assistant quartermaster of the Twelfth Virginia regiment, Mahone's brigade, and during the three succeeding years he saw active service as a member of Graham's battery, with the exception of six months when he was detailed to drill the home guards.
Jesse J. Porter, of Louisa Court House, Va., was born August 26, 1836, the son of James D. Porter. His father died in 1879, at the age of seventy-seven years. April 17, 1861, Mr. Porter enlisted as a member of a military company previously organized, left his home for Harper's Ferry, where he assisted in the capture of the place and its military stores. A month later he was engaged in a
