clerk, and through industry and thrift was able in 1883 to embark in business in partnership with his brother. They were quite successful and continued in trade until 1896, when they disposed of their mercantile interests and opened a real estate office. Mr. Ransome has been active in the interests of the organization of the Sons of Veterans, and has held for two terms the rank of commander of Hampton camp, No. 11. He was married May 30, 1889, to Miss Sallie G. Moore, of Giles county, and they have five children: Albert Thomas, Mary Louise, John Taylor, Philip Gordon and Marion Whitwell.
Henry Rawles, a man who did his full duty in the Confederate cause, descended from the Friends who accompanied William Penn to Pennsylvania. Some of the descendants removed to Nansemond county, Va., and this subject was born at Suffolk and served in a Virginia regiment during the great war. Mr. Rawles was not alone in his devotion to the South, sixteen of his immediate relatives also making the sacrifice required, three of whom being killed in battle and several were wounded. As a worthy representative of so patriotic a family, we are pleased to mention Judge R. H. Rawles, son of the foregoing, who has been conspicuous in the public affairs of Nansemond county since the war. He was born at Suffolk in the year 1850, and was graduated in law at Richmond college in 1874. He then embarked in his professional career at his native city, and soon attained prominence as a lawyer and a leading position in public affairs. In 1879 he was elected to the State senate for a term of four years, during which he served as chairman of the committee on railroads and internal navigation. Before his term as a senator had expired he was elected judge of the county courts, and he held this office six years, then resigning it to return to the more congenial work of the active practice of law. In this he has been notably successful. He is popular socially and is prominent in various fraternal orders. In 1880 he was married to Mary Woodward, of Suffolk.
James Clayton Reed, pastor of the Memorial Methodist Episcopal church, South, of Lynchburg, and a veteran of the Bedford light artillery, was born in 1842 in Pasquotank county, N. C., where his father, Rev. Lemuel S. Reed, a Methodist minister, was then residing. In 1861 Mr. Reed, then about eighteen years of age, was a student in Randolph-Macon college, and at the close of the college session, he returned home and enlisted in July, 1861, in the Bedford light artillery, at that time stationed at Jamestown island. He served with this company as a private until the spring of 1862, when he was promoted sergeant, the rank he held during the remainder of the war. His service included participation in the artillery fight at Dam No. 1, the Seven Days' fighting before Richmond, the Second Manassas campaign, and the battle of Sharpsburg, where, while engaged in the valuable service of S. D. Lee's battalion, he was so unfortunate as to lose his left hand. On account of this injury he did not return to the battery until July, 1864, after which he fought faithfully to the end, serving on the Howlett House line before Richmond, in the skirmish near Amelia Court House on the retreat and at Sailor's Creek, finally surrendering at Appomattox. The following is a testimonial from his captain, John Daniel Smith, now of Baltimore: "At Sailor's
