Samuel Selden Brooke, of Roanoke, Va., who served with the rank of captain in the army of Northern Virginia, was born in Stafford county, Va., November 10, 1844. In 1858 he entered the Virginia military institute, but abandoned his studies in April, 1861, to answer the call of his State. He enlisted on April 21, 1861, in the Stafford Guards, a volunteer company organized at the time of the Harper's Ferry disturbance in 1859. He was mustered into the service of Virginia as a private in Company I of the Forty-seventh Virginia infantry, and about a month later was elected junior second lieutenant. In this rank he served until the reorganization in 1862, when he was elected and commissioned as captain. During the remainder of the war and until the surrender at Appomattox, he held this command. His record is an honorable and distinguished one, including service in the fight at Aquia Creek, with Federal naval forces, just before the first battle of Manassas: Yorktown, Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Gaines' Mill, Frayser's Farm, Cold Harbor, Cedar Mountain, three days of fighting at Second Manassas, the capture of Harper's Ferry, the fighting of A. P. Hill's division at Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the first and third days at Gettysburg, including Pickett's charge, Bristoe Station, all of the fighting in the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Jericho Ford, Second Cold Harbor, the defense of Petersburg, including two battles on the Weldon railroad and at Jones' House. He served in the trenches at the Crater for a week after the explosion. He was wounded at Second Manassas and Bristoe Station. At Sailor's Creek his company was captured, but he surrendered with the army at Appomattox. After that event he made his way on foot to Fredericksburg, Va., and for about five years was engaged as a clerk in a lumber yard. Subsequently he was married at Fredericksburg to Betty Lewis Young, daughter of John J. Young, and until 1875 lived at his old home in Stafford county, occupied in farming. At the close of that period he embarked in the practice of law at Fredericksburg, which profession he forsook at a later date to enter journalism. He was first business manager of the Fredericksburg News, then editor of the Fredericksburg Star, until 1882, when he founded the weekly Leader at Roanoke. This newspaper he sold in 1886, when he received the appointment of clerk of the Hustings court, a position he has worthily occupied since that date.
William T. Brooke, a prominent civil engineer, who has for several years held the position of city engineer of Norfolk, Va., was born in Fauquier county, in January, 1847, of a family which had for several generations resided in Virginia. He is the eldest son of Capt. James V. Brooke, now a resident of Warrenton, Va., who was born in Stafford county, embraced the profession of law, and was a member of the Virginia convention that passed the ordinance of secession in April, 1861. This civil act he sustained by service in the field as captain of artillery. Both of his immediate ancestors bore the name of William Brooke and his father was a prominent business man of Stafford county. James V. Brooke married Mary Norris, of Fauquier county, and five of their six children now survive. William T. Brooke was reared in Fauquier county, receiving his education in private schools until he had reached the age of about seventeen years, when he entered the Confederate service as a member of a company of boys whose
