My father was born December the 22 A.D. 1776, a short time after his father had enlisted in the Revolutionary struggle for freedom therefore he never saw his father, for his father never returned from the war. He was born near the mouth of Meadow Creek where it empites into Little River in Montgomery County, Virginia, but as the war continued long and times became very hard his mother, finding it a difficultiy to support and clothe her children (she had four) and as land was not valuable at that time she was compelled to let other people raise them for her. So, Jacob Lorton raised Peter and Margaret, Moses Scaggs raised Garrettt and Joseph Copher raised Solomon till he was fifteen or sixteen years old. Peter moved to the Ohio State with his uncle Patrick Jordon, Garrett married Sarah Pepper in the State of Kentucky, whither he himself had moved with Moses Scaggs and became his only heirs. Margaret married Allen Con of Botetourte County, Virginia. When he was about nineteen years old, but I must here state that although Joseph Copher was exceedingly good to him he gave him nothing neither did he educate him at all, which was one of the greatest injuries he could have done to him. But Israel Lorton who was the captain of the Company with which my grandfather enlisted on his return from the war pretending to settle the business for my grandmother got hold of the titles he had for a most splendid tract of land on Meadow Creek Montgomery County, Virginia. So that my father had nothing to commence housekeeping with but he had not been married but a few years, their separation took place they had no children, I cannot state when she died precisely. So a few years afterr my father married Lavisa T. Bryan a widow (formerly Lavisa T. Roberts) of whom he had four children. The name of the first was Amanda Melvina born May the l2th A.D. 1816. The second Josephus Newton (named for Wm. Newton his great Uncle and Josephus the Jewish Historian) born June the 5th, A.D. 1818. Nancy, the third was born (ct. ___ , A.D. 1820, Mary Ann, the fourth was born June the l6th A.D. 1824. My mother bore to her first husband, James Bryan, two children, Thomas the first, born and Elizabeth born ____. Thomas Bryan married Lavisa Snider in Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia, by whom he had seven children. All their names I do not recollect. He was married about A.D. 1828. Much more in diary, no more on Skaggs