Early Settlers of Alabama by Elizabeth Saunders Blair Stubbs, first published in 1899, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
The book rings with the names of early inhabitants and prominent citizens. For the genealogist there is the important and wholly fortuitous list of tithables of Pittsylvania County for the year 1767, which enumerates the names of nearly 1,000 landowners and property holders, amounting in sum to a rough census of the county in its infancy. Additional lists include the names, some with inclusive dates of service, of sheriffs, justices of the peace, members of the House of Delegates, 1776-1928, members of the Senate of Virginia, 1776-1928, clerks of the court, and judges.
Grayson County is famous in southwestern Virginia as the cradle of the New River settlements--perhaps the first settlements beyond the Alleghanies. The Nuckolls book is equally famous for its genealogies of the pioneer settlers of the county, which, typically, provide the names of the progenitors of the Grayson County line and their dates and places of migration and settlement, and then, in fluid progression, the names of all offspring in the direct and sometimes collateral lines of descent. Altogether somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 persons are named in the genealogies and indexed for ready reference.