Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Giles County, its Formation and Early Settlers. Its Geographical Position, Topography and Population in 1860. State of Political Parties. Election of Delegate to the Convention. GILES COUNTY, named for Hon. William B. Giles, once Governor of Virginia, was created in 1806 out of the territory of Montgomery, Tazewell, and Monroe counties; the county town or seat of justice, Pearisburg, being named in honor of Col. George Pearis, a soldier of the American Revolution, who donated to the county the land on which the town is located. Colonel Pearis was a descendent of a French Hugenot, and was born in the State of South Carolina, February 16, 1746. In a battle with the Tories at Shallow Ford of the Yadkin, North Carolina, on the 14th day of October, 1780, he was wounded in the shoulder, which disabled him for further military service, and on reaching Virginia sought shelter with some relations on the New River, at a place since known as Pepper's Ferry. The settlement of what is now the territory of Giles County began at a period anterior to the American Revolution, perhaps as early as 1755, if not a few years before that date. Among the early settlers of Giles County were the Lybrooks, Snidows, Harmans, Halls, Napiers, McComas', Clays, Pearis', Peters,' Hales McKenseys, Chap- mans, Frenches, Johnstons, Shumates, Hatfields,Adkins', Hares, Pecks, Hughes', Wilburns, Shannons, and Banes, who were of Scot-Irish, German, Hugenot and English blood, many of them suffering much from Indian incursions. The population of this county, in 1860, was 6816, of whom 6038 were free white persons. The county is situate in the midst of the great Appalachian chain or range of mountains, distant from Richmond some three hundred miles. Its length, thirty, by a mean width of twenty miles. New Ri...