This website is to share information that I've gathered while researching the Williams family in Greenbrier County. If you have any information on any of the people in these files, please email me (greg@gregsmith.info) and share what you know. I would like for this to be a communal resource to help everyone researching these families.

Surnames I'm researching : Williams, McCoy, Ocheltree, Blake

Page 51

[Footnote:] The charter of this [Masonic] Lodge, granted December 5, 1796, now hangs once more in the room where the meetings were held for over fity years. This was the oldest Masonic Lodge west of the Alleghany Mountains, its charter members having been James W. Williams, Archer Mathews, and John C. Brown.

169

[Footnote:] When [Conrod] Burgess came, how long he stayed in Greenbrier, or even where he lived, remain unsolved mysteries. The only clue to his personal life indicates that he, like many another artist, was a poor business man. Such may be inferred from a deed for Lot Number 12 in Lewisburg, recorded in 1857 to Henson Williams "for the sole use and benefit of Isabella Burgess, free from any liability to the creditors of her husband, Conrod Burgess." The lot, on the corner of LaFayette and Randolph streets, then had a small stone house on it (first owned by James Withrow I), which may have been the home of the Burgesses during the twelve years it was owned by Mrs. Burgess.

Pages 160-161

Peyton House

In the county there are two large, substantial two-story log houses in excellent condition and still occupied - an unusual circumstance. Though in districts miles apart, they are so nearly identical one can scarcely distinguish their pictures. One, the Peyton House, is far back from the northern side of the highway (Route 60) and in summer is out of sight behind the trees. It is located in the Richlands a few miles west of Lewisburg, on the lands originally belonging to Colonel John Stuart, and was the home of his granddaughter, Agnes Stuart (daughter of Lewis Stuart), wife of Charles S. Peyton, who had been twice married and had two children. Mr. Peyton, who was born in 1806, a son of Craven Peyton, was a man of distinguished ancestry. His grandfather was Colonel Charles Lilburn Lewis, an officer of the Revolution, serving under General Washington, and his grandmother, Lucy Jefferson Lewis, was a sister of President Thomas Jefferson.

Of the nine children born to Agnes and Charles Peyton, the youngest, Agnes, born 1853, married Samuel G. Biggs, and this cabin today is generally referred to as the "Biggs place."

Level House

The twin to the Peyton house is two miles west of Ronceverte, across the river in Irish Corner district and not far from Organ Cave. The old stage route between Salt Sulphur and White Sulphur originally passed its door, the present Route 219 being farther away, although still in sight. This large two-story house, built in 1840, was considered the last word in luxury for a log house. Its rooms, lighted by a number of very small windows, are twenty feet square, one even being sealed with wood. The floors, laid with wide boards, are well above ground, and at the ends of the house are wide limestone chimneys.¹

The three-hundred acre farm was originally part of the survey of Captain Samuel Williams (husband of Sabina Stuart, sister of Colonel John Stuart) whose daughter, Margaret Williams, was the wife of Thomas Creigh. It was purchased in 1840 from the Dr. Thomas Creigh estate by James Level, an Irishman, who had come to America after 1812. He was first married to Mary McClure, and they had a family of five children. His second wife was Mary Adair, and the property is today owned by Robert A. Level, grandson of the builder.

In the yard near the old road stands one of the most magnificent and perfect oak trees in the county. With no trees near to crowd it, it has grown symetrically on all sides, and is without blemish or decay. The spread of its branches is amazing, and, judged by the size of its trunk, this monarch, unscarred by time, must be three hundred or more years old.

¹ Both this and the Peyton house are what is known as "double" log houses - no doubt a scheme worked out by the pioneers because of their lack of equipment to hoist the great logs beyond a certain height. Desiring an especially large house, they solved their construction problems by putting up two identical houses in line and side by side, leaving an open space of several feet between the two, called the "dog trot." The roof was usually extended over it, though the sides were left open. Then, too, if desired, the space could be easily closed later. This has been done in the case of these two houses, the enclosed center being weatherboarded, with entrance door in the middle, and a small portico added. The whole effect is unique with the two long ends of log and the few feet of weatherboarding in the center.