Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

Page 18 text:

as if they could still hear the sheriff calling him into court for a case or to the court-house steps for a speech, the rostrum of the hustings of the common people then. As a judge he belongs to New York. His Alma Mater points with pride to this older child and her younger sons look up to him with admiration. His many moods and phases, his versatile talents, rapid action, and impetuous temperament make him in much an unknowable man. lint: Iivrannalitg. He was born I0 d1'sf1'11cl1'm1 in his personality by nature. No one, who hears him or sees him once, ever forgets him. He is a man of Ere that never abates: of Ere in a figure, ever in motion, of restless, rapid gait 1 in the pose of a head crowned with long, tossing, glistening, raven hair: in the flash of the steel-gray eyes: in the expression of a mobile, classic face, of high forehead, indicative nose, prominent cheeks, clean of beard and moustacheg in the lines of a strong, large, and strangely nervous mouth and chin from which, when stirred deeply, torrents of eloquence issue so rapidly as to defy stenographic report: in a voice that vibrates often like a trumpet blown by tiowing thought or the escape of compressed pas- siong and his figure is commanding, full six feet high, slim and elastic in middle life, always erect as a shaft: a rejected Irish applicant before his court spoke of him as that confounded Injun of a Pryor. Of fire in a sparkling mind of quick decision. ever in action with vigorous thought and positive convictions: of fire in tiaming passions of ardent patriotism, of strong devotion to the people and scenes of his boyhood, of love of literature from his childhood, of love of politics, of love of law. Of tire too in ambition, but the best of this fire is in a determined purpose to be the thorough master of that which is undertaken, a trait of character which he did not prove, even to those closest to him, till he was well advanced into the second part of his double life, but which he early expressed, when a boy of twelve, saying to a kinswoman Cas kinswomen were counted in Virginiaj I I am going to make my mark at whatever I do: if it is blacksmithing, I will be a good blacksmith. YVith his fire, there is gentleness: gentleness to children, consideration of the lowly, tenderness with suffering, deference for age. Anrwtrg. He was born of d1'sf1'11cz'1'011 by ancestry, as each of his names indicates: Roger Atkinson Pryor. His birth was in Dinwiddie County, Yirginia, July 19th, I828. His father, Theodorick Pryor, was a lawyer then. but afterwards became a Presby- IO

Page 17 text:

llngrr Atkiminn rgnr, illli. E. TT' 3 AMPDEN-SIDNEY COLLEGE prepared and sent out several X 7 it clusters of brilliant sons in the tirst half of the nineteentli Z' Q eenturv, more than hfty years ago-the tullest htty years 111 ' in Ha .' . Y V - A -,si 4, ggi' .5xlllCI'lCZ1I1 lnstory, measured by events and changes. f.- ri -gf-L , . -V Y -.. . if ,, Judge Roger Atlcliison Pryor, of Xen' X ork Lity, 15 o11e of J TT e the few 111611 of these oliler groups who still lives, and none was more brilliant than he. lt pleases the 111idc,lle-life people i11 these parts, who remeni- ber l1i111 i11 war, to speak of l1i111 as General Pryor, but the older folk, whose mincls go further back, love to call him simple Roger Pryor, nntitlerl i11 worcl but high i11 esteem 5 or to insert the mifhlle initial and to sax' in strono' tones Room A PRYOR . b ' J 9

Page 19 text:

terian pastor, eminent for piety, eloquence, and usefulness. His mother was Lucy Eppes Atkinson, a name borne by many men and women distinguished in church, law, literature, and education. Through his grandmother Pryor, who was Ann Bland, he traces back lineally, collaterally, or connectively, to all the Lllands and Randolphs who figured so actively in the Colonial and early State history of Yirginia and of the Cnited Statesg to Thomas Jefferson, to Chief justice Marshall, and to many others whom an admiring people have declared on Fame's eternall bead-roll worthie to be fyledf' There were: The original Theodorick Bland, of XYestover, who came to Yirginia as early as 1650: the brothers Theodorick and Richard Bland of Revolu- tionary fameq Peyton Randolph, president of the hrst Colonial Congress: Edmund J. Randolph, first Attorney-General of the United States: later, john Randolph of Roanoke, the incomparable. All of these, who lived at the time, were active Revolutionists during that struggle, and after it most of them were ardent State's Rights interpreters of the Constitution as opposed to the Federalists. This pedi- gree in blood and politics, registered on the pages of American history, foretold very plainly where the younger shoot, Roger Pryor, would stand amid the agita- tions of his day. lllr. Jefferson said of Richard Bland, his lineal ancestor, that he was the ablest man south of James River, and his learning and historical writings gained for him even in England the name of Virginia Antiquaryf' General Pryor has been known to say that the Pryors got their brains from the Blandsg his father used to say that he thought they had some brains before the Blands came in. Srrhirra. He was born for dI.Sfl.lIC'fI'0l1 in service. His talents, energy, and capacity for work fitted him for it: the varied and momentous movements of his day have given him opportunities for it. XVithout detracting from the past, it may be said that his life has sustained and added to the reputation of his ancestry. Follow that life. His mother died when he was still an infant, less than two years old. After his father's entry into the ministry and second marriage, he settled in Notto- way County, Virginia. as pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Much of the son's earlier years was spent in the father's home here, the Old Place, and his earlier education was received in the old-held schools of the county and at the Classical Academy of Ephraim Dodd Saunders, in Petersburg. In 1843 he entered Hampden-Sidney College and graduated with distinction in ,45, being valedictorian of his class, the pride of the Union Society, in whose hall his portrait now hangs, and noted for love of general reading. II