Notable Lewis Countians
Alexander Scott Withers
1792–1865
A Lewis County resident, legislator, and author whose 1831 Chronicles of Border Warfare became a foundational source for early western Virginia history. Withers lived in Lewis County while completing and publishing the work most closely associated with his name.
Lewis County connection
Withers lived in Lewis County while completing and publishing the work most closely associated with his name.
Alexander Scott Withers, author of Chronicles of Border Warfare.
Frontispiece of Chronicles of Border Warfare via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Lewis County connection
Withers lived in Lewis County while completing and publishing the work most closely associated with his name.
Career and public significance
A Lewis County resident, legislator, and author whose 1831 Chronicles of Border Warfare became a foundational source for early western Virginia history.
Generations of historians and genealogists have relied on the book, even as modern scholarship interrogates its settler viewpoint and oral traditions.
Reading the record carefully
Chronicles is indispensable evidence of nineteenth-century memory, not a neutral transcript of every frontier event it describes.
Life and legacy
Timeline
1792
Born near Warrenton, Virginia.
1831
Publishes Chronicles of Border Warfare.
1865
Dies in Lewis County.
Sources and further reading
How this profile was documented
- Alexander Scott Withers
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia
Starting source for biographical dates, offices, achievements, and the Lewis County connection.
- Lewis County bicentennial resolution
West Virginia Senate
Starting source for biographical dates, offices, achievements, and the Lewis County connection.
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