Isaac Parsons (American military officer)
Isaac Parsons (January 7, 1814 – April 24, 1862) was an American planter, politician, and military officer in the U.S. state of Virginia (now West Virginia). Parsons served as a Justice of the Peace of Hampshire County's District 3 from 1852 to 1853. He later served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Hampshire County from 1854 until 1857. Parsons was the grandson of Virginia House Delegate Isaac Parsons (1752–1796), the great-grandson of Colonial Virginia military officer William Foreman (died 1777), and the grandfather of First Lady of West Virginia, Edna Brady Cornwell (1868–1958). Parsons inherited his family's Wappocomo plantation north of Romney. In 1855, fugitive slave Jacob Green escaped from Parsons' Wappocomo plantation to Pennsylvania along with several other slaves. Parsons and his nephews went north to pursue the escapees, resulting in the arrest of his nephew, James "Zip" Parsons III (1831–1893). The arrest and trial of Parsons' nephew caused a dispute between the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania over the latter's refusal to execute the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Following the trial, a dispute ensued between Parsons and Charles James Faulkner over legal fees in 1857. At the time of the dispute, Faulkner was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia's 8th congressional district. Parsons declared that Faulkner had originally offered his legal services at no cost during his nephew's trial. Following the onset of the American Civil War, Parsons served on Hampshire County's "committee for safety". Parsons received permission to raise an independent company of mounted infantry to provide defense along the border. He served as a military officer in the Huckleberry Rangers and Company K of the 13th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Confederate States Army. Parsons died of natural causes following a skirmish with Union Army cavalry at Grassy Lick Run in 1862. Early life and family Isaac Parsons was born on January 7, 1814, in Hampshire County, West Virginia (now West Virginia). He was the third son of James Gregg Parsons (1773–1847) and his wife Mary Catherine Casey Parsons (1773–1846). The Parsons family was a prominent American family whose ancestors had arrived to the Thirteen Colonies from England in 1635, and relocated to Hampshire County around 1740. Parsons' paternal grandfather, of which he is a likely namesake, Isaac Parsons (1752–1796) served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Hampshire County from 1789 until his death in 1796; and operated a public ferry across the South Branch Potomac River. Through his mother, Parsons was a great-grandson of Colonial Virginia military officer William Foreman (died 1777). Parsons was raised through childhood to adulthood on his family's Wappocomo plantation north of Romney. Wappocomo Following the death of James Gregg Parsons on January 25, 1847, his last will and testament dated November 7, 1846, and probated February 22, 1847, devised Lot Number 21 including Wappocomo (referred to in the will as the "Casey tract") to his son Colonel Isaac Parsons (1814–1862). Parsons' brother James "Big Jim"