Frances Porcher

In those days the Clerk of the House was elected the same as the Speaker, and John Beckley served continuously until shortly before his death in 1807, with the exception of three years spent in assisting in the revision of the laws of Virginia.

[3] John Woodson Smith was one of the original "Forty-Niners" who crossed the plains to California; a major in the Confederate army in Vicksburg during the siege and served until the close of the war.

Cannon of Tennessee), and wife, Jane Lasley, granddaughter of John J. Beckley, a confrere of Richard Henry Lee and Carter Braxton, with whom he served in the Virginia Assembly before the war.

His father, John Smith, born in Halifax County, Virginia, on June 23, 1764, and emigrated to Kentucky; he served there as Circuit Judge of the Pulaski District and in the legislature.

[3] His great granddaughter, Frances Cannon Smith, born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1853, married, first, John Hall Roper; secondly, Thomas Davis Porcher, of Huguenot descent, from the Counts de Richebourg, a native of South Carolina, where his ancestor, Isaac Porcher (de Richebourg), settled 1680 with the Huguenot refugees from France.

Later she married a schoolmate, John Hale Roper,[1] son of the Mayor of Glasgow, who died 4 years after, after which her newspaper work began, as the result of an almost accidental happening.

[2] For The Mirror she wrote short stories, gave a certain space to book reviews, dramatic criticisms and other departments each week.

He gave her a great deal of encouragement, being the most generous and appreciative of editors, notably upon one occasion when she had written a political critique entitled Big Bugs' Ball, after the style of the Ingoldsby Legends.

[2] Mr. Perryman's Christmas Eve is the story of an old man who has never been married, and is served by a faithful valet, who anticipates his every wish so completely that everything in his household is managed smoothly and skillfully, and he never has a worry or care.

His thorough training shows in the valet's perfect adjustment to his new position and duties, carrying out the thoughtful consideration of "old Malcolm" for every wish of Mr. Perryman.

The flinty nature of the old gentleman had never been touched during the life of the faithful attendant as it was by this final forethought, and he yields at last to the nobler call which nothing else had stirred.

[2] One of the most-appreciated financial successes in her experience happened when she was doing the advertising work for D. Crawford & Co. She had her salary raised $260 ($8,817 in 2023 dollars) a year for writing a saucy letter.

[2] During the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, a young man who had been sent there by the German Government as a representative, asked to have one of her stories translated for a magazine that was published in Berlin.

She was a conservative suffragist, believing in an evolutionary winning of the ballot, educational in its progress, preparing woman for her added civic duties and responsibilities.