William Preston (Virginia)

Col. William Preston (December 25, 1729 – June 28, 1783) played a crucial role in surveying and developing the colonies going westward, exerted great influence in the colonial affairs of his time, ran a large plantation, and founded a dynasty whose progeny would supply leaders for the South for nearly a century. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and was a Colonel in the militia during the American Revolutionary War. He was one of the thirteen signers of the Fincastle Resolutions, a predecessor to the United States Declaration of Independence.

Personal life
William Preston was born on Christmas Day, 1729, in Limavady, Ireland, to Col. John Preston and his wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth's father Henry Patton was a prominent shipwright and merchant, and her brother James Patton served with such distinction in the Royal Navy that the Crown granted him between 100,000 and 120,000 acres in America to permit British colonization beyond the Blue Mountains. The family immigrated to Augusta Co., Virginia, in 1738 on James's ship. Subsequent French and Indian resistance and reversal of British policy limited the impact of the family's grants, but Prestonsburg, Kentucky, was named in John's honor by its later founders. In 1755, he survived an Indian attack against a settlement that was part of a property (later known as Smithfield Plantation) that he inherited from his uncle, Colonel James Patton who died in the incident.

Remaining in Virginia, William married Susanna Smith on January 17, 1761, and together they had 12 children. He and his family moved to Smithfield Plantation, in present day Blacksburg, Virginia, in 1774 and it served as his final home. He previously resided at Greenfield Plantation at Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia.

Political and Military Life
Colonel Preston was elected to the Virginia colony's House of Burgesses in 1765 to represent Augusta County and served until the county was divided around 1770. In 1775, Preston was one of the thirteen signers of the Fincastle Resolutions.

Colonel Preston served in both the French and Indian War and American Revolutionary War. During the French and Indian War, William Preston saved George Washington's life from an impending Indian attack. During Lord Dunsmore's War of 1774 against the Shawnee Indians, he urged Virginians to join the militia to enact revenge on the Indians and plunder their stock of horses. As a Colonel in the militia, one of Colonel Preston's greatest contributions to the American Revolutionary War was his ability to suppress the Tories (British loyalists) from uprising in Southwest Virginia, thus helping prevent a civil war during the Revolution. He also helped aid in the fight against Lord Cornwallis and the British in the Carolinas.

Legacy
Colonel Preston died during a military muster near Price's Fork, Va., in 1783. The cause of death is unknown but it is believed to be either a heat stroke or a heart attack. He is buried in the family cemetery located on Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg, Virginia near Smithfield Plantation. His final home, Smithfield Plantation, has been restored and is listed on the U.S. Historical Registry, and is open for tours April through the first week in December.

Many other prominent Americans descended from Colonel William Preston and his wife Susanna, for whom the plantation is named. They were parents or grandparents to governors, senators, presidential cabinet members, university founders and presidents, and military leaders. Most notably among them are the Prestons' son James Patton Preston, who was governor of Virginia from 1816–1819 and helped charter the University of Virginia, and their grandson William Ballard Preston, who was a Congressman, Secretary of the Navy under Zachary Taylor, and later a Senator from the Confederate States of America. William Ballard Preston also offered the Ordinance of Secession to the Virginia Legislature that resulted in Virginia joining the Confederacy, and he co-founded a small Methodist college, the Preston and Olin Institute, which became what is today Virginia Tech. The legacy of leadership and patriotism left by William Preston is very long and storied and makes him a true American hero.

Colonel Preston was memorialized on July 27, 2011 with the Colonel William Preston highway in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The city of Prestonville, Kentucky, was erected on one of his land grants and named in his honor. It was (before 1800) the most important town in the county and larger than Port William. One of the first roads built in this section of the state was from the mouth of the Kentucky to New Castle in Henry County.