Captain John Riley Phillips, born
August 24, 1839, near Meadowville, son of James and Osa (Johnson)
Phillips, grandson of Jacob Phillips, great grandson of Isaac, and
great-great-grandson of Moses Phillips, an Englishman who settled on the
South Branch, and subsequently in Randolph County. Isaac Phillips
married Miss Kittle, of Randolph, and Jacob married Sarah Bennett. Osa
Johnson was a daughter of John Johnson and granddaughter of Robert
Johnson, a Scotchman. The subject of this sketch had one sister, Sarah
Ann, and no brother. His parents were very poor, possessed but little
education, married young and settled first in the eastern part of
Barbour, then a wild region. Subsequently they moved to Clover Creek,
which was still wilder, and again they moved, this time to Brushy Fork
in Barbour, where they made a permanent home. John Riley Phillips was a
man of unusually brilliant mind. Had he been educated he would probably
have gained a national reputation as a thinker and lecturer. He was an
orator of unusual ability, and a careful reader of such books as came
within his reach. His education was limited to the schools of the
neighborhood. Among his teachers was William Furguson who made a deep
impression upon the young man's mind. A literary society in that
neighborhood, attended by Captain Phillips, Captain A. C. Bowman and
others, was an association for good, and in point of intellectual
strength its equal could be found in few rural districts anywhere.
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