VALLEY HEAD The Valley Head community will be coming together for the 2023 Homecoming event Memorial Day Weekend. The weekend is backed with several event
Just like the majority, John was born into slavery, but that did not stop him from showing compassion to the fallen soldiers who were fighting to keep people like him enslaved.
Joseph Allen Bristow was born at Stormont in Middlesex County on September 17, 1838, the son of Larkin Stubblefield Bristow and Catherine Seward Bristow. He attended local private schools and began the study of medicine, but on July 18, 1861, before he completed his studies, he joined the Confederate army. Bristow was a sergeant in the 24th Virginia Cavalry Regiment when he was captured near Petersburg on July 28, 1864. He spent six months in the prison camp at Elmira, New York, before being exchanged on parole on February 25, 1865. His father had died during the war, and Joseph Bristow returned to manage Pleasant View, the family farm. On January 24, 1866, he married Mary Mildred Roane, also of Middlesex County, and they had two sons and one daughter before she died at the end of 1871. On October 3, 1875, Bristow married Lucy Elizabeth Chambers, of Person County, North Carolina. They had five sons and five daughters. A nephew, Myon Edison Bristow, served as Virginia’s commission