Roger A. Pryor

Pryor was born near Petersburg, Virginia, at Montrose, in Dinwiddie County as the second child of Lucy Epps Atkinson and Theodorick Bland Pryor, the minister at Petersburg's Washington Street Presbyterian Church (after the Tabb Street Church built in 1844 became overcrowded). He had an older sister Lucy, but his mother died when the boy was three years old. His father remarried and moved his family to "Old Place" near Crewe in Nottoway County about thirty miles away. Since the second marriage produced two daughters (Frances and Ann) and a son (Archibald), Pryor had half-siblings. Ancestry Pryor could trace his ancestry to the First Families of Virginia. His father was a grandson of Richard Bland II. Other paternal ancestors included Burgesses Richard Bland I, Theodorick Bland of Westover, and Governor Richard Bennett. His mother was descended from Roger Pleasants Atkinson (1764-1829), whose English-born father was a wealthy Petersburg merchant during the Revolutionary War and whose brothers and cousins also attained distinction in learned professions. Her mother was Agnes Poythress, whose father was patriot Peter Poythress (1715-1787) and whose ancestors had arrived in the earliest days of the Virginia colony. Education Pryor received a private education appropriate to his class. He graduated from Hampden–Sydney College in 1845 and from the law school of the University of Virginia in 1848. They were slaveholders. When Sara was about eight, the Hargraves moved with her to Charlottesville where she completed her formal education. Realizing that other women and children needed help, she raised money to found a home for them. She became a productive writer, after 1900 through the Macmillan Company publishing two histories on the colonial era, two memoirs and novels. Her Reminiscences of Peace and War (1904), was recommended by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to its membership for serious study. Sara and Roger A. Pryor had seven children together: • Maria Gordon Pryor (called Gordon) (1850 - 1928), married Henry Crenshaw Rice (1842 - 1916) and had daughter Mary Blair Rice, who authored several books under the pen name of Blair Niles. • Theodorick Bland Pryor (1851 - 1871), died at the age of 20, likely a suicide, as he had been suffering from depression. • Roger Atkinson Pryor, became a lawyer in New York. • Mary Blair Pryor, married Francis Thomas Walker she had daughter Mary Blair Walker Zimmer Buried in Princeton Cemetery. • William Rice Pryor (b. c.1860 - 1900), became a physician and surgeon in New York and died young. • Lucy Atkinson Pryor, married the architect A. Page Brown; in 1889 they moved to San Francisco, California. • Francesca (Fanny) Theodora Bland Pryor (b. 31 December 1868), Petersburg, VA, married William de Leftwich Dodge, a painter; they lived in Paris and New York. Roger and Sara Pryor's great-great-great-granddaughter is Erin Richman, author of *"Mary Blair Destiny". ==Career==

In 1849, Pryor was admitted to the bar, but ill health caused him to (temporarily) abandon his private legal practice. He started working as a journalist, serving on the editorial staffs of the Washington Union in 1852 and the Daily Richmond Enquirer in 1854. In 1859, Pryor was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives; he filled the vacancy in Virginia's 4th District caused by the death of William O. Goode. He served from December 7, 1859, and was re-elected, serving to March 3, 1861, when the state seceded. During his term, Pryor got into a fierce argument with John F. Potter, a representative from Wisconsin, and challenged him to a duel. Having the choice of weapons according to duel protocol, Potter chose bowie knives. Pryor backed out, saying that the knife was not a "civilized weapon." During an anti-slavery speech by Illinois Republican (and cousin) Owen Lovejoy on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on April 5, 1860, Lovejoy condemned the Democrats for their racist views and support of slavery. As Lovejoy gave his speech, Pryor and several other Democrats in the audience, grew irate and incensed over Lovejoy's remarks and threatened him with physical harm, with several Republicans rushing to Lovejoy's defense. American Civil War In early 1861, Pryor agitated for immediate secession in Virginia, but the state convention did not act. He went to Charleston in April, to urge an immediate attack on Fort Sumter. Pryor almost became the first casualty of the Civil War - while visiting Fort Sumter as an emissary, he assumed a bottle of potassium iodide in the hospital was medicinal whiskey and drank it; his mistake was realized in time for Union doctors to pump his stomach and save his life. In 1861, Pryor was re-elected to his Congressional seat, but, Virginia declaring secession meant he never took his seat. As a result, he did not gain a permanent higher field command from the Confederate president. Following his adequate performance at the Battle of Deserted House, later in 1863 Pryor resigned his commission and his brigade was broken up, its regiments being reassigned to other commands. CSA War Clerk and diarist, John B. Jones, mentioned Pryor in his April 9, 1865, entry from Richmond, VA, "Roger A. Pryor is said to have remained voluntarily in Petersburg, and announces his abandonment of the Confederate States cause." In the early days of the war, Sara Rice Pryor accompanied her husband and worked as a nurse for the troops. In 1863 after he resigned his commission, she stayed in Petersburg and struggled to hold their family together, likely with the help of relatives. She later wrote about the war years in her two memoirs published in the early 1900s. . ==Postbellum activities==

In 1865, an impoverished Pryor moved to New York City, invited by friends he had known before the war. He eventually established a law firm with the politician Benjamin F. Butler of Boston. Eventually he gave speeches saying that he was glad that the nation had reunited and that the South had lost. In 1890, Pryor was appointed as judge of the New York Court of Common Pleas, where he served until 1894. He was next appointed as justice of the New York Supreme Court, serving from 1894 to 1899, when he retired. Annoyed at being excluded from the men's club, Sara Agnes Rice Pryor and other women founded chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution, setting up their own lineage society to recognize women's contributions and organize for historic preservation and education. In retirement, Pryor was appointed on April 10, 1912, as official referee by the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court. ==Death and legacy==

Pryor's judicial career ended with his death on March 14, 1919, in New York City. where his wife and their sons Theodorick and William had already been buried. His daughter, Mary Blair Pryor Walker, was also buried near him after her death. A Virginia highway marker honors Pryor's birthplace near Petersburg, Virginia. ==See also==