This photo from my collection is in great shape for its age, so I could easily enhance the features of the portrait.
Their roots ran deep in the Old Dominion.

Dr. Edward Withers served Pittsylvania County as a physician for over fifty years, but he was originally born in Campbell County, Virginia. His middle name Dandridge hints toward his prominent Virginia heritage. Through his maternal family line, his great-grandparents were Nathaniel West Dandridge of Elsing Green Plantation and Dorothea Spotswood of Yorktown. This Nathaniel was a first cousin to First Lady Martha Dandridge Washington, and his wife Dorothea was a daughter of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood (in office 1710-1722). Dr. Withers also had prominent names through his paternal family, including his first cousin US Senator Robert Enoch Withers (1821-1907).

By 1850 Dr. Withers was working as a physician in Pittsylvania County. He was living with his wife, Elizabeth Wilson Withers, and her family, including her brother, John Wilson, who was also a physician. In 1855, Elizabeth passed away at age 24 presumably from childbirth complications by a son, George Washington Withers, born the same year. In 1859, Dr. Withers married again to Louisa Payne “Lou” Coles. She was the granddaughter of early US Congressman Isaac Coles who settled in Pittsylvania County. In 1856 Lou was widowed by her late husband, John Rice Miller, who was a brother to Nathaniel Crenshaw Miller of Sharswood Plantation.

Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Withers enlisted as a 2nd Lieutenant for the 18th Virginia Infantry, Company A, CSA. He’s remembered for his service as a post surgeon in Danville. Dr. Withers lived out his later years in the county near “Stokesland” with two of his daughters and several grandchildren. Despite all the stress of his life as a physician before modern sanitation and during wartime, Dr. Withers lived to the impressive age of 92. He was buried in Green Hill cemetery in 1917.