Alexander Scott Withers

author

Alexander Scott Withers

1792–1865

Best known for Chronicles of Border Warfare, this early American writer helped preserve stories of frontier life in northwestern Virginia. His work remains a key source for readers interested in settlement-era history and the conflicts that shaped the region.

1 Audiobook

Chronicles of border warfare : or, A history of the settlement by the whites, of north-western Virginia, and of the Indian wars and massacres, in that section of the state

Chronicles of border warfare : or, A history of the settlement by the whites, of north-western Virginia, and of the Indian wars and massacres, in that section of the state

by Alexander Scott Withers

About the author

Born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in 1792, Alexander Scott Withers was a lawyer, teacher, magistrate, planter, and public figure as well as a writer. He studied at Washington College and in the law department of the College of William and Mary, later building his life in what is now West Virginia.

Withers is remembered chiefly for Chronicles of Border Warfare (1831), a book about the early white settlement of northwestern Virginia and the wars and violence on that frontier. The work became an important early source for regional history, valued both for the stories it gathered and for the window it offers into how people of his time understood the past.

He also took part in public life, serving as a delegate to the First Wheeling Convention in 1861 during the movement that led to the creation of West Virginia. He died near Parkersburg on January 23, 1865, leaving behind a book that still shapes how many readers first encounter the history of the Virginia frontier.