PHILIP BRAND SUBLETT.
The founder of the Sublett family in Virginia was the great grandfather
of the subject of the present sketch, Peter Sublett, a Huguenot
refugee, who emigrated in 1700. His son Peter was born in 1730 at
Monokin Town, a Huguenot settlement in Powhatan county, Virginia,
twenty miles above Richmond, on the James River and the original
grant still in the possession of a branch of the family. This second Peter
Sublett was the father of three sons, Peter, William and Thomas Smith
Sublett. Thomas Smith Sublett, born at Monokin in 1787, married
Sarah Lackland, who was born in Buckingham county, Virginia, in
1814, and died in 1837, leaving him four sons, Philip Branch, who was
born at Monokin, August 4, 1830, William, James and David. She
was the daughter of Zaddock Lackland of Buckingham county, and
she had four brothers, John, James, Samuel and Dennis. Samuel was
a prominent citizen of Charlestown, Jefferson county, (now) West Virginia,
and the father of Col. Frank Lackland, who distinguished himself
in the command of a regiment, C. S. A., in the first Manassas battle,
he was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. David,
youngest brother of Philip B. Sublett, was in service through the war,
(Col. D. L. Sublett), was on the staff of Gen. John B. Hood, and carried
him from the field at Chickamauga when he lost a leg there succeeded
to the command of Colonel Bickham (who was killed), and at the close
of the war was chief of ordnance, Army of the Southwest. Col. D. L.
Sublett was also educated at the Virginia Military Institute, and was
one of the corps of engineers who examined and surveyed the abandoned
Confederate fortifications around Richmond, under command of General
Micheals, Chief Engineer, U. S. A., after close of the war, he is now
a prominent civil engineer of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Philip Branch Sublett attended school in Powhatan county. In 1860
he went into business as a commission merchant, on Shokoe Slip, Richmond,
firm of Sublett & Smith, succeeded by Powell & Sublett, dissolved
by the death of Mr. Powell, who was killed in battle of Cedar
Mountain. Mr. Sublett then enlisted, in 1862, in the 3d Virginia
Cavalry, Prince Edward Troops, one year later was detailed in the
ordnance department, and so served till the close of the war. He then
established at Richmond the commission house of P. B. & P. A. Sublett,
(now Sublett & Cary). The firm of P. B. & P. A. Sublett at Richmond
was dissolved in 1878. A firm of the same name and style had been
established at Staunton in 1867, and this firm is now continued under
the firm name and style of P. B. Sublett & Son, the subject of this
sketch the head of the firm.
He married, on February 29, 1860, at the birthplace and residence of
the bride, "Millwood," Prince Edward county, Virginia, Ida Caroline
Scott, and their children are four sons living: Sumter Branch, in business
with the father, Edward Scott, attorney-at-law; Wm. Thomas
and Frank Lackland, coal dealers, one son, Charles Haskins, died in
infancy, in 1872. Mr. and Mrs. Sublett are members of Trinity Episcopal
church, Staunton. Mr. P. B. Sublett is a member of the present Vestry.
Her father is Branch O. Scott, son of Col. Edward Scott of Prince Edward
county, whose father, Charles Scott, was one of the founders of
Farmville. Her mother was Mary J., daughter of Col. Thos. J. Scott,
of Prince Edward county, who served in the war of 1812: she died in 1882.
