Captain John Riley Phillips, born August 24, 1839, near Meadowville, son of James and Osa (Johnson) Phillips, grandson of Jacob Phillips, great grandson of Isaac, and great-great-grandson of Moses Phillips, an Englishman who settled on the South Branch, and subsequently in Randolph County. Isaac Phillips married Miss Kittle, of Randolph, and Jacob married Sarah Bennett. Osa Johnson was a daughter of John Johnson and granddaughter of Robert Johnson, a Scotchman. The subject of this sketch had one sister, Sarah Ann, and no brother. His parents were very poor, possessed but little education, married young and settled first in the eastern part of Barbour, then a wild region. Subsequently they moved to Clover Creek, which was still wilder, and again they moved, this time to Brushy Fork in Barbour, where they made a permanent home. John Riley Phillips was a man of unusually brilliant mind. Had he been educated he would probably have gained a national reputation as a thinker and lecturer. He was an orator of unusual ability, and a careful reader of such books as came within his reach. His education was limited to the schools of the neighborhood. Among his teachers was William Furguson who made a deep impression upon the young man's mind. A literary society in that neighborhood, attended by Captain Phillips, Captain A. C. Bowman and others, was an association for good, and in point of intellectual strength its equal could be found in few rural districts anywhere. Captain Phillips and Captain Bowman studied law at home, intending to go to Texas to eater professional life; but their plans never matured. The Civil War came on, and they espoused the cause of the South, were the very first in the field, marched to Grafton, retreated to Philippi, fled to Beverly, joined Garnett's army; were in that general's retreat from Laurel Hill, and were separated in the route. Phillips fought through the entire war, in some of the hardest battles, in victory and defeat. He received wounds from which he never recovered, although he lived till October 24, 1894. On March 7, 1867, he was married to Elizabeth E. Parks, and had one child, May. The lines of Gray can be applied with truth to Captain Phillips:
Full many a gem of purest rays serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Source: The History of Barbour County, West Virginia, from its early exploration and settlement to the present time, by Hu Maxwell, published by Acme Publishing Co., Morgantown, W.V., 1899; Pg. 435
