Also includes other early Prunty families of Franklin County, Virginia.

Dr. Marshall Wingfield was widely regarded as the foremost authority on the history and genealogy of Franklin County, Virginia. Although his manuscript on the pioneer families of Franklin County--with references to nearly 15,000 persons--was completed in 1939, it remained unpublished until 1964, when the Virginia Book Company of Berryville, Virginia, issued it with the consent of Dr. Wingfield's widow. Now that the original edition of the Wingfield work is out of print, Clearfield Company has arranged to reprint it by special courtesy of the Virginia Book Company. If your Franklin County ancestor is among the following families, here is one book you cannot afford to do without: Akers, Bernard, Boone, Booth, Bowman, Brodie, Brown, Cahill, Callaway, Carper, Claiborne, Cooper, Craghead, Davis, Dillard, Dillon, Dudley, Early, Ferguson, Finney, Fishburn, Glass, Goode, Greer, Hancock, (Thomas) Hancock, Harper, Hill, Hook, Hopkins, (Charles) Hopkins, James, Jamison, Laprade, Lavinder, Lee, McNiel, Marshall, Martin, Mitchell, Montgomery, Motley-Martin, Naff (Naeff, Knaff), Nelson, Peters, Pinkard, Powell-Payne, Price, Prillaman, Prunty, Ross, Saunders, Swanson-Muse, Taliaferro, Tate, Tinsley, Turner, Walker, Webster, and Wingfield.

This is a collection of the abstracts of the oldest court records for Franklin County in existence, ranging over civil suits, appointments of justices of the peace and other officials, references to the principals named in deeds and wills, and so on.

This narrative history is interrupted on numerous occasions by genealogical and biographical essays of prominent citizens, lists of voters, militia companies, signatories to this and that, tax lists, householders in 1798, etc.