Samuel H. Newberry, a captain in the Confederate army who represented Bland and Pulaski Counties in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1865 to 1867, lived at Eagle Oak. Newberry served in the Senate of Virginia during the 1870s and 1880s and joined the Readjuster Party, a biracial coalition that sought to repudiate a portion of Virginia's antebellum debt. In 1882 he and three other senators, known as the "Big Four," broke with party leader William Mahone. The Readjusters nevertheless passed their legislative agenda, but the party dissolved in 1885. Newberry left office in 1884, published a book of poetry later in life, and died in 1916.