Roger Atkinson Pryor was born on 19 July 1828 at nearby Montrose. He practiced law before becoming a journalist and briefly owned newspapers in Richmond and Washington, D.C., in the 1850s. He represented his Virginia district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1859 to 1861. During the Civil War, he served in the Confederate Congress and as a Confederate brigadier general and scout. After the war he moved to New York City, where he became a prominent lawyer. In 1890 he was appointed to the New York Court of Common Pleas and later served as a justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1896 to 1899. He died in New York City on 14 Mar. 1919.