Diana, Thanks for finding this reference to William P. Poythress, the druggist in Richmond, VA. I went to the page you listed below & indeed clicked on the "Help" button & learned more about S. Bassett French, who created the cards as he compiled info on ~9,000 men for his intended "Annals of Prominent Virginians." I had no trouble reading the card on William P. Poythress, and my reading is as follows: Poythress, Wm. P. Druggist b. 18-- [apparently he didn't know when in the 1800s Wm P. P. was born] at Richmond d. [blank] at [blank] Lines: 18 Sheet: 484 From that card, I gather that there is info about Wm. P. P. on 18 lines of Sheet #484 of the S. Bassett French Collection. I can also tell from the above card that whatever the info on that sheet is, it doesn't give us even his birth &/or death dates, so it is rather doubtful whether the sheet will give us names of his father or other ancestors. Then I also clicked on the "Retrieve Doc" file. It brought up a small image of that Sheet #484 from the S. Bassett French Collection. The version I saw appeared slightly larger than a thumbnail, but *not* large enough to read it; I could tell that it was a handwritten document, and it had "DOCUMENT" stamped across it in big block letters. I saved a copy of the gif file for the image. However, from the home page for the S Bassett French collection, I learned that I need to use a "TIFF viewer that supports Group IV compression" in order to view the document -- hopefully that would allow me to see it in a larger format. I thought I had such a viewer on this computer, but apparently the one I had used before was on our home network instead. So now I have to wait for Charles to get home to get to his laptop (the other part of our network) & see if I can view the document in large enough form to be readable. If I get a more readable version of the actual document, I'll let you know what I learn from it. Or maybe one of our other List-Members can more readily read it... While there at the collection, I also looked (as I'm sure you did, too) and saw that the collection had no other Poythress cards. Then I looked thru some of the collection's Preston cards, and found one bearing the name of Joshua Preston. That card said that that Joshua Preston was a farmer & Legislator; was born in Nov. 1827 at Southampton Co; and that there are 10 lines of info about him on Sheet #489. I was interested in that name because that is the same name as the father-in-law of my great-great-grandfather James Edward Poythress. However, "my" Joshua Preston was born in about Sept of 1759; he served in the Revolutionary War and he died in May of 1835. Thus I know he is not identical to the Joshua Preston on the card in this collection. Thanks for alerting us to this collection. Barbara = = = From: "Diana Diamond" <[email protected]> Old-To: "Poythress List" <[email protected]> Subject: William P. Poythress, Druggist Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 22:06:50 -0500 To: [email protected] There was some discussion a few years back (see the Archives) of a drugstore in Richmond and a bottle found with the "Poythress" name on it. At the S. Bassett French collection at the LVA there is an image of Mr. French's notes on Mr. Poythress. It's a little hard to read, but I trust Maynard or Barbara can make something out of this. The page below leads you to an image that can be downloaded. http://198.17.62.51/cgi-bin/drawer/disk19/CC150/0068/P0126?42 It may interest you to know that S. Bassett French is the great grandfather of R. Bolling Batte. Be sure to read the section on Mr. French by pushing the "help" button on this web site. Diana

I still need Barbara's help reading this old-style but also poor handwriting, but I used a few image applications I had on had to make the size and format readable. I am happy to send my Jpeg to anyone who asks. This is how I read the LVA image, and I guess I was wrong about this particular Poythress being the one who had a store named "Poythress." But perhaps it's all a close family network? Diana My partial transcription Born in Richmond, 18__ Attended well-known Miller's Classical School, and then Virginia Medical College. In 1868, he became an employee in the Drug J(?) of Meade and Baker, which was established in 1856--upon the death of the senior partner the business was continued by Mr. Baker until his death in 1892, when Mr. Poythress became proprietor and continued the business under the family name of Meade and Baker, and is one often considered (?) the best stocked in the city.