Staunton. Augusta was then the frontier county, stretching away with as yet undefined limits, the hazy claims of France and North Carolina being too indefinite to give it any certain boundaries.
Here the father of John Breckinridge, Robert Breckinridge, grew to manhood and succeeded to his father's farm. He became a prominent man in his community, being King's Lieutenant of his county, and Colonel of the county levies. He married first a Miss Pogue, who bore him two sons, Alexander and Robert Breckinridge, and, after her early death, Lettice Preston, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Patton Preston. The Prestons were also from North Ireland, and a family of most marked individuality. The foundation, however, was English, and not Scotch. The family came originally out of Lancashire or the western ridings of Yorkshire, in both of which locations there were strong and kindred stocks of the name; and the extraordinary resemblance preserved to the present day, both to the Yorkshire and Lancashire branches and the American offshoot, seems to show that the Norfolk family of Prestons is a scion from the same stock. Two of these Prestons crossed over into Ireland with the army of King William the Third, and served about Londonderry, where one of them married and made his home. From him John Preston was descended.
John Breckinridge, the second child of this marriage, was born on the second day of December, 1760. His early childhood was passed on the old estate, but while he was still a child his father re-
