Jubal A. Early

Early life and family

Early was born on November 3, 1816, in the Red Valley section of Franklin County, Virginia, third of ten children of Ruth (née Hairston) (1794–1832) and Joab Early (1791–1870). The Early family was well-established and well-connected in the area, either one of the First Families of Virginia, or linked to them by marriage as they moved westward toward the Blue Ridge Mountains from Virginia's Eastern Shore. His great-grandfather, Col. Jeremiah Early (1730–1779) of Bedford County, Virginia, bought an iron furnace in Rocky Mount (in what became Franklin County) with his son-in-law Col. James Calloway, but soon died. He willed it to his sons Joseph, John, and Jubal Early (grandfather of the present Jubal A. Early, named for his grandfather). Of those men, only John Early (1773–1833) would live long and prosper—he sold his interest in the furnace and bought a plantation from his father-in-law in Albemarle County. Earlysville, Virginia, was named after him. Jubal Early (for whom the baby Jubal was named) only lived a couple of years after his marriage. His young sons Joab (this Early's father) and Henry became wards of Col. Samuel Hairston (1788–1875), a major landowner in southwest Virginia, and in 1851 reputedly the richest man in the South, worth $5 million (~$149 million in 2024) in land and enslaved people.