About Lucy Marks

Dr. Meriwether Lewis Anderson (June 23, 1805 - March 5, 1862)

The son of Edmund and Jane Lewis Anderson, Meriwether Lewis Anderson was born at “Locust Hill,” the home of his grandmother. He studied medicine at the University of Virginia and graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania with his certificate stating: “We the Prefects and Vice Prefects and Professors of the University of Pennsylvania grant willingly the grade of Doctor in the Art of Medicine to Meriwether L. Anderson, an excellent man of Virginia.” He married Lucy Sydnor Harper (1811-1885), daughter of Charles and Lucy Smither Harper, of “Spring Hill.” Ivy, Virginia in 1831. They initially lived in Mississippi but moved back to “Locust Hill” where he practiced for years as a country doctor and was responsible for rebuilding “Locust Hill” after it burned in 1837. He was a member of the Virginia legislature at the time of his death. They had five children, one of whom, Meriwether Lewis Anderson, fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and was killed in the fall of 1864 at the Battle of Fisher’s Hill, Virginia. In addition to their own children, the couple opened their home to orphaned nieces and nephews, continuing the tradition of “Locust Hill” as a family center. (Anderson, pp. 304, 492)

 
Patricia Zontine, April 2009