R256 
Husband: James (Jimmie) Archelus (Archelius) Wood
Father: Davis Morton Wood [R255]
Mother: Sarah E. (Reynolds) Wood [R255]
Born: 9/1/1847, in Botetourt County Va.
Died: 3/2/40, in Botetourt County. Buried in Locust Bottom
Cemetery, near Glen Wilton Va.
First wife: Sabina (Payne) Wood (Fig. R256a)
Father: Lewis Payne [R263]
Mother: Louisa Susannah (Peck) Payne [R263]
Born: 8/27/1847, in Healing Springs, Bath County
Died: 7/1/1902, in Botetourt County. Buried in Locust Bottom
Cemetery
Married: 3/25/1872, in Bath County. Minister, J. M. Pilcher
Children (mostly buried at Locust Bottom Cemetery):
Charles Morton Wood, 1875-1950 (d. in Chicago Ill.). M. Jessie
Wyatt; dau. Louise (b. 1910), who m. (1936) Leslie M. Baker,
no ch.
Walter Wallace Wood, d. 1938. M. Bertha McGriffin, no ch.
Davis Miller Wood II [R257], 1891-1960
George Payne Wood, b. 1898 (see Fig. R257a). M. Estelle McClung,
twin dau. Janice and Lucille. Janice (1921-2014) m. Howard
Thompson, dau. Patricia. Lucille m. Robert Cribb, dau. Lucille and
Shirley
Mary Eleanor Wood. M. Dr. John A. Gere Shipley. Lived in China
as missionaries. Ch. James Lester Shipley (m. Martha Grant; ch.
James Lester, Jr., Martha, Mark), Alice Shipley (m. Frank King;
dau. Peggy), Lenora Shipley (m. Daniel Few, one ch.), Jerome
Shipley (m. Eleanor Scott, no ch.)
Alice Payne Wood. M. Dr. Robert T. Givens, no ch., d. 1931
Nora Lee Wood, 1882-1969. A nurse; lived at Gap Mill W.Va.,
buried there. M. Wade Hampton Neel. She raised a negro child,
Thomas Haynes, as a farm hand. He and his wife Ruth stayed with
her until she died. She bought them a farm.
Lelia Gertrude Wood (died young)
Alma Louise Wood, b. 1885. Married Clifford Winton, no children.
Was committed to Virginia State Hospital in Staunton, died and
was buried there
Jessie Lewis Wood,1890-1970, Executor of her father’s will. M.
Zebulon Vance Dark; ch. James Lee Dark (died an infant),
Zebulon Vance Dark, Jr. (died when 12), Jessie Lewis Dark (m.
Glen F. Toalson, Jr., lived in Missouri, ch. Glen [Jeff] F. Toalson,
Jr., Vance L. Toalson)
Second wife: M. M. Kyle (McCulloch) Wood
Father: David McCulloch
Mother: Sophia McCulloch
Born: 1863
Died: ~1930. Buried in Locust Bottom Cemetery
Married: 9/1/08 in Botetourt County
(1996) James Archelius Wood was thirteen when the Civil Was began. At age 16 he enlisted in the Confederate Army. The Fig. R256b newspaper article summarizes his military service, and other aspects of his life. An interesting wartime letter from Jimmie to his mother is held by [S083]. A transcription follows; the original letter cannot be legibly reproduced.
“Camp near Bermuda Hundred
February 26 1865
“My Dear Mother:
“I sit down this Sabbath morning to write you a fiew lines - your welcome letter has just come to hand & carfully perused. we have moved from the river & come back to our old camp where the Tar heels were camped in our place. They burned our houses down seven in the company ours included but we got into another until we can rebuild. you spoke of a fight near Richmond I suppose it was at Hatchers Run it wasn’t near us. I am sorry to hear that the soldiers are doing so badly but thats their way. I think Pa had better not let his corn go too fast or he will not have enough to do him he had better put some in a safer place than the corn crib & they will not be so apt to fInd it, but I hope they will not pester you anymore. I know the soldiers fare badly enough but theres no use in doing so badly & nobody that thought much of himself would do so. - I am sorry to hear that the dyptherea is at Mr. Biggs I hope he has not lost any one else did any of the white family die? I think he had better send for Dr. Neal & not be at outs with him at such a time. There is no news stirring now there was right smart excitement in camp the other day about the negroe question. every man in the camp but 4 or 5 voted for putting them in. I think it looks rather strange for us to do the same thing that we were so much against at the first of the war. It looks like a drowning man catching at a straw. And if we should put the negroes in the army & by that means should gain our independence why they & not us would get the credit. Then they could say that they fought for & gained the independence of the south. We have been against freeing the negroes against abolishinism & now we turn around & do that same thing because we are in (some think) rather a tight place. Admit that we are did we not say that we were fighting in a just cause & thus God was on the side of the south. Then why cant we say so still & put our trust in God who is the God of battles who can with us (without the aid of the negroes) as an instrument drive the yanks not only from our country but clear out of existence. well enough about the yanks. I received a letter from Coz Nettie Fryday they are well with the exception of colds she is teaching school & is very well pleased down there says they are well at Uncle Isaacs. Coz Mary Rucker sent me a Christian paper the other day. she marked a piece headed the parting words to her soldier son. probably you have seen it before; she says that [G? Y?] Sammie is well & that she expects him to be exchanged soon as there will probably be a general exchange of prisoners. I hope there will be -- I am glad to hear that the little man is growing so fat & doing well. I reckon Lillie is as pretty as ever & quite as mischevious & a little quiter as you know by yourself that it is her nature to be so. Does Willie look as rosy as ever And is he as bad & adventursome as he used to be. - Tell Davis that he must make haste & answer my letter & to keep the Horses close or some of those soldiers might accidentaly make a mistake & ride one of them off. Tell him to keep a good door & lock to the stables. I supp George C has been up to see you before this as he has gotten home just in time I suppose to get the benefit of the snow he got a furlough on me as a recruit. I would have gotten the half of it but there was an order against that. I had to put up with $275 & stay here. I could have gotten more than that but as George is one of my neighbors & messmate therefore I could not be hard with him. & it is not in accordance with my nature to be hard with anyone. They have suspended the furlough bussiness with the exception of [--]. It is probable that they will continue that way all the year. I guess I’ll not get a furlough soon unless I get sick, but I hope there will be no need of furloughing much longer for I hope that there will soon be peace but then the yankees say there shall be no peace, but I hope they will not have the say so. I must stop, write soon & a long letter to
“Your ever loving son Jimmie.”
James and Sabina Payne were married in 1872. In 1877 James’s father gave him and his brother, Davis Miller Wood, 65 acres of James River land (jointly; DB39-171). Later (1902) Davis Miller’s widow, H. Helen Wood, sold a 25-acre tract north of Wood’s Island, familiarly called the “Jimmy Field,” to James Archelius (DB60-426); this may have been Davis Miller’s share of the original 65-acre gift. Of Wood’s Island, grandson Davis Miller Wood III [S103] said “[it] was known simply as ‘the island.’ It was a low, sandy island which supported excellent crops of sweet corn and melons weighing up to 70 pounds. The farm also included about 500 acres on the slope north of the river which was used for grain, a woodlot and some cattle. Just west of my grandfather’s was a maintenance station for the railroad, Baldwin Station, which was the home of his brother William and is listed as my father’s birthplace.”
James probably built the house he occupied on this property (Fig. R256c). It appears in the background of Fig. R256d, and is visible as a distant white dot in Fig. R002b, ~150 yards north of the north branch of the James River which cuts off Wood’s Island. [S077] describes the building as a “...plain 2 story clapboard with a gabled roof and 5 or 6 bedrooms and a veranda...My grandparents lived there for two years around 1920 while my grandfather (Davis Miller Wood II, [R257]) recovered from tuberculosis. My grandmother, who was born in Sweden, told stories of how the men in the family thought nothing of bringing in farm equipment to the living room to fix it by the fire when it was cold and that all the animals were allowed to roam wherever they wanted.”
James and Sabina resolved that all their children would have a college education. All four sons graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Of their five daughters, Mary went to Mary Baldwin College, Nora and Alice to nursing college, and Jessie to Harrisonburg State Teachers College.
Sabina died in 1902, when James Archelius was 54. Six years later he married Kyle McCulloch (“Miss Kyle”), a widow. They had ~22 years together (no children), before she died. Sabina but not Kyle is spoken of in the Who’s Who in Clifton Forge article (Fig. R256b), which was written eight years after Kyle’s death.
James deeded his farm to his son Walter Wallace Wood at a time not known to me [S077]. Walter died in 1938, James two years later. It is unclear how James spent the last two years of his life. Antonia McCoy [S083] reports in a 1994 letter “I walked over to ‘Uncle Jimmy’s’ house. It is a real heartbreak. The roof has fallen in, all the window panes have been removed and the door with a doorbell (the hand-turn kind) had been removed also. The front towards the railroad tracks has all grown up—looks terrible.”
