William Preston (Virginia)

Colonel William Preston (December 25, 1729 – June 28, 1783) was an Irish-born American military officer, planter and politician who founded a political dynasty. After service in the French and Indian War, Preston served five years in the House of Burgesses before becoming one of the fifteen signatories of the Fincastle Resolutions, then a colonel in the Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War. His descendants became leaders of the South for nearly a century and played crucial roles in developing the Southern Colonies under plantations operating using slaves. Preston also supported education, as would his descendants. He was a founding trustee of Liberty Hall when it was transformed into a college in 1776. His son, Virginia governor James Patton Preston, helped charter the University of Virginia roughly five decades later. His grandson, Congressman William Ballard Preston founded Olin and Preston Institute, which was in financial difficulties by 1872, when another grandson, former CSA Col. James Preston, sold three plantations (including Smithfield Plantation which this man purchased in 1773 and made his main home), to the Commonwealth of Virginia to become the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, which is now the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.