Author: Speece, Frederick
Biography:
SPEECE, Frederick (1785-1868: ancestry.com)
He was one of several sons of Rachel (Claywell) Speece and Conrad Speece, a Presbyterian minister who had been among the early settlers of Campbell County VA. He himself became a teacher in the county, eventually professor of Latin and Greek at the New London Academy near Lynchburg. He was also a landowner and farmer. In 1812 he married Nancy Booker Morton of adjacent Charlotte County. They had two children, a son who died at 16 and a daughter, Ann (1825-67), who became the second wife of a physician, William Reid Rice. Speece tried to provide for them but found his trust betrayed, so in his final will he left his property to his grandchildren, giving his daughter shelter for her lifetime but denying any claims that might be made by her husband. As it happened, his daughter predeceased him; both are buried in the Callaway-Steptoe Cemetery in neighbouring Bedford County VA. Rice remarried, lived until 1890, and is buried elsewhere. (ancestry.com 10 Oct. 2020; findmypast.com 10 Oct. 2020; findagrave.com 10 Oct. 2020; R. H. Early, Campbell Chronicles and Family Sketches [1927])