Susan Barron Cocke, daughter of Charles Leonard Cocke and Ann Cowper, married John Emmerson IV on June 16, 1859. Ann Cowper Cocke was an early victim of the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1855.

From a very early age he was fascinated with the railroad, becoming an engineer and machinist in his youth, and was remembered for his dare-deviltry at the throttle.

In 1862, at the age of 41, he enlisted with the Confederate Army as a member of the new Independent Signal Corps, but by war's end he was in charge of the Commissary Department of southeastern Virginia.

His wife and family took refuge in Dublin, Pulaski County, during the war, but were forced to leave in the spring of 1865, as his son remembered, in a hail of Yankee bullets.

His son told the story that John returned to Portsmouth after the war in a coach with 11 other men. The driver elected to charge his passengers by weight -- John proved the heaviest at 299 pounds. Apparently being comissary officer had its advantages.

Susan Barron Cocke Emmerson died at home on Christmas Day, 1926, at the great age of 85. The writer of her obituary stated 'She was a woman of strong personality, great force of character, and throughout her lifetime led in all that she undertook.'

John Emmerson IV went into the mercantile business with a partner after the war, selling tobacco, cigars and sundries. He died at home in 1885, one of the town's wealthiest men.

 

 

 

John Emmerson IV with his son, John Cloyd Emmerson