Daniel Bedinger Lucas was born 16 March 1836 at "Rion Hall" in Charleston, West Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia and earned his law degree from Washington College in 1858. In 1861 he joined the staff of General Henry A. Wise and took part in the Kanawha Valley campaign, but a physical disability from a childhood spine injury kept him from active service in the last years of the war. Toward the end of the war he ran the blockade to defend his friend John Yates Beall, accused of being a Confederate spy. In 1867 he resumed his law practice in Charleston and married Evelina L. Brooke of Richmond in 1869. Lucas served as co-editor of the Baltimore and published many of his poems in the magazine. He became involved in Democratic party politics of West Virginia, serving in the West Virginia legislature from 1884 to 1887 and as a member of the Supreme Court of Appeals from 1889 to 1893. Lucas also wrote several volumes of poetry and was known as the "poet of the Shenandoah Valley." He died at Rion Hall on 24 June 1909.

Henry Alexander Wise was born 3 December 1806 in Accomack County, Virginia, to Major John Wise (d. 1812) and Sallie Cropper Wise (d. 1813). Wise attended Washington College in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1825. He then studied law under Henry St. George Tucker in Winchester, Virginia. Admitted to the Virginia bar in 1828, Wise followed his future wife and family to Nashville, Tennessee. He practiced law in Nashville for two years before returning to Accomack in 1830. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1833, Wise served until 1844. Wise was appointed Minister to Brazil in 1844, and served in that position until 1847. He represented the Eastern Shore counties of Accomack and Northampton in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851, and represented Princess Anne County in the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861. Wise was elected governor of Virginia in 1855 and served from 1856 to 1860, during which time he met with John Brown (1800-1859) after the latter's failed raid in Harper's Ferry, (West) Virginia. During the Civil War, Wise raised troops and was appointed a brigadier general. After the war, he practiced law in Richmond, Virginia. Wise married three times: first, to Ann Elizabeth Jennings (1808-1837) of Nashville, Tennessee, 8 October 1828; second, to Sarah Sergeant (d. 1850) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 1840; and third, to Mary Elizabeth Lyons (1817-1901) of Richmond, Virginia, 1 November 1853. He fathered fourteen children, only seven of whom reached maturity. Wise died 12 September 1876, and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.