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Dr. Marshall Wingfield, a native of Franklin County, Virginia, was also the preeminent authority on its history, institutions, and people. The book at hand, the standard work on the history of Franklin County, was originally published by the Virginia Book Company of Berryville, Virginia, and has been reprinted with its permission.

The first half of the volume treats Franklin County as social history, with chapters devoted to the origin and establishment of the county, pioneer life, the settlement of Rocky Mount and other early towns and villages, rural life, transportation and communication, the milling industry, African Americans in Franklin County, newspapers and other businesses, education, churches and churchmen/women, fraternal orders, the courts, and district boundaries.

Genealogists may wish to go directly to the second half of the book for the various rosters of Franklin County inhabitants who can be found there. These include: a list of Revolutionary soldiers, giving the individual's name, rank, unit, when placed on the pension roll, age when pensioned, and date of death; a list of Franklin County pensioners found in the pension list of 1883, with the name of the pensioner, his/her post office address, and the cause for which pensioned; a list of Confederate soldiers from Franklin County, arranged by company and thereunder alphabetically by rank; and a muster roll of Franklin County veterans from World War I, indicating his date of muster, name, address, age, and race. Still other lists include Franklin County grants or patents for the period 1779 to 1793, showing the grantee's name, the date of the grant, number of acres, and location of the grant; Franklin County obituaries compiled from newspapers, spanning much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and denoting the decedent's name, age, and date of death; the Franklin County tax list for 1786; and various lists of elected and appointed Franklin County officials, post offices, and schools.

In all, the researcher will find references to more than 7,000 Franklin County inhabitants in the full-name index at the back of the volume.