Archibald Lightfoot

Archibald Alexander Lightfoot usually just Archibald and to his inner circle Archie is the father of Andrew and Stephen Lightfoot, the husband of Maggie Alderson-Lightfoot, and the latest ruling patriarch of the wealthy and ancient Lightfoot dynasty. While he was living, he was the best friend of Bligh Lynch's father, Junior.

Early life and education
Lightfoot was born 13th January 1959, the third and only surviving child of William Ironside and Georgina Jeannette Lightfoot, née Phillips, who earned the nickname "Ladybug" for her exuberant, extroverted personality. He had two siblings predecease him: a brother, Nicholas, who contracted and died of polio age four, and a sister, Catherine, a sickly infant who died before her first birthday.

Privately tutored from the time he was small, he was admitted to the prestigious private Linsly School in Wheeling, West Virginia, and after graduating earned a law degree at West Virginia University, where he excelled in mock trials and arbitration. After a stint working for Arch Moore's election committee, Lightfoot earned a juris doctor at Yale Law School, in time for his best friend, Junior Lynch, to make his fortune in convenience stores and gas stations, purchasing a condo together at Smith Mountain Lake.

Marriage
At some point in the early 1980s, while attending a charity Black and White Ball in Pittsburgh, Lightfoot was charmed by, and quickly fell in love with, an aspiring poetess from Madison County, West Virginia, named Margaret Alderson. Their attraction was immediate and passionate, and they courted only for a short time before they were married, 1st July 1983, at Monticello outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. They spent the next month on honeymoon in Europe, where Archibald bought Maggie a special necklace made from an Ancient Roman coin from the time of Emperor Vespasian -- which she never took off, until the night they agreed to a divorce thirty years hence.

Business success and political career
After the events of "Upriver" (see below) soured both Archibald and Junior from staying in their once-exclusive regional social circles, Archibald, after the death of his father in 1989, took over the family business of land development and commercial real estate, which his great-grandfather had incorporated.

Paranormal and folklore investigator
For many years following the birth of his first child, Andrew, Archibald became vexed with the idea that he was to fall victim to some kind of dynastic curse, or something involved with the founding of Dog's Creek. Therefore, he enlisted the accountant whom he had inherited from his father -- and, after the death of Junior Lynch, his only friend -- Lorenzito "Papa" Sandoro to investigate various folk legends and tall tales in and around the Greenbrier Valley and throughout West Virginia.

Involvement in the disappearance of Mike Fischer
Part of the reason for Archibald's morbid interest was the unfortunate fact that he, his wife, and Junior and Susan Anne Lynch were among the last people to see Mike Fischer alive before he disappeared off Bernard's Landing, Smith Mountain Lake.

In Flashback

 * The Dogs: Not Exactly Night

Mentioned

 * The Dogs: Litany
 * The Dogs: Hand In Heart

Cameo

 * "Upriver"