USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 24
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Wilbur F. Browder received the best education that the wealth and fondest ambition of his parents could afford. His private tutor in Montgomery, Alabama, was Dr. Moses, now the honored rabbi of the Jewish Temple, Louisville, Kentucky, who prepared him for college. In 1865 he entered the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, remain- ing three years and graduating in the class of 1868, in which were many students who have since that time become men of national distinction, in- cluding Senators Daniel and Faulkner, John S. Wise, a distinguished lawyer of New York; George P. Raney, chief justice of Florida; Rev. Dr. Whitsett, president of the Louisville Baptist Theological Seminary; Judge Alexander P. Humphrey; Judge William O. Harris of Louis- ville; Hon. Ben T. Perkins of Elkton, Todd County, and quite a number of gentlemen who have acquitted themselves with honor and credit in the National House of Representatives.
In September, 1868, Mr. Browder began the study of law in the State University at Lexington, Kentucky, and graduated from that institution in June, 1869, before he was twenty-one years of age. His instructors in law were Madison C. Johnson, who was dean of the faculty, John B. Huston and William Cassius Goodloe.
In November, 1869, he was admitted to the bar in Russellville and at once began the practice of his profession in that city, with the result that he is to-day not only a leading member of the bar of Russellville, but one of the best known and most successful lawyers of the state. He has never been a candidate for any political office,
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although it has been difficult for a man of his ability and popularity to keep out of office. As a means of diversion from the exacting duties of his extensive practice and to help his friends, he has indulged to some extent in politics, but has steadily set his face against all temptations to run for, or to accept, any political office, even in the line of his profession.
In 1874 he was appointed register in bank- ruptcy for the Third Congressional District by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, upon the recommendation of Judge Bland Ballard of the United States Circuit Court of Kentucky; and he accepted and held that office until the repeal of the bankrupt law in 1878. He was appointed master commissioner of Logan County in 1880, but resigned that office in the same year. He was local attorney for the Louis- ville & Nashville Railroad Company from 1882 to 1889, when his territory was extended and he was made district attorney for that company. He was one of the organizers of the Logan County Bank, in which he has been a director and stockholder since it was opened for business.
Mr. Browder was married January 18, 1872, to Bettie B. Wills, who was born in Logan County, March II, 1849. She was educated principally in St. Mary's College, St. Louis, Missouri, from which institution she is a grad- uate. She is a lady of rare accomplishments, being a fine Latin and French scholar. Her father, John M. Wills, was born in Logan County, July 26, 1821; married Eliza H. Bibb, who was born in Russellville, February 27, 1827. She was a niece of George M. Bibb of Russellville, who was the first chancellor of the old Louisville Chan- cery Court; was judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals; United States senator from Kentucky, and secretary of the treasury under President Pierce.
Mr. and Mrs. Browder have five sons: Wil- bur F., Jr., born November 24, 1872; edu- cated at Bethel College, Russellville, and at the University of the South at Suwanee, Tennessee, where he was a member of the class of 1890; is now engaged in manufacturing leather in Rus- sellville.
Marion Castner, born June 6, 1874; graduated
from Bethel College, June 18, 1892; from the University of Virginia in the class of 1894; and from the University of Berlin, Germany, in Sep- tember, 1895; has chosen journalism for his pro- fession.
John Caldwell, born March 27, 1876; grad- uated from Bethel College in June, 1895; now a student at the University of Virginia.
Lucien McClure, born February 6, 1878; now a student in Bethel College.
Eugene Irvine, born July 4, 1882; in school in Russellville.
W. F. Browder, Jr., was married November 23, 1893, to Harriet Morton Frazer. She was born in Russellville, July 30, 1871, and is a daughter of Thomas A. Frazer, deceased, who was a very prominent citizen of Russellville and cashier of the Bank of Russellville at the time of his death. Wilbur F. Browder, Jr., is the father of Wilbur F. Browder the third, who was born February 19, 1895.
A RCHIBALD DIXON, M. D., physician and surgeon, of Henderson, son of Governor Archibald Dixon and Elizabeth Robertson Ca- bell Dixon, was born in Henderson, Kentucky, March 4, 1844. After attending the local schools he was sent to the Sayre Institute, Frankfort; and afterwards to the University of Toronto, Canada. Returning from school, he followed the business of farming on his place near Henderson until 1876, spending much of his leisure time in reading medical works, and was thus prepared for the study of medicine in the Louisville Medical Col- lege, from which he graduated in 1877, dividing the honors with four of the brightest men in the class. In that year he lost his property and began life anew, as a physician in Henderson, depending upon his profession for the support of his family.
He encountered the usual difficulties of a young physician in a field entirely occupied by older men of excellent reputation, who held their pat- rons against all comers, and he had to take his chances among them. It was a hard struggle for a time, but these circumstances did not dampen his professional zeal. He devoted himself to the work before him with an energy and an applica-
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tion to his studies seldom equaled. His success was soon assured; and, while others were pre- dicting his failure, he was even then enjoying some of the fruits of his labors. He made a manly fight against poverty and obscurity, and by his faithfulness to his calling, his genial man- ner and marked ability, he won the battle against unequal odds; and, among the many distinguished physicians of Henderson, he was soon known as one of the first in his profession.
Dr. Dixon is a member of the Mississippi Val- ley Medical Association, the second largest asso- ciation of the kind in the United States. In 1885 the distinguished honor of president was con- ferred upon him by this society, and he served with a dignity and intelligence that made him a host of friends. He is also a member of the Kentucky State Medical Society, of which he was president in 1893; member of other socie- ties and clubs in the medical profession, and is a frequent contributor to the leading medical jour- nals. He is a member of the Episcopal Church, and is a Knight Templar and a Knight of Pythias.
Dr. Dixon was married in December, 1864, to Maggie Herndon of Frankfort, a most intelli- gent and accomplished lady; and they have two sons and two daughters: Wynn, Archibald, Maggie and Julia.
Dr. Dixon is a son of Governor Archibald Dixon, who was born in Caswell County, North Carolina, April 2, 1802, and came to Henderson with his father's family in 1805. He enjoyed but limited advantages in the way of an early educa- tion, as the settlement was new and the country a wilderness. He studied law and soon took a commanding position at the bar. In 1830 he was elected by the Whig party to represent his county in the legislature, and in 1836 was elected state senator. In 1844 he was elected lieutenant gov- ernor on the Whig ticket with Governor Owsley; was a candidate for governor in the next election (1848), but was defeated by Mr. Crittenden; was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1849 and was the Whig candidate for chairman of that body, but his Democratic opponent, Mr. Guthrie of Louisville, was elected by a majority of two votes; was the candidate of the Whig party for governor in 1850, but, owing to dissensions in
the party at that time, was defeated; was elected to the United States Senate in 1852 to fill the un- expired term of Henry Clay, who resigned on account of impaired health, and served until 1855. In the campaign of 1860 Governor Dixon espoused the cause of Douglas. In that year and in 1861 he devoted himself unceasingly in the effort to stay the tide of disunion, and made speeches of extraordinary power and eloquence in behalf of the Union. When the war came on he suffered heavily in loss of property, but was true to the Union. He took an active part in the days of reconstruction, but did not again enter the political arena. He died April 26, 1876.
Governor Dixon was twice married; first in March, 1834, to Elizabeth Robertson Cabell, who died in 1851, leaving six children. His second marriage occurred in October, 1853, to Sue Bul- litt of Jefferson County, by whom he had three children. Five of the six children of his first mar- riage reached maturity: Rebecca Hart, wife of Governor John Young Brown; Susan Bell, de- ceased, who was twice married-first to Cuth- bert Powell, second to Major John J. Reeve; Dr. Archibald Dixon, Honorable Henry C. Dixon and Joseph C. Dixon.
Dr. William Cabell, a native of England and a graduate of Royal College of Surgeons in Lon- don, immigrated to Goochland, now Nelson County, Virginia, in 1723 or 1724. He had four sons: William; Joseph, also a physician; John and Nicholas. Dr. Joseph Cabell married Mary Hopkins, aunt of General Samuel Hopkins, and the children of that marriage were: Joseph, Mary, who married John Breckinridge; Ann, who married Benjamin Harrison; and Elizabeth. The second time he married Ann E. Bolling, daughter of Archibald Bolling of Red Oak, Buck- ingham County, Virginia, whose wife was Jane Randolph. Archibald Bolling was lineally de- scended from Colonel Robert Bolling of Peters- burg, Virginia, whose wife was a granddaughter of the Indian princess Pocahontas.
Captain Wynn Dixon (grandfather) was a na- tive of North Carolina, who joined the army when sixteen years of age and served throughout the Revolution. He moved from North Carolina to Henderson in 1804. His father, Colonel Henry
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Dixon, commanded a regiment in the Revolu- tionary war and was killed at the battle of Eutaw Springs. Light Horse Harry Lee, in his memoirs of the Revolution, pays Colonel Henry Dixon a high compliment for his gallantry and bravery at the battle of Camden.
Rebecca Hart Dixon, Governor Dixon's moth- er, was a daughter of David Hart of North Caro- lina, who, with his brothers, Nathaniel and Thomas, were three of nine members of the Hen- derson Grant Company, who, in 1775, through their agent, Daniel Boone, purchased from the Indians all of the land lying between the Ken- tucky and Cumberland rivers; and established at Booneville the first government in Kentucky, called Transylvania.
Dr. Dixon's reputation, especially away from home, is in surgery, in which he is regarded as one of the most skillful in the state.
He was also appointed by Governor Brown as a member of the State Board of Health in 1894.
J
OHN HULL DAVIDSON, ex-Mayor, and
one of the most enterprising citizens of Lex- ington, was born in that city, August 23, 1855.
His father, James T. Davidson, was for a period of twenty-nine years an official in the Northern Bank of Kentucky. He came to this state from the District of Columbia in 1839. His father was James Davidson, who was the first cashier of the Bank of United States at Washington. The mother of J. Hull Davidson, Mrs. Catherine M. Davidson, was a daughter of Jacob Hull, a farmer and large land owner of Fayette County.
Hull Davidson, as he is familiarly known, re- ceived his education at the old Transylvania Uni- versity and, after leaving college, like his father and grandfather, he became a bank officer, serv- ing as individual bookkeeper in the First Na- tional Bank of Lexington for eight years. Hav- ing engaged in the plumbing and gas fixture busi- ness as a silent partner while in the bank, Mr. Davidson found his business growing to such a rapid extent that he resigned his position in the bank and devoted himself to his new business. After several years of successful business with his partner, R. D. Williams, he bought the old Lanck- art foundry on Short street, by which means they
were enabled to increase their facilities. Mr. Davidson soon afterward organized the present Lexington Plumbing Company.
In 1884, in company with Charles Seelbach and J. A. Simonds, he leased the Phoenix Hotel, of which he was proprietor until 1891, when he bought the entire property and formed the pres- ent Phoenix Hotel Company, in which he is the largest stockholder.
The Lexington Chamber of Commerce owes its organization to Mr. Davidson, who was elected president during its second year.
In the reform movement in politics in 1886, Mr. Davidson was elected as a member of the first Board of Aldermen; and later, in 1888, was elected City Collector by an overwhelming vote, and was re-elected without opposition in 1890. Mr. Davidson thought he would retire from poli- tics in 1891, but a demand was made on him to become a candidate for the mayoralty, which he declined to consider until after he had addressed a personal circular letter to the voters, asking if it were their wish to have him run for that office. This novel procedure resulted in such a deluge of endorsements that he made the race and was elected by an overwhelming majority. At the close of his term he declined a re-election, as the duties of the office interfered too seriously with his business pursuits. During his short term of seventeen months he got together the neglected records of the four years which pre- ceded his term, and had them properly copied and restored. The public schools were thorough- ly reorganized and enlarged, and the police force increased. When he took charge of the office the city was burdened with an immense bank in- debtedness; and he floated, for the first time, Lexington bonds at 4 1-2 per cent, and after paying off the indebtedness, much of which was bearing 7 or 8 per cent interest, with money bor- rowed at 4 1-2 per cent, he also refunded all the 6 per cent bonds which could be called in at the new rate. This was considered a great feat in financiering, and has resulted in great profit to the city since he has been out of office, by the low rate of interest established. Besides starting a sinking fund, the expenses of the city were greatly reduced, although the number of miles of
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brick streets were doubled. Mr. Davidson left the office with $65,000 in the treasury, and Lex- ington had a credit second to no other city in Kentucky.
Mr. Davidson has been out of politics since November, 1893, and is now engaged in several large business enterprises. He has found time to aid in many new business ventures, in a number of which he has served as director.
He is one of the busiest men in Lexington, and is always willing to lend a hand or to lead the way in behalf of any public or private enterprise which may redound to the interests of the city of which he is one of the most public spirited and enterprising citizens. He has acted as host in entertaining many large delegations of guests who have visited Lexington during the past ten years, and has thereby made an extensive ac- quaintance, including prominent men and cap- italists throughout the country.
In 1876 Mr. Davidson married Magdalen Lan- caster, daughter of the late M. P. Lancaster, one of the oldest and best known citizens of Lex- ington; and they have two children, a son and a daughter.
After the death of Mr. Lancaster Mr. Davidson became a member of the firm of M. P. Lancaster & Co., and with his brother-in-law, A. B. Lan- caster, is now conducting one of the most suc- cessful business houses in Lexington, Kentucky. Mr. Davidson was one of the two delegates from Kentucky who attended the convention at St. Louis of the Nicaragua Canal project. Gov- crnor Brown also appointed Mr. Davidson a commissioner of the Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum, a post of duty which he is now filling.
W ILLIAM FITZHUGH DANDRIDGE, member of the firm of Mason, Hoge & Company, of Frankfort, Kentucky, was born in Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, (now West) Virginia, November 18, 1849.
His father, Philip Pendleton Dandridge, was a native of the same county, where he carried on extensive farming operations. He also gave con- siderable time to civil engineering, and, prior to the war, aided in the development of mining in the Kanawha Valley, where he had large interests
in coal and timber lands. In 1858 he removed to Winchester, Virginia; and at the commence- ment of the war between the states, entered the Confederate service in the State Department at Richmond, remaining until the close of the war. His first wife was Caroline Goldsborough, daugh- ter of ex-Governor Goldsborough of Maryland. She died in 1854, about five years after the birth of the subject of this sketch. Mr. Dandridge's second wife, by whom he had no children, was a daughter of President Zachary Taylor, and wid- ow of General William W. S. Bliss, who was General Taylor's famous adjutant general in the Mexican war.
Mr. W. F. Dandridge's grandfather, Adam Stephen Dandridge, was a native farmer of Jef- ferson County, (now West) Virginia, his birth- place, which he inherited when very young, being the fine estate known as "The Bower," to which his father, Captain Alexander Spottswood Dan- dridge, had retired at the close of the Revolution. Captain Dandridge's earlier home was in what was then New Kent County. His father, Nathan- iel West Dandridge, was one of the three sons of Captain William Dandridge, royal navy, and his wife, Unity West, a descendant of John West, governor of Virginia 1635; another of these three sons, John, was the father of Martha Dandridge, wife of General Washington. Nathaniel West Dandridge was but a lad, when, as one of the "Knights of the Horseshoe," he followed Gov- ernor Spottswood into the beautiful valley of Vir- ginia, where, more than half a century later, his son (whose mother was Dorothea, daughter of Governor Spottswood) established the home which still remains in possession of his descen- dants of the same name.
The Honorable Charles Goldsborough (mater- nal grandfather) was a member of Congress from 1805 to 1817; and was governor of Maryland from 1818 to 1819. He was fifth in descent from Nicholas Goldsborough of Dorsetshire, England, who settled in 1670 upon the eastern shore of Maryland, founding there the large family con- nection (Goldsboroughs, Lloyds, Tilghmans, etc.) which has furnished to the state, in each gener- ation, able and useful men.
After the death of his mother, in 1854, William
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F. Dandridge, then five years of age, was taken care of by his mother's relatives in Cambridge, Maryland, until he was ten years of age, when he returned to his father at Winchester, Virginia. He enjoyed excellent advantages under his fath- er's care in the way of education, and became especially interested in civil engineering. Soon after leaving school he entered the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company as civil engineer. He was employed by that company until 1875, when he undertook a contract in the construction of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad in Grant County, Kentucky. After completing this work, he went to Cincinnati and took the contract for building the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northwestern Railroad. In 1877 he returned to the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company as general agent of the express depart- ment, with headquarters in Cincinnati. He held this position until October, 1881, when he re- moved to Winchester, Kentucky, and became a member of the firm of Mason, Hoge & Com- pany, one of the most extensive contracting com- panies in the United States. In 1886 he removed to Covington in order to superintend the work of his company in the construction of the Chesa- peake & Ohio Railroad bridge at that point. After completing that structure, in 1888, Mr. Dan- dridge removed to Frankfort, his present home.
Mr. Dandridge was married in December, 1888, to Mary B. Winn, daughter of Colonel Robert Winn of Winchester, Kentucky; and has one child, Elise Winn Dandridge.
Mr. Dandridge is a direct descendant of Gov- ernor Alexander Spottswood of Virginia, whose daughter, Dorothea, married Nathaniel West Dandridge, formerly of the British navy, whose daughter Dorothea married Patrick Henry, Octo- ber 9, 1777.
Another daughter of Governor Spottswood married Bernard Moore of King Williams Coun- ty, Virginia, whose son Augustine married Sarah Rind, and their daughter married Carter Braxton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence.
Alexander Spottswood, son of Governor Spotts- wood, was a brigadier general in the Revolution- ary war, whose wife was a daughter of William
Augustine Washington and a niece of General George Washington.
One of the descendants of Governor Spotts- wood, Ann Hill Carter, was the second wife of General Henry Lee, and the mother of General Robert E. Lee. The large connection in Vir- ginia embraced the names of many of the most distinguished men of the country for many gen- erations; Spottswood, Dandridge, Washington, Lee, Braxton, Carter, Fitzhugh and many others.
J' UDGE SAMUEL M'DOWELL was the son of Captain John McDowell, who was killed by the Indians December 25, 1742, in what is now Rockbridge County, Virginia, and what was then the frontier. He was born in the colony of Pennsylvania in 1735, and moved to Virginia in 1737, where his grandfather, Ephraim McDowell, was settling a colony of Scotch-Irish.
As a youth he saw frequent service against the Indians and was a soldier in Samuel Lewis' com- pany at Braddock's defeat. In Dunmore's war (1774) he was a captain of a company from Augus- ta County, Virginia, and was conspicuous at the battle of Point Pleasant. In the Revolution he was colonel of a regiment from Augusta, par- ticipated in General Greene's campaign in North Carolina, the turning point of the war, and was in the pursuit which drove Cornwallis to Wilming- ton. For several years before the Revolution he represented Augusta in the House of Bur- gesses. In all the meetings and movements in Colonial Virginia which led to the struggle for independence he had an active part; of every deliberative body which assumed progressively advancing ground against monarchical and par- liamentary encroachments upon popular and indi- vidual rights, he was a prominent member; no- tably, the Williamsburg conventions, the latter of which (1776) instructed the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress to "declare the united colonies free and independent states." When the Virginia state government was driven by the British from its capital, he was selected as one of the State Council, a most important and respon- sible position in that trying time. In 1783 he, with Col. Thomas Marshall, was appointed sur- veyor of public lands in Fayette County, then
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comprising one-third of the district of Kentucky. During the same year he presided as one of the judges of the first District Court ever held in Kentucky (March, 1783), John Floyd and George Winter being his associate judges. In 1784 he removed his family from Virginia to what is now Mercer County, Kentucky, and in 1786 he was one of the presiding judges at the first County Court held in Kentucky. Over the convention which met in Danville in 1785, and over all the subsequent conventions which assembled for the consideration of the separation of Kentucky from Virginia and the formation of a state consti- tution, he presided, "his social position, his solid attainments, his matured convictions, his high character, his judicial temper, his fine presence, his popular manners and his peculiar and varied experience of public life combining to admirably qualify him for the position, and to center upon him the attention, confidence and respect of the able men who were associated with him in those early throes of inchoate state." "It was by the moderation and patient discretion of the presiding officer, and the calm patriotism of others like him, as well as by the keen vigilance of Colonel Thomas Marshall, and far more than by the fierce and direct assaults of others, which savored of personal and partisan animosities, that the 'saga- cious policy of calculated procrastination' was adopted, the schemes of conspirators who plotted to tear Kentucky from her connection with Vir- ginia and even from her moorings to the general government and to achieve in lieu through a political and commercial alliance with cruel and treacherous Spain, were thwarted; a solution of the difficulties of a separation from Virginia le- gally and peacefully reached, and all the commer- cial advantages of the free and unobstructed nav- igation of the Mississippi were finally obtained." "In the troublesome and unsettled times in Ken- tucky, he was the 'central figure of an historic group, conspicuous, like himself, for courage, in- telligence, fortitude, dignity of character and mental poise.' All were representative men- types of a cultivated class and of a vigorous, aggressive and enduring race." "After having presided over the nine conventions which consid- ered the question of a separation from Virginia,
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