USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 5
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W ILLIAM E. ARTHUR. The paternal grandfather of Mr. Arthur was the Rever- end William Arthur, who was graduated at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and was con- secrated to the service of God as a clergyman of
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the Presbyterian Church. He was united in mar- riage with Agnes Gammel of Scotland and sub- sequently in the course of his ministry came to the United States in 1793, and was located at intervals in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and finally in Ohio, where he died many years since at Zanesville. He left seven children: Michael, William, John, Gammel, Jane, Mar- garet and Nancy.
William Arthur (father) was born in the County of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1798, and was- educated by his parents. He was prepared for the bar, but became a merchant. He was mar- ried to Eliza Parsons of Maryland, who was the second daughter of William and Sarah Parsons of Harford County, Maryland.
William E. Arthur is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and was born March 3, 1825. In 1832 his parents with their children were permanently set- tled at Covington, Kentucky, and in 1834 his father died. Judge Arthur was educated at pri- vate schools and by private tutors in Covington and in Harford County, Maryland. He was pre- pared for the bar in the office of the Honorable John W. Stevenson and Honorable James T. Morehead, who were his law preceptors. In 1850 he was admitted to the bar by Honorable William F. Bullock, then of the Sixth Judicial District, and the Honorable James Prior, then of the Eighth Judicial District of Kentucky, and imme- diately thereafter entered upon the practice of his profession. In 1856 he was elected by the Demo- cratic party attorney for the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the Ninth Judicial District, and served for a term of six years. In the Presidential campaign of 1860 he was the Democratic elector for the Tenth Congressional District on the ticket of Breckenridge and Lane. In 1866 he was elect- ed by the same party Judge of the Criminal Court for the Ninth Judicial District for a term of six years. He served two years, resigning in 1868. In 1870 he was elected to the Forty-second Con- gress from the Sixth Congressional District; was re-elected to the Forty-third Congress in 1872, and served through both terms on Committee on Elections and on a Committee on Railways and Canals.
Among Judge Arthur's speeches of any length
in the House were those on the following sub- jects: Executive Despotism and Congressional Usurpation, the House having under considera- tion the bill (H. R. No. 320) to enforce the provi- sions of the fourteenth amendment to the Consti- tution of the United States and for other pur- poses. (March 31, 1871.)
Texas Election. The House having under con- sideration the following resolution (January 10, 1872):
Resolved, That W. T. Clark has a prima facie right to a seat as Representative from the Third Congressional District of the State of Texas and is entitled to take the oath of office as a Member of this House, without prejudice to the right of any person claiming to have been elected thereto, to contest his right to said seat upon the merits.
The Decline of Local Self-Government and Advance of Centralism, the House having met for debate in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union (March 2, 1872).
Election Contest-Gooding versus Wilson. The House having under consideration the report of the Committee on Elections upon the contested electon case of Gooding versus Wilson from the Fourth District of Indiana. (April 22, 1872.)
Profusion of the Union and Profligacy of the Administration. The House having met for de- bate in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union. (May 4, 1872.)
Free Trade-Inter-State Commerce. The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. No. 1385) to regulate commerce. (March 3 and 4, 1874.)
In August, 1886, he was elected by his party Judge of the Circuit Court for the Twelfth Judi- cial District and served out his term, ending Janu- ary I, 1893, when he resumed the practice of law.
In 1855 Judge Arthur was united in marriage with Addie Southgate, daughter of the late Hon- orable W. W. Southgate, and after her decease in 1858, in December, 1860, he wedded Etha Southgate, a younger sister of his first wife. By the last marriage Judge Arthur has two children surviving, Sidney and May. Sidney Arthur is a graduate of Dartmouth College of the class of 1887 and of the Law School of the Cincinnati College of the class of 1890, and has entered on
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the practice of his profession with his father. May Arthur was educated at the Bartholomew Eng- lish and Classical School of Cincinnati, and at Madame Fredin's French and English School, Eden Park, Walnut Hills, of the same city.
R EV. DANIEL STEVENSON, D. D., Presi- dent of Union College, Barbourville, was born in Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky, November 12th, 1823. His father, Daniel Steven- son, born in Mason County, moved to Versailles when a young man, and soon afterward married Miss Elizabeth West of Scott County. Thomas Stevenson, the paternal grandfather, a native of Frederick County, Maryland, married Miss Sarah Evans, daughter of Job Evans, of the same state and county, and one of the seven or eight persons composing the first class of Methodists that was formed in America. In 1786 Thomas Stevenson, with his wife and children, moved to Kentucky, then a part of Virginia, descending the Ohio River in a flatboat, and landing at what is now Mays- ville, but soon took up his residence at Kenton Station, near Washington, in Mason County. The maternal grandfather, Thomas West, was born in Virginia, where he married Miss Atha Fant. They came to Kentucky at a little later period than the Stevensons, and settled in Scott County.
Dr. Stevenson's rudimentary education was re- ceived at schools in and near Versailles. For a time he was a clerk in a store; entered Transyl- vania University at Lexington in 1843, and grad- uated there in 1847, taking one of the honors of his class. The following winter he spent in Mis- sissippi, teaching and studying law, and the win- ter next after that in Clark County, Kentucky, teaching. He was then elected to a professorship in Whitewater Female College, Centerville, Indi- ana. In 1849 he married, in Kentucky, Miss Sarah Ann Corwine, daughter of Rev. Richard and Mrs. Sarah Corwine, the father being of the Corwine family of Salem, Massachusetts, and the mother, of the Hitt family of Virginia.
In 1850 Dr. Stevenson resigned his position in Whitewater College and returned, with his wife and their infant child, to Kentucky, and opened a girls' school in Versailles. In the
autumn of 1851, having previously begun to preach, he became a member of the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was stationed, successively, at Orange- burg, Taylorsville, Danville, Newport, Carroll- ton Millersburg, Shelbyville, Frankfort.
During the Civil war he was decidedly in favor of the preservation of the Union, and in the Union Convention held in 1863 for the nomination of candidates for the state offices he was nominated for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion, and, with the other nominees on the ticket, was elected. Up to this time the clerical work of this office had been done in the Auditor's office. There was no separate room and no separate clerkship for the Department of Education. Dr. Stevenson secured provision for both from the Legislature, and the system and order which he introduced into the work of the office soon began to have their effect in the schools throughout the state. In addition to this he did a great deal of visiting in different parts of the state in promo- tion of the cause of common school education. At the expiration of his term of office in 1867 he was renominated for the position by the Repub- lican Convention, but the entire ticket was de- feated.
At the close of the war in 1865, he, with seven- teen other members of the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with- drew therefrom in consequence of the bitter oppo- sition which was made by the majority of the members of the Conference to their advocacy of the idea of the reunion of the dissevered parts of Episcopal Methodism, and united with the Metho- dist Episcopal Church.
On going out of office in 1867 he preached for a time at Parkersburg, West Virginia, and then at Lexington, Kentucky. Under his pastorate at this place the beautiful Methodist Church on Broadway was built. He was next in the Presid- ing Eldership, then pastor of Trinity Church, Louisville, after which he went to New England, where he spent four years and a half as a member of the New Hampshire Conference.
Returning to Kentucky in 1879, he opened the Augusta Collegiate Institute in the Old Augusta College building, Augusta. He resigned his posi-
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tion at this place in 1886, and soon thereafter be- came president of Union College at Barbourville, in which capacity he is now acting.
Dr. Stevenson has always taken a deep inter- est in the cause of education in his own church. He was one of the founders of the Wesleyan Col- lege, originally at Millersburg, but now at Win- chester. He is an earnest advocate of higher education among the ministers of his church, and has done much to raise the standard of ministerial education in his own Conference. His special work in his present position is the training of young men for the ministry. He is deeply in- terested, moreover, in the history of the Metho- dist Church in Kentucky, and also in the history of the state. He is a member of the Filson Club of Louisville.
Dr. Stevenson is recognized as one of the lead- ing Methodist ministers in Kentucky, and has been twice elected to represent his Conference in the General Conference. He is a contributor to the church papers, and has published two or three books. He received the title of A. M. in cursu, from his Alma Mater, and that of Doctor of Divinity from the Ohio Wesleyan University.
Dr. Stevenson was the only one of the state officers elected with him in 1863 who voted for Mr. Lincoln for re-election as President in 1864. He has for some time been voting with the Pro- hibition party. In 1887 he was nominated by that party for the office of Superintendent of Pub- lic Instruction, in his absence from the nominat- ing convention. He is clear in his political views, but is in no sense a politician.
Dr. and Mrs. Stevenson have had seven chil- dren, three of whom are dead. Of the four liv- ing, one is a member of the North Ohio Confer- ence, and Professor of History in the Ohio Wes- leyan University; another is the wife of Rev. J. W. Sutherland, pastor of the Congregational Church at Webster Groves, Mo .; another the wife of Mr. J. E. Dunbar, a merchant of Augusta, Ken- tucky, and the other a lawyer in Des Moines, Iowa.
P ATRICK McDONALD, of Frankfort, is a son of John and Margaret (Purcell) Mc- Donald; was born in Schuylkill County, Penn- sylvania, November 14, 1847. His father was
born in Ireland, and came to the United States at an early age, and after remaining in Kentucky a short while removed to Pennsylvania, and then back to Kentucky, locating at Frankfort. There he remained until his death, in May, 1866. He was an industrious man, and was popular with everyone. He was a member of the Catholic Church, in which faith he died. He was twice married, his last wife being Miss Bridget Don- oghue, who preceded him to the grave in 1864.
Patrick McDonald is well known throughout the state. When his parents located in Frank- fort he was but two years old. His mother died when he was too young to realize the great loss, and this was followed by his father's death before he arrived at an age to be able to care for an in- fant half-brother and sister, who were left on his hands for support. At the age of twelve years he entered the old Yeoman office, then owned by Col. S. I. M. Major, where he learned the printer's trade, serving as foreman, job printer and man- ager, holding the last position until the paper suspended in 1886.
Mr. McDonald started the "Western Argus" the same year. It is a weekly twenty-eight col- umn Democratic paper, with a rapidly increas- ing circulation, which he still owns and edits, his son Patrick, Jr., aiding as assistant editor. He is open in his opinions on any subject, and upon all public matters expresses himself freely. He was justice of the peace of Frankfort for over twenty years, his last term expiring January 1, 1895. He has been prominent in Frankfort's history for more than twenty years. He originated and con- structed an electric street car line five miles in length and was a warm advocate of all public improvements.
He was second assistant clerk of the House of Representatives of Kentucky during the ses- sions of 1885-86, and was enrolling clerk of the Senate of Kentucky from 1887 to 1891. He was president of the Board of Trade of Frankfort for one term, and for five years was treasurer of the Sinking Fund Commissioners of Franklin County. During his term as justice of the peace he was the leader in public improvements in the county, and during his term of office more than one hundred miles of turnpike were constructed
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in the county; while the bridge system was im- proved by the erection of iron bridges in place of the old wooden structures, the last being the destruction of the old wooden bridge connecting North and South Frankfort, which has been re- placed by a beautiful steel structure at a cost of sixty-five thousand dollars.
He was the delegate to the World's Columbian Catholic Congress from the Frankfort diocese at the World's Fair.
Mr. McDonald has always taken an active part in political affairs, no one ever questioning his Democracy, which is of the Andrew Jackson type.
He was married in September, 1866, to Ann Flynn of Frankfort. They have one son, Patrick, and one daughter, Jennie.
M cCAULEY C. SWINFORD of Cynthiana, son of John P. and Sallie (Terry) Swinford, was born in Pendleton County, March 24, 1857.
His father, John Patterson Swinford, was born in Harrison County, April 8, 1828; and for the past fifteen years has been a resident farmer of Fleming County.
William Swinford (grandfather) was a native of Harrison County, where he owned a farm which has belonged to the Swinford family for five gen- erations and which now belongs to McCauley C. Swinford.
The great-grandfather Swinford was a native of North Carolina and was one of the very early settlers of Harrison County. His ancestors were from England.
Sallie Terry Swinford (mother) died in 1859, when McCauley was two years old. She was a native of Harrison County. Her father, William Terry, was born in Spottsylvania County, Vir- ginia; moved to Harrison County, where he lived to an advanced age.
McCauley C. Swinford, after leaving school and quitting the farm, began the study of law in the office of Judge John Q. Ward, then a prominent attorney in Cynthiana, and also with Louis M. Morlin, and was admitted to the bar October 9, 1879. Having been a faithful student at home and in the law offices, he was well equipped for
the lucrative practice which he has enjoyed since entering the profession.
In November, 1889, he formed a law partner- ship with D. L. Evans under the firm name of Swinford & Evans; and success has followed this relationship up to the present time.
In October, 1882, he was elected County School Commissioner, and in 1884 he was elected for two years again, the name of the office being changed to Superintendent of Public Schools. In August, 1886, he was elected County Attorney for a term of four years, and in August, 1890, he was re- elected and held the office of County Attorney until January, 1895. At no time did he have any opposition, either for the nomination or for the election.
In the County Democratic Convention, held May II, 1895, he received the nomination for representative in the State Legislature, and was elected in November, 1895, over John W. Mat- tox, the Republican candidate, by 501 majority.
Mr. Swinford and Mrs. Nannie T. Smith, daughter of James C. King of Harrison County, were married March 2, 1880. They have three sons and one daughter: Virgil C., Urban M., Charles L. and Annie.
JAMES S. WITHERS, cashier of the National J Bank of Cynthiana, was born in Cynthiana, September 4, 1830. His father, William A. Withers, was born in Stafford County, Virginia, in 1798, and came to Kentucky in 1812. He lived for a short time in Mason County, but removed to Harrison County, where he had his residence until the time of his unfortunate death in 1864. He was killed at the siege of Jackson, Mississippi, while moving some furniture belonging to his son, Col. William T. Withers of the Confederate artillery. He was a drygoods merchant in Cyn- thiana and was visiting his son when he was killed. He was not in the service himself.
Benjamin Withers (grandfather) was a native of Stafford County, Virginia, and, after removing to Kentucky in 1812, was a farmer in Harrison County. His ancestors were English and were related to the celebrated poet, Robert Withers, of Witheral. He was a Lieutenant in the war of
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the Revolution and was present at the surrender of Yorktown.
Eliza Perrin Withers (mother) was a native of Harrison County. She was born in 1806 and died in 1848. Her father, Archibald Perrin, was a Kentuckian, of French descent. He died in 1863.
James S. Withers, after attending the best schools in the county, attended the University of Missouri, graduating in 1853. He succeeded his father in the drygoods business in Cynthiana until 1857, when he became cashier of the De- posit Bank of Cynthiana, which was merged into the Commercial Bank of Kentucky in 1862. In 1871 it was nationalized, since which time it has been known as the National Bank of Cynthiana. It is one of the most substantial banking houses in the interior of the state, having a capital of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and a surplus of ninety thousand dollars. Mr. Withers has been cashier of this bank since its organiza- tion in 1857, and has probably served as a bank cashier longer than any one in Kentucky. He is one of the most careful bankers in the state and enjoys the confidence of his associates in business and of the entire community.
Mr. Withers was married in May, 1856, to Kittie Remington, daughter of Greenup Reming- ton of Harrison County. They have one son and two daughters living: Eliza, wife of Joseph W. Davis of Paris; Elizabeth, wife of Bailey D. Berry of Cynthiana, and Rodney S. Withers.
Mr. Withers belongs to the Christian Church, of which his father and mother and his grand- father were devoted members.
JOHN A. WILLIAMSON, a retired steam- boat captain and a man well and favorably known on the river between Cincinnati and New Orleans, and for many years a resident of New- port, was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, June 9, 1826. He is the son of Samuel Williamson, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, who moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he married Mary Slack in 1808, and made his home there until 1825. He was one of the first men who dis- covered salt on the Kanawha in 1809 or 1810. He taught school for awhile, having received a good education. In 1825 he concluded to move
west with his family and started down the river in a flatboat and when he reached Portsmouth, Ohio, he stopped near the mouth of the Scioto and remained there for four or five months. Dur- ing that time his son, John A., the subject of this sketch, was born. Then he moved across the river to a farm in Kentucky and followed farm- ing until the spring of 1833, when he removed to Newport. This occurred, unfortunately, during the cholera plague, which was fatal to so many in 1833, and of which disease he died soon after his arrival at Newport, being forty-eight years of age. His wife was a native of Pennsylvania and died in Newport in 1879, aged eighty-nine years.
Capt. John A. Williamson has lived in New- port since 1833, and his education was limited to a few months in private schools. At the age of fifteen years he went to work on a steamboat that ran from Cincinnati to New Orleans, and became a pilot before he was eighteen years of age. In 1852 he attended as a delegate the Louis- ville convention that drafted the law known as steamboat inspection law, which required every pilot and engineer to have a license. He soon acquired an interest in a line of boats and con- tinued on the river until 1870, and held a large interest in this line until 1882. From 1870 to 1876 Captain Williamson operated a full line of boats between Cincinnati and St. Louis, and at the same time owned and managed a boat store.
In 1871 he bought the street railway at New- port and operated it successfully until 1891, when he sold out. He owned the Newport ferry from 1866 to 1874. In 1884 he conceived the idea of building the Central railroad bridge across the Ohio river between Newport and Cincinnati, and organized a company to build and operate the bridge, which was completed August 29, 1891. It was incorporated under the name of the Cen-' tral Railway and Bridge Company, of which he has been the president since its inception. It was chartered by Kentucky as the Central Railway and Bridge Company, and by the state of Ohio as the Central Bridge Company.
For fourteen years Captain Williamson was president of the Newport Light Company, and has been for many years identified with the busi- ness interests and material growth of Newport,
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and he is one of her best and most enterprising citizens.
In 1848 he was married to Elizabeth Kirby in Cincinnati and they have one son living, Law- rence Williamson.
The house in which Captain Williamson lives has been his home since February 22, 1850.
H ON. ANDREW HARRISON WARD, at- torney-at-law of Cynthiana, was born in Harrison County, January 3, 1815. His parents were Andrew and Elizabeth (Headington) Ward. His father was a native of Culpeper County, Vir- ginia, who became one of the pioneers of Harri- son County, where he died in 1842 at the age of seventy-two years. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and in the subsequent Indian wars under Gen. Harrison, for whom his son was named. He was a favored nephew of Gen. William Ward, a Revolutionary soldier, a brother of Artemus Ward, who was voted for, for commander of the Colonial army. Gen. William Ward gave An- drew Ward a section of land in Champaign County, Ohio, several town lots in Urbana, and six acres of land on Mud River for a tannery, on condition that Andrew, who was a tanner, would teach William Ward's son the trade. According- ly he took up his residence in Ohio and was the first white man who lived in Urbana. The In- dians drove him away shortly before he entered the war of 1812. His father's name was Andrew Ward, a native of Virginia, who with six brothers fought in the Revolutionary war. The Wards are of Irish extraction, but resided in England several years before coming to America.
Elizabeth Headington Ward was born in Bal- timore County, Maryland, in 1773. She came to Kentucky when only twelve years of age, while the Indians were hostile and when schools were out of the question. She died in Harrison County in 1840. Her father, Zebulon Headington, was a Virginian. He married in Maryland and came to Kentucky in 1785 and settled in Harrison County, where he spent the remainder of his days. He died in 1839, when within a few months of one hundred years of age. He too was a Revo-
lutionary soldier, serving in the commissary de- partment, and was on his way to Yorktown and so near that he could hear the heavy guns firing when he learned that Cornwallis had surrendered.
Andrew Harrison Ward when a boy divided his time between the ordinary farm labors and the winter schools. After reaching the limit of the county school teacher's resources he went to Transylvania University. In 1842 he began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1844, beginning his professional career in Cynthiana at once, where he has enjoyed a lucrative practice in both civil and criminal law ever since. The old lawyers of his acquaintance agree that he has been engaged in more cases of capital offense than any other living lawyer in the state. He defended the first and only case of treason ever tried in Kentucky. In 1884 he was employed to go to North Dakota to defend twenty-four indictments, two each against twelve persons charged with murder. He never defended a client who was hung, and no one of them ever got more than ten years in the penitentiary.
In his earlier years he was a whig and since the extinction of that party he has been a demo- crat, but he has never regretted his early political education. In 1863 he was elected to the Legis- lature, in which he served with distinction until 1865. In 1866 he was elected to Congress, and at the expiration of the XXXIX. Congress he re- tired from public life. steadily refusing office, but still retaining an active interest in politics. He never asked for, or sought any office. His nom- ination and election to Congress was without his seeking. He has voted fifteen times for Presi- dent and has been an active presidential cam- paigner since 1840.
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