USA > Virginia > Encyclopedia of Virginia biography, Volume V > Part 55
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I found my mother well. Lancelot was with her. I was in no wise hurt by the walk, and could have made thirty miles the next day. I at once went to work getting ready for any employment which might come. I got back into my old office and had my books unpacked and some furniture I had at mother's and an old carpet put down, making quite a respectable appearance. I was the only lawyer in town who kept his office open, for there were no courts and no business. People on Main Street sat out on the sidewalk gossiping and smoking and some with tables playing chess, back- gammon and cards, and as the sun moved, they moved from one side of the street to the other to get the shade. Some men were settling up their books and old matters, and occasionally a contro- versy would arise about "Confederate Contracts" as they were called, and my services were invoked to settle them. I was very rusty in the law, of course,, and stuck close to my office, trying by hard study to catch up.
I shall never forget my first case. Two gentle- men, who afterwards became very prominent busi- ness men in the city and good clients of mine, walked into my office and startled me by saying they wanted me to decide a question in regard to a contract payable in Confederate money. I looked wise, heard them both, and gave my decision. They
then asked my fee. I told them I charged them nothing, as the matter was small. They said they must pay something, and each laid down a half dollar and walked out. I was amazed at my wealth, seized it, closed the office and went home to show the spoils of my bow to my wife, who had come home by way of Scottsville and the canal. With a part of it we bought our first herring and a slice of cheese. No one can tell how good a herring and a piece of cheese is until they have had none for four years.
Other small work came in of the same character, and in July I made good laborer's wages by giving opinions and sitting as arbitrator.
I was very earnest and very needy, and attended faithfully to the small matters; very soon the courts were opened, larger matters became plenti- ful, and I got my full share.
When I got home the Yankees were in full pos- session and the town was under military law, but they did nothing to annoy us, and we got on with them very smoothly, for which we were very thankful to General Gregg, who was in command, and who acted with wisdom and consideration.
The same cheerful courage and determi- nation, the same indefatigable energy and industry which brought him back to his office, on foot and without money, and set him to work ahead of any other lawyer in the place, marked his whole career, and ac- count for his success. Thirty-two years old, with the responsibility of a family, he had to start again from the beginning, in a coun- try ravaged by four years of war. He won, but he worked for all he won, and won be- cause he worked, and because with all his work he never forgot how to play. He re- cords that from the Ist of December, 1865, to the Ist of December, 1866, he collected $7,200 of fees, "which seemed boundless wealth."
In 1866 he formed a law partnership with Major Thomas J. Kirkpatrick, under the style of Kirkpatrick & Blackford, and quickly the firm established, and for long years maintained, a brilliant reputation. They were counsel on one side or the other of nearly every case of note in their part of the state, representing all the railroads that entered Lynchburg and many other busi- ness interests of magnitude. Major Kirk- patrick was the brilliant advocate who shone brightest in hard fought forensic battles. Captain Blackford, though also a jury law- yer of power, did his greatest legal work in keeping people out of litigation. His legal knowledge was based upon the clearest per- ception of law as the science of justice in human intercourse. To this was added the student's familiarity with great men and
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events of history and literature, and the business man's knowledge of men and in- sight into character. In the light of his keen analysis of right and wrong as applied to men in everyday affairs, unrighteous con- tentions displayed their weakness, fallacious arguments lost their force, and difficulties were settled upon so equitable a basis as to leave all parties his friends, and often both would-be litigants his clients. With such a combination of talents, the business world was not long in recognizing the advantage accruing to those whom he represented. As the years advanced, Kirkpatrick & Black- ford became more and more widely known, and the success they won in litigation, in the settlement of numerous difficult cases, and in organization work for large interests, brought them for a number of years the largest and most valuable clientele of any firm of lawyers in Virginia, if not in the South.
In 1895, both partners having sons with whom they wished to share the fruits of their success, they dissolved partnership, Major Kirkpatrick associated with him his son, F. Sydnor Kirkpatrick. Captain Black- ford became the senior member of the firm of Blackford, Horsley & Blackford, his part- ners being his youngest son, Raleigh Col- ston Blackford and Judge John D. Horsley, with whom he was associated until his death.
Although over sixty years of age when this change took place, he had lost none of his remarkable vigor of intellect and physi- cal strength. He brought into the new firm the same energy and activity that had always characterized him, and they occupied from the very start an eminent position in the ranks of the profession.
Just as the years of his earlier childhood were "saddened and rendered unhappy" by trouble with his eyes, so were his later years. Nothing better proved the mettle of the man than the courage with which he went on with his work through a considerable period of total blindness and a much longer period of seriously impaired vision when he had to depend upon someone to read and write every word for him. During this time he argued many cases, and won his fair share, prepared many briefs, and kept up his part of the office work of the firm.
For many years he was director and coun- sel of the old Virginia Midland Railway
Company, and subsequently counsel for the Southern. Among the thousands of em- ployees of the Southern system, from brake- man to president, he was known and hon- ored and loved.
The legal work in which he, perhaps, felt the deepest satisfaction was for the Vir- ginia Midland, in the largest case at that time ever tried in Virginia: Graham vs. Washington City, Virginia Midland & Great Southern railway, and the different branches of it which went to the court of appeals, notably Gibert vs. Washington City, Vir- ginia Midland & Great Southern railroad. Although the official report of this case (33 Grattan, p. 645) in error omits his name as counsel, the burden of it rested on him. He prepared all the papers in the court below, and the supreme court judges handed him back a marked copy of his argument and told him they had drawn their opinion by it. This was his largest case, but the great number of important legal contests in which he took successful part are attested by the records and reports of the courts of Vir- ginia.
In the years 1894-95 he was president of the Virginia Bar Association, which he had helped to organize.
For a number of years, at different periods, he served the city of Lynchburg as member of council and chairman of the finance com- mittee. He was city attorney from 1869 until 1881, when he resigned because of a conflict of interest between the city and the railroads he represented. He also served for some time on the city school board. While officially connected with the city, he prepared a revised edition of the city code, as well as most of the important papers needed in the administration of its affairs.
On the 16th of July, 1868, he was elected vice-president of the People's Savings Bank, and on February 3, 1874, in the midst of the panic of that year, he was made president. By his courage and common sense and his strict regard for business integrity, he safely steered it through the deep waters of that trying period. When in July, 1882, the bank became the People's National Bank he was again elected to the office of president, and continued to serve in that capacity until his death. To his skill and judgment as a financier the success of the bank was largely due.
During the panic of 1893, he led in the
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organization of the Lynchburg Bankers' Association, of which he was made presi- dent, and all his experience, ability, and in- fluence were cast in the scales to keep the balance which averted the threatened finan- cial disaster.
He never sought political position. On the contrary, he often refused nomination to office where nomination was equivalent to election. He believed it unwise to hold one's support, or any position essential to happiness, at the will of any man or set of men ; that to be truly independent and happy, one should make his living outside of office or position. He took a deep inter- est, however, in public affairs, and in every political crisis he was dependably counted upon as among the men who would always rally to the support of clean American prin- ciples of democracy, and do his part on the stump, in the press, or wherever public sen- timent could be moulded. First a Whig, and then a Democrat, he kept to his party allegiance until Bryan's advocacy of free silver drove him to vote for Mckinley as the representative of sound finance.
Captain Blackford was a staunch church- man, as were his forebears before him. He was baptized in infancy in St. George's Church in his native parish, by Rev. Ed- ward C. McGuire, and confirmed in Orange county in 1862. His heritage and early train- ing fitted him for the prominent place he held in the affairs of the Episcopal church. Soon after the close of the war he took his place in the vestry of St. Paul's Church, Lynchburg, and was elected lay delegate from his parish to the council that met in 1867 in Trinity Church, Staunton, Virginia. From that time until his death, he was ab- sent from not more than two sessions of the council. It is interesting to note that for more than three-quarters of a century, through him, his father, and his grandfather, the family represented the church in vestry, council and convention.
From the beginning he favored a division of the diocese of Virginia, and as early as 1877, offered a resolution looking to the creation of the diocese of Southern Virginia, though the division did not actually occur until 1892. In 1877 and 1880 he was elected alternate lay delegate to the general con- vention. In 1888 he was elected a delegate and was one of the four lay delegates from
his diocese to every general convention of the church until his death.
Upon the organization of the diocese of Southern Virginia, he was made a member of the standing committee, which office he held until his death. He never spared him- self, but ever counted it a pleasure to give of his time and his talents to the church he loved. He was generous in impulse, broad in sympathy, and loyal in devotion, order- ing his life in harmony with the ideal of "strictness in essentials, liberty in non- essentials, charity in all things."
He contributed to the literature of the church a valuable paper on the subject of the division of the diocese of Virginia, and another on the "History of the Book of Common Prayer," both of which, in pam- phlet form, had wide circulation.
Captain Blackford's ability as a writer was called into use so often for gratuitous service to the public, in drafting important public documents and writing sketches of men and events, that little time was left from his otherwise busy life for the fullest expression of himself through this talent. A retentive but discriminating memory, en- riched by a keen appreciation of historical and dramatic values, and brightened by a keen sense of humor, had stored up for him a rich fund of incidents connected with periods of unusual interest in Virginia. His great desire had been to retire from the active practice of law and spend his declin- ing years in recording these pictures of the Virginia he had known and loved and helped to make. Guided by these tastes he had accumulated the library needed for their cultivation and gratification. His address as president of the Virginia Bar Association stating his "reasons why the lawyer should devote a part of his time and labor to litera- ture and why its cultivation is essential to the full development of the powers and pleasures of the great calling and should not be neglected by any lawyer who desires that his reputation should outlive his day and generation," pictures the literary pleas- ures in which he longed to indulge. Into that paper, subsequently printed in pam- phlet form to supply the great demand for it, he wrote himself and his ideals. Death came before this loved labor could be per- formed, and the state suffered an irreparable loss to its literature and to its history.
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During the civil war, the letters he and Mrs. Blackford wrote constantly to each other were all preserved. Long afterwards, by their joint labors, these letters, with ex- tracts from his father's diary, and some graphic accounts written by his brother, Colonel William Blackford, of important battles in which he had part as a member of Stuart's staff, were put together to form a contemporaneous history of the war, as seen from the battlefield and from the home. It was printed in two volumes for private circulation only, but copies were lodged in several of the more important libraries of the East, and these volumes have frequently been said by close students of history to contain the best account ever written of the Civil War.
His address on the "Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg," delivered to his comrades of the Garland Rodes Camp of Confederate Veterans, on July 18, 1901, was printed in book form, and is a most treasured memoir of that stirring event. Another of his nota- ble contributions to literature was his famous address on "The Trial and Trials of Jefferson Davis," delivered by him at the annual meeting of the Virginia State Bar Association in 1900, and subsequently print- ed and widely read.
In private life, in the home circle, and . make up lost time by light of midnight oil. among his friends, Captain Blackford was a most lovable man. Wherever he happened to be, in the presence of a few friends, or in social assemblage, he was much sought after. His brilliant intellect and courtesy of manner made him a most delightful com- panion, while his fund of information, his powers of conversation, and his charm as a raconteur, rendered him at all times enter- taining. His hospitable home was the cen- ter of the social life of Lynchburg. With a spirit of youthfulness that advancing years could never dull, he entered heartily into the enterprises of his younger friends, and many were the long and health-giving walks that he took through his section of Virginia, with parties of young people for his com- panions, none of whom could outstrip him as a pedestrian. He spent hours of happy work in greenhouse and garden, and a day rarely passed that someone was not glad- dened by flowers of his growing. Plants and blossoms were sent in generous abun- dance wherever he thought they might give pleasure.
His public spirit stood the test of every sacrifice, for city, for church and for state. His contemporaries paid tribute to his intel- lect, his industry, his fair dealing, and clean living, with many honorable rewards of per- sonal confidence and public trust. Judged alone by outward signs of success, his life was rich in achievement, but these are not the things that mark him a great man, destined to live after his name is forgotten; these are not the things that planted his in- fluence deep in his community to spring up in countless and continuing evidences of civic righteousness. He lives on in the lives of his townspeople because his energies were borne to achievement on a resistless current of human kindness; because his spirit was kept young by the vitalizing power of sympathetic understanding; be- cause he held himself responsible as his "brother's keeper." The gospel of service that he lived by has been spread, by the lives of such men as he, from the few, to the many, who can understand the motives which impelled him to spend himself in un- selfish effort for others. Rarely met, even yet, is the successful man of affairs who is able and always willing to lay aside his own interests to lend sympathetic ear and help- ing hand to the smallest trouble, and then It is not too much to claim for him that quite half of his life in its prime was given over to little acts of kindness, so cordially and simply done that even the beneficiaries could not gauge the value or the cost. He was always ready to use his powerful in- fluence to give young men their start in the community where he had carved out his own place by a force and industry few could emulate. He was so easily approachable that they flocked about him; so bouyantly encouraging, they were inspired to their best effort; and so resourceful, they were always given opportunity to prove them- selves. The man who felt he was "down and out," began the upward climb again under the motive power of Captain Black- ford's faith in him, and the consciousness that, if necessary, faith would be proved by helpful deed. He was tenderly sympathetic toward the aged and unfortunate, charitable toward frailties in others, and ready always to hear whatsoever of woes or problems, hopes or plans were brought to him. Hear- ing them, he was never satisfied with giving
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mere words of sympathy, but, ever resource- ful, a practical way out of difficulty was speedily conceived in his active brain, and vigorously followed. It would not have been humanly possible to continue longer than his active help was needed an intense personal interest in all the great numbers who felt the inspiration of his ready sym- pathy. His friendliness was for all who came his way, his friendship for but the few. Many mistook the charm of the friend- liness for the honor of the friendship, and charged him with insincerity when his mani- festation of interest passed on to some other in need of his help. In their disappointment they but forgot how slight was their claim, how heavy their obligation. His well won prosperity made him a shining mark for petty jealousies. He carried the guileless heart of a child into a world grown old in selfishness. While he lived, his frank joy in accomplishment was often misjudged as ostentation, and his vital forcefulness count- ed as arrogance. Now, the years have car- ried from youth to maturity the men and women he helped with a kindness only he and they knew; the ideals for which he stood have become the ideals of the many, and his world has come to realize how rare a spirit was his. His influence is to-day a living force, made manifest wherever the many, the few, the one alone, may work for community betterment and human happi- ness, with the love of God in their hearts.
Lyon Gardiner Tyler was born at "Sher- wood Forest," in Charles City county, Vir- ginia, in August, 1853, and is the son of John and Julia Gardiner Tyler. On his father's side, he is descended from Henry Tyler, who came from England and settled at Williams- burg about 1640, and was one of the justices of York county. Henry Tyler's eldest son was Henry, who served also as justice and high sheriff of the county. He married Eliz- abeth Chiles, granddaughter of Colonel Wal- ter Chiles, a member of the Virginia council in 1651. Next in descent was John Tyler, a justice of James City, who married Eliza- beth Jarrett, daughter of John Jarrett, and whose son John was marshal of the vice- admiralty court of the colony, and married Anne Contesse. daughter of Dr. Lewis Con- tesse, a French Huguenot.
Then came John Tyler, born February 28, 1747, who blended the best features of
his French ancestry with those of his Eng- lish. He was a man of warm feelings, high patriotism, and inspired with the broadest and noblest aspirations, chaste as an icicle, with a heart of fire. He filled a long roll of offices-was at the beginning of the revolu- tion a captain of the militia, afterwards member of the legislature and speaker of the house of delegates during most of the war, was judge of the admiralty, general and supreme courts of Virginia, vice-presi- dent of the Virginia convention of 1788, then governor of Virginia, and finally judge of the United States district court. As mem- ber of the house of delegates, he carried through the legislature a resolution to con- voke the assembly at Annapolis, which led to the Federal constitution. As judge he was one of the first in the celebrated case of Kamper vs. Hawkins to take position in favor of the overruling power of the ju- diciary, and, as governor, his message, in 1809, urging the general assembly to take some steps to promote education in the state, was the cause of the establishment of the "Literary Fund." He was the intimate friend of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and Edmund Randolph-all of whom testified in the highest terms to his character and ability. Judge Tyler mar- ried Mary Marot Armistead, of York county, daughter of Robert Booth Armistead, who numbered among his ancestors Williams Armistead, who came to Virginia from Yorkshire about 1636; Robert Booth, clerk of York county, Virginia, in 1660; and Colo- nel James Bray, a member of the colonial council in 1676.
Judge Tyler's son John went through even a longer list of political offices. He was a member of the house of delegates, meniber of the house of representatives, governor of Virginia, United States senator, member of the convention of 1829-1830, president of the Virginia African Colonization Society, vice- president and president of the United States, president of the peace conference in 1861, commissioner to President Buchanan from the state of Virginia, member of the provi- sional congress of the Confederate States, and finally a member-elect of the house of representatives of the Confederate States.
On his mother's side, Lyon G. Tyler is descended from Lyon Gardiner, a lieutenant in the British army, who, in 1636, was sent over to Connecticut by Lord Say-and-Seal
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and Lord Brooke to construct a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut river to keep back the Dutch. He afterwards purchased an island of three thousand acres off the east end of Long Island, and his property has descended in his family ever since. Mr. Tyler's maternal grandfather, Hon. David Gardiner, was born at East Hampton, Long Island, was educated at Yale College, served in the New York senate and was a man of dignity and character. His daughter, Julia Gardiner, born on Gardiner's Island, was celebrated for her beauty, and was married to President John Tyler, June 26, 1844.
Their son, Lyon Gardiner, was a strong, healthy boy and early displayed a studious disposition. And yet, though he never miss- ed a day from school, he loved outdoor exer- cises, especially hunting and fishing. As his father died when he was only eight years old, he fell wholly under the influence of his mother, who inspired him with some of her ambition to excel. She was indeed one of the most ambitious women that ever lived. He went first to school to Austin Ferguson, in Charles City county, Virginia, and when his mother left the South during the war (1861-1865), and took refuge with her little children at her mother's on Staten Island, New York, he was taught by Ralph Day- ton and Dr. Percey G. Mejer, who were ripe scholars in the classics. In February, 1870, he entered the University of Virginia, and in July, 1874, graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then graduated in 1875, as Master of Arts. He next studied law one year under John B. Minor, but did not apply for graduation. While at the uni- versity, Mr. Tyler was twice elected by a committee of the faculty, orator of the Jef- ferson Society, and obtained the scholarship as the best editor of the magazine. After leaving the university, Mr. Tyler was elect- ed in January, 1877, professor of belles- lettres in William and Mary College, a posi- tion which he held until November, 1878, when he accepted an invitation to Memphis, Tennessee. Here Mr. Tyler was head of a high school for four years. At the end of that time he returned to Virginia, and, in September, 1882, settled in Richmond, where he entered on the law, and soon acquired a fair practice. His residence here lasted six years, and his work was very active in many lines. During this time he wrote the life of his father and grandfather in two large
volumes. He joined also with another young lawyer, Mr. Overton Howard, in founding the Virginia Mechanics' Institute night school; and he was chairman of a commit- tee who appeared before the city council and obtained the first thousand dollars ever voted to its support. He was for five years one of the teachers in the institute and one of its board of managers. When he left Richmond, the institute was receiving four thousand dollars annually from the city, and was well equipped.
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