USA > Virginia > Men of mark in Virginia, ideals of American life; a collection of biographies of the leading men in the state, Volume III > Part 12
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JOHN M'LAREN M'BRYDE
Polytechnic institute one of the great technical schools of the country, Dr. McBryde has received tempting offers elsewhere. Probably the highest honor ever paid him was his unsolicited election to the recently established presidency of the University of Virginia.
Dr. McByrde's brilliant success in life is largely due to a high sense of duty and concentration of effort, coupled with ability of a high order, and aptitude for educational leadership. Of course heredity must be taken account of; and any one who reads Leslie Stephen's " Dictionary of National Biography," can see that the descendants of Rev. Robert McBryde and Rev. John McBryde might well develop keen intellectual and moral apti- tudes. In early life J. M. McBryde developed these inherited tastes by faithful and persistent study, and by strenuous devotion to duty. All which he regards as the foundation of real success.
In 1887, the University of Tennessee conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy upon Professor McBryde; in 1883, he was made a Doctor of Laws by the Southern Presbyterian university.
On November 18, 1863, Mr. McBryde was married to Cora Bolton, daughter of Dr. James Bolton, of Richmond, Virginia. Of their eight children six are now (1906) living.
In 1893, President Cleveland tendered Dr. McBryde the office of assistant secretary in the United States Department of Agriculture, but he could not be induced to leave his cherished institution. Dr. McBryde is ex-officio member of the Virginia board of agriculture, and renders valuable service to the state in that capacity. It may also be stated that Dr. McBryde's agricultural reports and papers on agricultural subjects have made his name familiar in scientific circles for many years. He has thus achieved twofold distinction : as a scientific scholar and as an executive officer.
Though but recently identified with the educational work of Virginia, President McBryde is recognized as a prominent factor. His institution is widely known for its technical training, and its graduates command fine positions in engineering and other technical professions. It is a matter of profound regret that Dr. McBryde will retire at the end of the current session (1906-1907).
His present address is Blacksburg, Virginia.
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WILLIAM GORDON MCCABE
M cCABE, WILLIAM GORDON, was born in Richmond, Virginia, on the 4th day of August, 1841. His father was the Rev. John Collins McCabe, D. D., who was a native of Richmond, a friend of Edgar Allan Poe, during his editorship of the "Southern Literary Messenger," to which Doctor McCabe was a frequent contributor, and a distinguished authority on the colonial and early church history of Virginia.
Doctor McCabe's grandfather was Captain Patrick McCabe, an officer in the Revolutionary army, and mentioned in Washing- ton's diary. Doctor McCabe, who was born November 12, 1810, first read medicine, but finally became a clergyman of the Protes- tent Episcopal church, and was for five years rector of the old church at Smithfield, Virginia, and later on had charge of a parish at Hampton. It was during his incumbency of these charges that he collected much of the material relating to family and church history which was afterwards used by Bishop Meade, to whom Doctor McCabe gave it, in the preparation of his " Old Churches and Families in Virginia." Doctor McCabe was rector of a church in Baltimore from 1856 to 1859, and then in Anne Arundel county, Maryland, till 1861, when, as an ardent South erner, he gave up his charge, " ran the blockade " at great risk, and became chaplain of the 32nd Virginia regiment of Con- federate troops. From 1862 till the close of the War between the States he was chaplain of Libby prison, where he won the love of the Federal prisoners by his many kindnesses to them. After- ward, he had various charges in Maryland, Delaware and Penn- sylvania, and died in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1875. He held the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the ancient college of William and Mary, and was a frequent lecturer on literary and historical subjects, and the author of a number of memorial addresses and poems, many of which were published.
The mother of William Gordon McCabe was Sophia Gordon Taylor, whose great-grandfather, George Taylor, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. James Taylor, a Vol. 3-Va .- 11
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son of George, the signer, married Elizabeth Gordon, eldest daughter of that Lewis Gordon, of the Gordons of Earlston in Scotland, who after the troubles of the " the 45" (on account of which the chief of the house, the gallant William Gordon of Kenmure, lost his head on Tower Hill), came to America, and settled in Pennsylvania. Lewis Gordon married, in 1750, a daughter of Aaron Jenkins, a prominent citizen of Philadelphia, and removing to Easton in that State, became the legal and financial agent of the Penns; and was the foremost lawyer, and for many years the clerk of the courts at Easton. One of the grandsons of Lewis Gordon of Easton was William Lewis Gordon, a distinguished officer of the United States navy, who for gallantry in the War of 1812 was repeatedly mentioned in orders, and was voted by the commonwealth of Virginia a sword of honor. For this great-uncle William Gordon McCabe was named, his mother having become the former's adopted daughter after the death of her mother, the wife of Colonel James Taylor, of Richmond, and sister of Captain Gordon.
The first ten years of young McCabe's life were spent at Smithfield, and the next six at Hampton. At the latter place, he entered the classical academy of which the late Col. John B. Cary was the head; and there gave token of the scholarship which he was later to achieve, by carrying off in the last two years of his attendance upon the school its highest honors. In 1860, he entered the University of Virginia, after having taught for a short time as a private tutor in the Selden family, of Westover. But the students and scholars of the university were of the first to answer Virginia's call to arms in 1861; and on the night of that fateful day on which the commonwealth dissolved her rela- tions with the Union, young McCabe, not yet twenty years old, started with a student company, "The Southern Guard," on the march for Harpers Ferry, and remained thenceforward a soldier of the Confederate States until the sun set upon Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
In all the shifting and tragic scenes of that tremendous struggle, he bore himself with the courage and fortitude that characterized the finest type of the Confederate soldier. He served as a private through the Peninsula campaign; he was
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commissioned in 1862 a first lieutenant of artillery, and as such was in the Seven Days' battles around Richmond; later he became adjutant of Atkinson's heavy artillery battalion, and then of Lightfoot's artillery battalion, with which he served in the Chan- cellorsville campaign. Yet later he was assigned to duty as assistant adjutant-general at Charleston, South Carolina, and was in Fort Sumter and Battery Wagner during the heaviest fighting. For his services at Charleston, Generals Beauregard and R. S. Ripley both recommended him for promotion; but in the autumn of 1863, he was ordered back to Virginia upon his own application and was for a brief period on the staff of Gen- eral Stevens, then chief engineer of the Army of Northern Vir- ginia. Then came his last assignment to duty as adjutant of the artillery battalion famous in history as "Pegram's," under the command of the gallant Colonel William Johnson Pegram. In this capacity he served with distinguished gallantry, participa- ting in all the great battles from the Wilderness to Five Forks, subsequently fought by the Army of Northern Virginia, includ- ing the retreat from Petersburg to Appomattox. In September, 1864, the men of one of the batteries of Pegram's battalion, after having been personally commanded by Captain McCabe in the desperate action of August 21st for possession of the Weldon railroad, unanimously petitioned for his permanent assignment to them as captain of the battery, but this he positively declined, and urged the appointment of the first lieutenant of the battery, whom he considered rightfully entitled to the position. Early in 1865 he was made captain of artillery on Colonel Pegram's personal recommendation; and after Appomattox, with a number of other young artillery officers, he joined General Johnston's army at Greensboro, North Carolina, but saw no further active service before Johnston's surrender. He was paroled at Rich- mond in May, 1865.
In October, 1865, he founded the " University School " at Petersburg, Virginia, with which his name is linked in the history of education in Virginia; and from the beginning won for it the reputation of sending out from its walls young men of high ideals and sound scholarship. "Such a school as McCabe's would be an honor to any state," was written of it in the scholarly New
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York "Nation." In the "Atlantic Monthly," Charles Foster Smith said of it: " I know of nothing better the South can do in her schools than to take this school as a model." Doctor McCosh, of Princeton, included McCabe with two other American teachers as " probably the best high-school instructors on this side of the water." The Rev. Moses D. Hoge said that McCabe's University school " reminded him of Rugby in her palmiest days." During a long and honorable career, extending from 1865 to 1891, when the headmaster retired and the school was closed, it maintained not only its high standard of scholarship, but an even higher standard of honor and lofty character among its pupils that was one of its noblest distinctions. The aim of Captain McCabe was to make his boys in a genuine sense both gentlemen and scholars; and how well he succeeded has been worthily attested in the careers of most of those who went out of its doors, imbued with the spirit of Thackeray's verse :
" Who misses or who wins the prize, Go lose or conquer as you can ; But if you fall or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman."
On the long roll of his pupils are to be read the names of scholars, lawyers, doctors, teachers, ministers and business men; many of whom became distinguished degree-men, prize-men, and honor-men of the higher institutions of learning in America. " McCabe's " was a name to conjure with, not only in the halls of his own alma mater, the University of Virginia, but no less at the great institutions of the North, such as Harvard and Yale, Columbia and Princeton. To have gone forth from "McCabe's University school " with honor was an " open sesame " at their gates. When, in 1901, the school was closed, and the headmaster retired from his school work, it was with a fame as a teacher second to that of none in America.
During the period of his active participation in educational work, he had achieved a wide distinction both as scholar and author. In the period of his earlier manhood, he had been a frequent contributor of prose and verse to the Southern maga-
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zines and papers. After the war ended, many of his articles and papers were published in " Harper's Monthly," " The Century," and periodicals of a like standard in America; while in England, "The Academy," and others of the foremost English monthly and weekly publications, gladly accepted his contributions. His associations, through many years, with the late Poet Laureate and his family had been very intimate; and he had been a frequent visitor at Tennyson's home. After the death of the singer of mighty song, Captain McCabe published in " The Century," in its issue for March, 1902, a very notable article which was received with great interest both in America and Great Britain, entitled " Personal Recollections of Alfred, Lord Tennyson."
Other productions of his pen were " The Defense of Peters- burg, 1864-1865," (Richmond, 1876), translated into German by Baron Mannsberg, of the Prussian "Artillery of the Guard," of the eleventh corps of the German army; " Ballads of Battle and Bravery," a striking anthology of heroic verse, (New York, Harper Bros., 1873) ; "Aids to Latin Orthography," translated from the German of Wilhelm Brambach, and revised by the translator (Harper Bros., 1872) ; a new edition (in large part rewritten and greatly augmented) of " Bingham's Latin Gram- mar " (Philadelphia, Butler and Company, 1883) ; with a revised edition of " Bingham's Latin Reader," (Philadelphia, Butler and Company, 1886) ; and " Bingham's Caesar," (Phila- delphia, Butler and Company, 1886). Among his addresses may be mentioned " Virginia Schools before and after the Revolu- tion," delivered at the University of Virginia in 1888; his address before the New England Society in New York in 1899, which attracted the editorial comment of the leading newspapers of the country ; " John R. Thompson," an eloquent and scholarly address on the occasion of the presentation of the portrait of the Virginia poet to the University of Virginia, in 1899; and his speech at the University of Virginia, in 1905, when the late Professor Thomas R. Price's library was presented to that institution.
Captain McCabe's rank as a Latinist is a high one among Latin scholars both in the New and the Old world. Lewis' " Latin Dictionary " (Harper Brothers, New York), makes acknowledgement in its preface of his ability as a linguist; and
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Doctor Basil L. Gildersleeve, of the Johns Hopkins university, in his enlarged edition of "Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar," speaks of him as a "Latinist of exact and penetrating scholar- ship;" while tributes have been paid to his accomplishments as scholar and teacher, by Matthew Arnold, Professor William E. Peters, Dr. Charlton T. Lewis, Professor Crawford H. Toy and Doctor Charles R. Lanman, of Harvard, and by others no less distinguished in the world of higher education.
In recognition of that scholarship and of his literary achieve- ments, Captain McCabe has had conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts by the college of William and Mary, in Vir- ginia, and by Williams college, in Massachusetts; that of Doctor of Letters, by Yale university, in 1897, and that of Doctor of Laws, by William and Mary, in 1906. He is a member of the Alpha (William and Mary chapter) of the Phi Beta Kappa society; and was for three consecutive terms president of the Virginia Historical society. He has been president of the West- moreland club, of Richmond, which is one of the best known social organizations in the South; he is a member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Virginia; president of the society of the Sons of the Revolution in Virginia; and he was from 1890 to the time of his removal from Petersburg to Rich- mond in 1895, commander of A. P. Hill camp of Confederate veterans at the first-named place. He has been and still is presi- dent of the " Pegram Battalion Veteran association;" and is a member of the University club of New York city, of the Amer- ican Philological society, of the Modern Language association, of the Head Masters' association of America, and a life member of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
For a number of years he was an active and interested member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia, and as such, was the author of the degree-system now existing there; and it was in no small measure due to his zeal and interest as one of the " building committee," after the destruction of the University rotunda by fire in 1895, that the university arose again from its ashes with a finer and fairer beauty.
Captain McCabe has been a great traveler, and numbers among his many foreign friends some of the most cultivated and
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distinguished savants, soldiers and scholars of Europe. His personal charm as a raconteur, his eloquence as an orator and after-dinner speaker, and the distinction of his scholarship and literary acquirements have combined to make him a welcome guest in very many of "the stately homes of England;" and there is perhaps no private person among their "Kin beyond Sea " who is better known to Englishmen of light and leading than is he.
Captain McCabe possesses the finest and most unique private library in Virginia, and possibly the finest in the South; and it illustrates in the great number of its autographed " presentation copies " the high regard in which he is held by literary men the world over; for it includes the works of Tennyson, of Browning, of Swinburne, of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Matthew Arnold, James Bryce, "Anthony Hope," William Black, Owen Wister, Anatole France, and of many others hardly less well-known, which have been given to him by their several authors. On his shelves also, are to be found presentation copies of their books from such famous soldiers or military critics as Lord Roberts, Lord Wolseley, Field Marshall Sir Evelyn Wood, and Sir Fred- erick Maurice, whom Captain McCabe numbers among his per- sonal friends.
His collection of manuscripts is scarcely less notable than his printed books; for it contains letters, poems and other writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Tennyson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Makepeace Thackeray, Thomas Jefferson, James Madi- son, Edmund Pendleton, President Davis, General Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and others scarcely less famous.
Captain McCabe is an ardent Thackerayan; and one of his most highly prized literary possessions is the first copy of " Esmond " that ever came from the press, which bears on its fly leaf the autograph inscription of its author "For my dearest mother and children, W. M. T." This book was given by Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie to John R. Thompson after her father's death; and when Thompson died in New York, in 1873, he left this book of precious associations to his friend McCabe.
Captain McCabe was married April 9, 1867, to Miss Jane Pleasants Harrison Osborne; and they have three sons, Edmund
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Osborne McCabe, of Richmond, Virginia; William Gordon McCabe, Jr., of Petersburg, Virginia; and Lieutenant E. R. Warner McCabe, of the United States army.
Among other publications in which Captain McCabe's biography has appeared, in more or less extended form, may be mentioned "Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography," Stedman's "American Anthology," Stedman's "Library of American Literature," " Who's Who in America," and " The University of Virginia," (Lewis Publishing Company, New York, 1904).
Captain McCabe's address is 405 East Cary Street, Rich- mond, Virginia.
MARSHALL McCORMICK
M cCORMICK, MARSHALL, lawyer and farmer, state senator, was born in Clarke county, Virginia, June 29, 1849. His father was Province McCormick; his mother, Margaretta Holmes Moss. The father of Province was William McCormick, who came from Ireland. Marshall McCor- mick's mother belonged to the Holmes family which gave a well- known governor to Mississippi. Marshall McCormick married, June 12, 1872, Rosalie Allen Taylor, daughter of Lawrence B. Taylor, a distinguished lawyer of Alexandria, Virginia. They have had nine children, all of whom are now (1907) living.
Marshall McCormick was born on a farm, his father com- bining farming and law. Province McCormick was common- wealth's attorney of Clarke county from 1840 to 1866, but never aspired to any very high political honors. His marked char- acteristics were honesty and integrity of purpose, strong will, great energy, and sound legal attainments. He was a most successful lawyer. His energy and vim, he transmitted to his son. The boy was required every Saturday to do some farm work; always helped at harvest time, picking up sheaves when a small boy, and taking up whole swaths when older. If no other work turned up on Saturday, the boy was required to hitch up a cart and haul rocks off the farm. Thus early began the " strenuous " life of the Hon. Marshall McCormick, a man who never spends an idle hour.
The mother was a true Virginia woman, of the noble type so often seen at the head of the old Virginia home, and still found in many places. Her influence upon the intellectual, moral and spiritual life of her son was very great, and has lasted to the present moment.
Mr. Province McCormick gave his son the best advantages of education. After sending him to the best private schools of Clarke county, he entered him at the University of Virginia. There he graduated in Latin, Greek and moral philosophy, three studies which, as taught in the University, are well adapted to
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train the mind of an ambitious young man. After taking this course at the university, Mr. McCormick spent one session at the Virginia Military institute. In 1870, he began the study of law in a private law office in Winchester, Virginia. From 1871 to the present time Mr. McCormick has been practicing law in Berryville, Virginia. His professional duties have taken him to every part of the state, and to almost every circuit court. For the past seven or eight years, he has been counsel to the Norfolk and Western Railroad company, and is one of the most successful railway attorneys in the commonwealth.
Mr. McCormick is a man of indomitable energy. His success in life is due to a combination of energy, ability, and ambition. Whatever his hands find to do, he does it with his might. Before going into a law case, he always makes careful prepara- tion, sparing neither time nor labor. After he gets into court, he works hard to win. Ever since 1871, he has vigorously and energetically followed the profession of law, and his position at the bar is the well-earned reward of untiring zeal and labor.
Mr. McCormick has spared some of his time to the public service. He has been a member of the board of visitors of the Western State hospital and of the Institution for the deaf, dumb and blind; of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia for eight years, and was for four years chairman of the finance committee of that board. He was mayor of Berryville for six years, and commonwealth's attorney of Clarke county for nearly nine years. He served in the state senate from 1883 to 1887, and helped to undo some mischievous work of the previous legisla- ture. His most conspicuous public service was rendered in fram- ing the Anderson-McCormick bill, so well known to all conversant with public affairs of the last two decades. This bill, called by the names of its patrons in the two houses of the legislature, was intended to put a stop to bribery, fraud, and intimidation at elections. Its patron in the house of delegates was Colonel William A. Anderson, of Lexington, Virginia; in the senate, Hon. Marshall McCormick, of Clarke county. It prohibited bullies and bosses from going up to the polls with voters, and watching how they voted. In some respects, it was the progenitor of the election law now in force in Virginia. Ever since the
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Anderson-McCormick law went into force, elections have been cleaner in Virginia, and political bosses less powerful.
Mr. McCormick was a member of the National Democratic convention of 1884, which nominated Grover Cleveland, and also of the St. Louis convention of 1904, which nominated Judge Parker. He was sent last August by the Virginia Bar association as a delegate to the Congress of jurists and lawyers which met in St. Louis. Mr. McCormick, though not a politician in the ordi- nary sense of the word, is deeply interested in politics as it should be. He is always anxious to see the best men nominated for public office, and does his best to have them brought before the people. He sacrifices his own convenience and his own interests to attend meetings which are held for the purpose of finding good men for high positions. He does not stay away and then criticise the action of those who attended and did their best.
Mr. McCormick is an enthusiastic Mason. He is a member of Treadwell Lodge A. F. and A. Masons; has been the master of that body for four or five terms, and was at one time district deputy grand master. He has frequently attended meetings of the grand lodge, and has always taken great interest in its deliberations. He believes in being a good lawyer, a good politician, a good Mason, nothing by halves. Mr. McCormick is a lifelong Democrat, never having swerved in his devotion to the Democratic party. In the Readjuster days, he was a “ debt- payer," and was elected as such to the state senate. He rendered valuable service in the political campaigns of that era by his public speeches. In church preference, he is an Episcopalian, and is a vestryman in the Episcopal church at Berryville, Vir- ginia.
On being asked for his advice to young Americans upon entering life, Mr. McCormick said: (1) Hard work, and an energetic devotion to the subject in hand. (2) Thorough preparation for the work in hand. (3) Uniform courtesy and politeness. (4) A chivalrous devotion to the womanhood of the country. (5) Last, but greatest of all, honesty and integrity of purpose. A young man, says he, must be fair, just, honorable and honest; and, if he does not possess these essentials, he cannot hope for very great success in life.
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