USA > Virginia > Men of mark in Virginia, ideals of American life; a collection of biographies of the leading men in the state, Volume V > Part 2
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Very handy yours H. H. Baker
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HARRY HUNT BAKER
company. He served as a member of the city council of Win- chester from 1892 to 1893, when he resigned the office. Governor A. J. Montague appointed Mayor Baker upon his staff, with the rank of colonel.
He has given largely of time, money and attention to various local interests and outside business enterprises, without expecta- tion of personal profit but with the view of helping the commu- nity and increasing the industrial stability and the general busi- ness of his native town. As mayor of Winchester, Colonel Baker has applied to the management of the public affairs of the city certain original ideas and unique methods of his own.
Mayor Baker's administration has been marked by an equally spirited administration of the law against poisons labelled as whiskey. Convinced that vile compounds were play- ing havoc with even moderate drinkers, Mayor Baker summoned his police force and instructed them to get evidence against the offending saloons. The poisoned "brands" were at once driven from the town. Determined to place a curb upon drunkenness, Mayor Baker strongly advocated the passing of the recently enacted law which forbids the selling of intoxicating liquors to a person who is already intoxicated; and when the saloon keepers attempted to follow the customary way of evading such a law, by alleging the difficulty of determining just when a man was drunk, Mayor Baker settled the question by making it known that a list of all "inebriates" was to be printed and hung up in the barrooms for the guidance of the saloon men. He even went to the length of preparing such a list; but the prospect of finding their names in the list produced consternation, almost a panic, among the men of the city ; and at the local option election which then took place, the town "went dry." It is believed by many citizens that this action of the Mayor's was the means of check- ing many a thoughtless young man at the beginning of a down- ward career, and has led to the reform of some who had suffered from the drink habit for years.
The results of four years of the administration of Mayor Baker are to be seen in a city government clean and without graft, in an orderly, law-abiding town where the criminal ex- penses are reduced to the lowest terms. The friends and sup- Vol. 5-Va .- 2
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HARRY HUNT BAKER
porters of Mayor Baker are by no means limited to one of the two political parties. He is the people's choice. On June 9th, he was reëlected mayor for a term of four years by a large majority over his opponent.
On the 4th of June, 1889, he married Miss Belle Eubank Jordan. They have had two children, both of whom are living in 1908. At their home on South Washington street, their pri- vate as well as their official entertainments are marked by the simplicity and good taste which characterize the most genuine hospitality. During the heat of summer, the mayor and his family make their home upon the estate five miles north of Win- chester which is the ancestral home of Mrs. Baker's family, the Jordans.
Mayor Baker is a communicant of the Episcopal church, and is interested in all the charitable and humane work of that church and of the city.
To young men of Virginia who wish to succeed in life, he strongly commends the habit of "having but one goal, and keep- ing that always before you."
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JAMES M. BARR
B ARR, JAMES M., of Norfolk, Virginia, was born in Ohio, October 11, 1855; he attended public school until 1868, when he began work, entering the railway service as messenger in the office of a division superintendent of the Pennsylvania railroad in 1871. From 1878 to 1885 he was em- ployed by the Burlington & Missouri River railroad in Nebraska, as stenographer and chief clerk to the general manager, and as purchasing agent; from 1885 to 1888 by the Chicago, Burling- ton & Northern railroad, as assistant superintendent and super- intendent; from 1888 to 1890 by the Union Pacific railroad, as superintendent; from 1890 to 1894 by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, as superintendent; from 1894 to 1897 by the Great Northern railway, as superintendent and general superin- tendent; from 1897 to 1899 by the Norfolk & Western railway, as vice-president and general manager; from 1899 to 1901 by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway, as vice-president in charge of transportation ; from 1901 to 1906 by the Seaboard Air Line railway, as vice-president and general manager and presi- dent.
In 1906, he withdrew from railway work to engage in pri- vate business. During the year 1907, when the Jamestown Ex- position was uncompleted and threatened with disaster, he con- sented at the urgent request of citizens of Norfolk and the trans- portation lines, to take the director-generalship thereof, without compensation, and he completed the preparations and served as director-general.
Mr. Barr attributes his advancement in railway service to his capacity for work.
CARTER RICHARD BISHOP
B ISHOP, CARTER RICHARD, for twenty-five years prominently connected with the banking business of Petersburg, Virginia, and now manager of the Appo- mattox Trust company of Petersburg, was born in that city on the 22nd of May, 1849.
His father, Carter R. Bishop, who married Miss Mary E. Head, was also a bank officer who is remembered by all who knew him for his life of steadfast devotion to duty.
In his boyhood Carter Richard Bishop was not robust; but the hard and simple living incident to war times, he feels, gave him a sound and vigorous constitution which has served him well in the work of mature life. His boyhood was passed in the city of Petersburg, Virginia, and as he was twelve years old when the war broke out, he passed the years of transition from 'boyhood under the stern influence of that period of intense strug- gle. He was a student at the Virginia Military institute and, as .a member of the corps of cadets of the institute, he saw such service as fell to that organization of high-spirited and earnest boys and youths in the last year of the war. It is well remem- bered that the cadet corps of the Military institute were in the trenches on the defence line in front of Richmond. They held the picket posts while the army was drawn out of Richmond, on April 2nd, 1865. After the war, he became a student at Hamp- den-Sidney college, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of A. B., in 1870, taking the first honor in his class. After graduation he became a teacher at Owensborough, Ken- tucky.
Early in the eighties he became connected with one of the banks of Petersburg and for twenty-five years he has given his time and strength to the banking business in that city.
In 1904 the chamber of commerce of Petersburg presented to Captain Bishop a silver spade with which to break ground for the formal opening of the work of diverting the Appomattox river from its old bed to a course giving to Petersburg a naviga-
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CARTER RICHARD BISHOP
ble stream to deep water and insuring low transportation rates for its commercial products. Captain Bishop was the first to call attention to the benefits which would accrue from the carry- ing out of this plan. He interested others in the scheme and continued his efforts in its behalf until a bill providing for the improvement had been passed by congress.
At the imposing ceremonies in Petersburg, October 27, 1905, attending the presentation of the Confederate flags returned to the State of Virginia by act of congress of the United States, Captain Bishop delivered an eloquent introductory address. In 1907 he wrote for the council of the city of Petersburg an inter- esting report which was published in pamphlet form, accom- panied by a sketch of the intrenched lines in the immediate front of Petersburg, the whole entitled, "The Cockade City of the Union." It is a brief but very interesting presentation of the history of Petersburg, especially during the struggle in the closing years of the Civil war; with especial attention to the topography of the important environs of the city, with indica- tions of the particular points where heroic commanders on either side led troops in the well known contest that raged about the fortifications of Petersburg. There are few points in the South where such a review of the scenes of that struggle brings up the names of more of the prominent commanders and striking facts in the Civil war; and this little pamphlet by Captain Bishop has had a wide circulation and was of service to multitudes of those from other parts of the country, who visited Petersburg during the progress of the Jamestown exposition in 1907.
The confidence felt in him by his fellow citizens has been shown in his election and repeated reelection as one of the alder- men of the city.
On the 8th of November, 1881, he married Miss M. C. Kirk. They have one son who is living in 1908. At college, Mr. Bishop was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. In politics he is iden- tified with the Democratic party, and he has uniformly sup- ported the principles and the nominees of that party. By reli- gious conviction he is a Presbyterian, and he is identified with the interest and the religious work of that communion of Christians.
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CARTER RICHARD BISHOP
His favorite form of exercise and amusement has been on the water, in rowing or sailing a boat.
His experience in the cadet corps of the institute gave a personal interest to his connection with the great body of Con- federate veterans in his state and throughout the South; and Mr. Bishop has for years been adjutant of the A. P. Hill camp of Confederate veterans, with the rank of captain.
Asked to make to younger Virginians suggestions which would help them to attain true success in life, Mr. Bishop says: "A knowledge of the glorious deeds of our ancestors, and much meditation on the responsibility which very high ideals and achievements have imposed upon us, cannot fail to make us better citizens."
BENJAMIN BLACKFORD
B LACKFORD, BENJAMIN, M. D., physician, superinten- dent of the Western State hospital (for the insane) at Staunton, Virginia, was born at Luray, Page county, Virginia, September 8, 1834. His father was Thomas T. Black- ford; his mother, Caroline Steenbergen, of Shenandoah county, Virginia. From his father, a prominent physician of Lynch- burg, Virginia, Dr. Blackford inherited a strong predilection for medical pursuits. Accordingly, after receiving a preliminary education in the private schools of Lynchburg, Virginia, he studied medicine at the University of Virginia, and at the Jeffer- son Medical college of Philadelphia, taking his M. D. degree in 1855. From 1855 to 1858, he was resident physician in the Blockley hospital, Philadelphia. In 1858 he began the practice of medicine in Lynchburg, Virginia; in 1861, entered the Con- federate army as surgeon, established military hospitals at Cul- peper, Front Royal, and Liberty-all in Virginia. After the war, he resumed his practice in Lynchburg; was elected presi- dent of the Medical Society of Virginia; in 1889, was elected superintendent of the Western Lunatic asylum at Staunton, now known as the Western State hospital, the change of name being made largely at his suggestion. 1333086
Dr. Blackford is one of the most efficient officers in the state, and keeps his hospital in excellent condition. He is re- garded as a man of rare professional attainments and of splendid executive ability.
Dr. Blackford's first American ancestor on the paternal side was Benjamin Blackford, who settled in New Jersey about 1746. This Benjamin was a native of Ayrshire, Scotland; espoused the cause of the ill-fated Charles Edward, the young pretender; was prisoner at the battle of Culloden (1746), confined in Warwick castle, and, shortly afterwards, banished to the colonies. Ben- jamin (the second) was born in New Jersey in 1767, removed to Virginia early in the nineteenth century, settled in Page county, where he established iron furnaces and other industries. As a
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BENJAMIN BLACKFORD
boy, he served in the Revolutionary war, and was present at the siege of Yorktown.
His father served in the War of 1812, and was in the battle of Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland.
On the maternal side, Dr. Blackford is descended from Thomas Beale, the emigrant, who came from Maidstone, Kent, England, about 1640; was justice of the peace and member of the King's council, and warden of Bruton church, Williamsburg, Virginia. The present Benjamin's great-grandfather, Taverner Beale, was a colonel in the Revolutionary war, and served under Muhlenburg, one of the famous "fighting parsons " of Virginia, and also under Morgan, the hero of the valley. Coming from such sturdy, indomitable ancestry, Doctor Blackford was born for a life of energy and leadership. It is not, then, at all sur- prising to find him early in life espousing enthusiastically the cause of his native state, and throwing himself into that cause with all the fervor of the sires that fought at Culloden and at York- town. That cause lost, or buried under the dark pinions of ad- verse fate, we find the young physician taking up the thread of civic life just where he had dropped it in 1861; and very soon his earnestness, honesty and ability made him one of the promi- nent medical men of the commonwealth.
Though eminently successful as a physician and as head of a hospital for the insane, Doctor Blackford finds time for read- ing and general culture. He contributes frequently to the medi- cal journals; and his reports of the Western State hospital are valuable to all whose studies lie in the direction of insanity, and other disorders of the brain.
If one should seek the causes of Doctor Benjamin Black- ford's success in life, he would find that they are home training, culture, education, integrity, attention to duty, both as citizen and as physician, together with scientific and executive ability.
On January 10, 1871, Doctor Blackford was married to Emily Byrd (née Neilson) of Baltimore. They have had seven chil- dren, all sons, six of whom are now living.
After the above sketch was written Doctor Blackford died of pneumonia at his home in Staunton, on December 13, 1905, after an illness of only four days. The burial was at Lynchburg, Vir- ginia.
DAVID WINTON BOLEN
B OLEN, DAVID WINTON, is a son of William B. Bolen and Rebecca Morris, and was born at Fancy Gap, Carroll county, Virginia, August 17, 1850. His great- grandfather, Benjamin Bohlen, a Baptist preacher, was of Ger- man descent, though born in this country. For a time the family lived in Pennsylvania but about 1778 they moved to North Carolina. William B. Bolen, father of the subject of this sketch, moved to Virginia. He entered the Confederate service but was killed in 1862, leaving the family in destitute circumstances. David W. Bolen assisted in the support of his mother, working in the fields as a farm hand until he was twenty years old. The young man's life was molded by his mother, for whom he had the strongest affection, and by his grandfather, John Morris, who lived near their home and took a deep interest in them.
Mr. Bolen's education is due almost entirely to his own private reading, as his school life extended in all to but thirteen months. While he found enjoyment, as a healthy boy should, in such outdoor sports as swimming and horseback-riding, and still enjoys them; he made excellent use of his evening hours and acquired a knowledge and appreciation of the standard works in history and biography, turning to Dickens for relax- ation and later in life to the drollness of Mark Twain.
His reading included Campbell's "Lives of the Chief Justices and Lord Chancellors," and while his interest was still keen in the lives and achievements of these prominent men in the legal profession, an opportunity came to him to study law with a practicing attorney and decided his adoption of this profession. He was admitted to the bar in his county in 1875 and speedily attained eminence in his chosen profession. He was elected judge of the county court in 1879 and served in the sessions of 1883, 1885 and 1889 in the Virginia house of delegates. On March 1, 1890, he was made judge of the fifteenth circuit, but resigned in 1892. During his lesiure time Judge Bolen has contributed
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DAVID WINTON BOLEN
short sketches and poems to the press and is at present engaged in compiling his sketches into a history of Southwestern Virginia.
In politics Mr. Bolen has followed with undeviating alle- giance the fortunes of the Democratic party. He represented Carroll county in the Constitutional convention of 1901-1902, and was presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1904. Though his father was an ardent Methodist, Mr. Bolen is not closely allied to any religious denomination. While he styles himself a Quaker, his faith leans towards Unitarianism. He is active in philanthropic work and was president of the board of directors of the Southwestern State hospital for six years.
He married February 21, 1877, Nannie Early. They have had two children neither of whom are now living.
His address is Fancy Gap, Carroll County, Virginia.
land Mark Publishing Washington, DC
Verytruly yours
AUBIN LEE BOULWARE
B OULWARE, AUBIN LEE, lawyer, banker and for the last years of his life president of the First National Bank of Richmond, and of the Union Bank of Richmond, was born in King and Queen county, Virginia, on the 27th of December, 1843. His father, Andrew Moore Boulware, was a man of liberal education, an alumnus of the University of Vir- ginia, who was by choice a farmer and planter, holding no public office of any kind. His mother was Mrs. Martha Ellen (Todd) Boulware, daughter of George Thompson and Mary Smith Todd of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The Boulware family had emigrated from England a little before 1700, and settled in King and Queen county, Virginia. George Thompson Todd, the first American ancestor of his mother's family, had emigrated from Scotland, and settled in Fredericksburg, Virginia, soon after the War of the Revolution.
During a healthy boyhood, passed in the country and in part in the village of Newtown, Virginia, he devoted much time to books and reading, although a fair proportion of it was given to outdoor sports and hunting. He had good opportunities for study at home and in the excellent schools of Lewis Kidd, Gessner Harrison and Samuel Schooler, until the outbreak of the Civil war interrupted the progress of his education. In 1862, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted in the 9th regiment of Virginia cavalry, Lee's rangers, and served as a private until the close of the war. For bravery in action he was promoted to a lieutenancy, but was never commissioned.
The fall after the close of the war he returned to Mr. School- er's " Edge Hill " academy and one year later entered the Uni- versity of Virginia ; and after three years of study he was grad- uated with the degree of Master of Arts, in the summer of 1869, graduating in Latin, Greek, and mathematics the first year.
In the fall of 1869 he accepted a position as teacher in the Kenmore high school, near Guinea's Depot, Virginia, then con- ducted by Judge R. L. Coleman. In the spring of 1870 Judge
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Coleman died and the next fall Mr. Boulware established his own school in Fredericksburg, under the name of "The Uni- versity high school." After a year or two spent in teaching, he found that this was not his true calling; and he determined to study law.
He read law in the offices of Judge Barton and St. George R. Fitzhugh, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. When licensed to practice, he entered the law office of Johnston and Williams, and later became a partner in the firm of Johnston, Williams and Boulware. After the death of Mr. Andrew Johnston the legal business of the firm was continued under the firm name of Wil- liams and Boulware, until Mr. Boulware's death, June 12, 1897.
During the years of his practice he was a receiver in the United States courts, in the important White Sulphur Springs case, and in the Richmond and Arlington Life Insurance case, as well as in the Southern Telegraph company case. Upon the organization of the Southern Railway company he became a director of the corporation and served in that capacity until his death. In 1891, he became president of the First National Bank of Richmond, and later in the same year, he was chosen president of the Union Bank of Richmond, Virginia. In the later years of his life, he gave the most of his time and attention to the management of these important banking houses.
On the 14th of November, 1878, Mr. Boulware married Miss Janie Grace Preston, daughter of the late Honorable William Ballard Preston, of Montgomery county, Virginia, who together with three children, still (1907) survives him.
At college, Mr. Boulware was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He was a member of the Lee Camp of Con- federate Veterans. He was also a member of the Commonwealth club and the Westmoreland club, of Richmond, Virginia. His political principles were Democratic. By religious conviction he was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church. His record in the legal profession is that of a painstaking and able lawyer, whose ability and high sense of honor were shown in the conduct of his legal business, and led to his being chosen presi- dent of important banking corporations, in the administration of which the same high qualities and same good judgment were manifested.
ALEXANDER BROWN
B ROWN, ALEXANDER, genealogist and historian, was born at Glenmore, Nelson county, Virginia, September 5, 1843, and is the son of Robert Lawrence and Sarah Cabell Callaway Brown. Robert L. combined the life of a farmer with that of a teacher, and was a man of culture and intelligence, a typical representative of a class of ante-bellum Virginians who could finish you off a quotation from Horace more easily than the American gentleman of this mercenary age can round out a familiar passage from Pope or Shakespeare. When Virginia seceded in 1861, R. L. Brown laid down both the ferule and the hoe, and joined the Confederate army, attaining the rank of lieutenant.
The Browns have been in America less than a hundred years. Alexander, father of Robert L., and grandfather of Alexander (2), came from Perth, Scotland, in 1811, and settled in Williams- burg, Virginia.
The Cabells are one of the oldest Virginia families. Their earliest American ancestor was Dr. William Cabell, the noted surgeon, who came from England early in the eighteenth cen- tury and took up extensive lands in what are now Nelson, Amherst, Appomattox, and Buckingham counties, Virginia. He left six children; four of his sons attained eminence. The eldest was Colonel William Cabell, of Union Hill, the great-grandfather of Alexander Brown, the subject of this article. To enumerate the offices of honor and trust held by Colonel William Cabell would exceed the limits of this article; suffice to say, he was pub- lic-spirited, fearless, patriotic, statesmanlike.
In boyhood and youth, Alexander Brown was especially fond of reading. Nearly every Virginia home of the ante-bellum era was well furnished with the standard historians, essayists, and poets; and with these young Brown spent many an hour after the duties of the day were over. He had faithful teaching under his father and under the late Horace W. Jones, one of the most honored teachers of the last half century. Just as young Brown was about to enter upon the study of engineering, the secession
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ALEXANDER BROWN
movement came on, Virginia left the Union (1861), and called her sons to rally to her side. At seventeen, Alexander Brown entered the Confederate army. He served faithfully for the whole four years of the war, and at Fort Fisher became stone deaf from the great explosion so well known to all close students of the Civil war.
Though crippled by his deafness, Mr. Brown, after the war, bravely took up the struggle which the men of the South waged against ruin and starvation. From 1865 to 1868, he was salesman in a grocery store in Washington, District of Columbia. Not long thereafter, he settled at Norwood, Nelson county, Virginia, where he resided until his death.
For a long time, the people around Norwood used to wonder what there could be in the packages that came through the mail addressed to " Sandy " Brown, as they all call him. Year after year, these packages came; year after year, the curiosity of the gossips remained unsatisfied. They all knew he was an omnivorous reader. They all knew that he was "a smart fellow," had "a plenty of sense," and they often said that it was a pity he had been prevented from getting a finished university education. Moreover, in spite of the adage about the prophet in his own country and city, they even went so far as to say that, if the war had not come, " Sandy Brown would have made his mark."
In 1886, Mr. Brown published his "New Views on Early Virginia History." This made him well known in many quarters, but raised a storm of disapproval among those that are reluctant to give up any of the old traditions and legends of the past. In 1890, Mr. Brown published " The Genesis of the United States," one of the most remarkable books of the latter part of the century; and still the wonder grows how a man off in a remote country neighborhood, with few facilities for consulting sources, could write such a history. There, at last, was the secret of the packages, the mysterious bundles, that came by mail from England, Spain, and the world at large-the origin and genesis of the American nation was told from a study of musty archives which Mr. Brown had had copied by men and women in all parts of the world. This monumental work made both Mr. Brown and Virginia famous.
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