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 5
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In October, 1866, Mr. Darling went from New York to Hamp- ton, Virginia, and for the remaining thirty-four years of his life he continued to reside at Hampton.
He built up a large planing mill business. He saw great op- portunities for usefulness and for pecuniary profit in the mak- ing of fertilizers for agricultural use from the menhaden fish ; and he built up a large and very successful business in fertilizers.
He then took up the enterprise of a street car line for the cities of Newport News and Hampton, and that effective street car service he built and equipped with his own capital.
JAMES SANDS DARLING
Perhaps Virginia is still more indebted to Mr. Darling for his interest in oyster-raising. He established the largest oyster- planting business in the United States. In the conduct of this large business, his fairness his intelligence and his open mind toward the needs and the interests of others who were employed by him or interested with him, led to the steady growth of his business relations until he gave employment to hundreds of people, and won for himself not only a handsome fortune but gen- eral public esteem. While he was unflinching in adherence to what he conceived to be his duty, he was constantly actuated by the wish to help others as well. He uniformly respected the right of others to express their own opinions, and he was always considerate and helpful toward the poor.
On the 22nd of September, 1864, Mr. Darling married Miss Mary Annie Daulman. They have had three children, two of whom are living in 1908.
Mr. Darling was connected with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was a Mason. In his political relations he was a Democrat, uniformly supporting the principles and the candi- dates of that party. In his earlier manhood Mr. Darling found ample relaxation and exercise in the conduct of his business, his originality in methods giving him a constant sense of novelty and progress, in its management.
His death, on the 28th of April, 1900, at Hampton, Virginia, was mourned not only by his family and friends and by those immediately connected with him in business, but by a large circle of those who had known and highly appreciated his interest in all that makes for the welfare of the whole community.
ALFRED JEROME DAUGHTREY
D AUGHTREY, ALFRED JEROME, of Emporia, Vir- ginia, for the last thirteen years manager of the Peart, Nields and McCormick Company, at Emporia, Vir- ginia, in which company he is also a stockholder, was born in Nansemond county, Virginia, on the 30th of May, 1870.
His father, J. E. Daughtrey, was a carpenter and builder. He had married Miss Lucy A. Winborne, daughter of John B. Winborne, of Nansemond county.
Until he was thirteen years old, when his father removed to the town of Suffolk, his boyhood was passed in the country. He attended the Suffolk Collegiate institute for the six years from 1883 to 1889. But even during the years when he was regularly at school, he formed the habit of educating himself by regular and systematic reading of the best magazines, reviews and news- papers, and by seeking to apply to the problems of business and social life about him, the principles which study and reading had given him.
In 1899 he took a place as shipping clerk and bookkeeper for the lumber mill at Suffolk, Virginia. In 1895 he became manager of the Peart, Nields and McCormick company, at Emporia, which is engaged in the manufacture of lumber and box shooks.
Mr. Daughtrey is a director in the Greenville Bank of Emporia. He has been for the last eight years a member of the town council of Emporia. He is a Mason; a member of the Mystic Shrine, and a member of the Woodmen of the World.
On the 7th of November, 1900, he married Miss Bertha Kunes, daughter of W. H. Kunes, of Emporia, Virginia. They have had two sons, both of whom are living in 1908.
In religious faith, Mr. Daughtrey is a member of the Chris- tian church, with which he united when a boy of twelve.
By political convictions he is identified with the Republican party in national politics, but he always votes the state Demo- cratic ticket, and holds himself to be an Independent in politics.
NOAH KNOWLES DAVIS
D AVIS, NOAH KNOWLES, was born May 15, 1830, in Philadelphia during a brief residence of his parents in that city. His father was Reverend Noah Davis, of Salisbury, Maryland, and his mother Mary Young, of Alexan- dria, Virginia. An ancestor, John Davis, came from South Wales and settled near Salisbury, Maryland. His grandson was Daniel Davis, who died in 1856, having been for forty years elder of the Salisbury Baptist church. He was the father of Reverend Noah Davis, who early became pastor of the Baptist church in Norfolk. After several years he removed to Philadelphia, where he was placed in charge of the publication interests of the Bap- tists of the United States. In Philadelphia he was mainly instrumental in establishing the American Baptist Publication society. In this service he died at the early age of twenty-seven, leaving his son, Noah, an infant of two months old. After a few years his widow married Rev. John L. Dagg, of Virginia, and the family moved to Alabama, where the childhood of Noah was spent, and where his preparatory education was obtained.
At the proper age Noah K. Davis entered Mercer university, in Georgia, and graduated in the class of 1849 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. From his alma mater he afterwards re- ceived the degrees of Master of Arts and of Doctor of Philoso- phy. Baylor university conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.
He spent some years in the North in preparation for his work as a teacher. Howard college in Alabama then called him to a chair, and he was afterwards made principal of the Judson in- stitute. He left Alabama in 1868 to accept the presidency of Bethel college, Kentucky, and while holding this position he was called, in 1873 to the chair of moral philosophy in the University of Virginia. Having completed the thirty-third year of his ser- vice at the university, and having been invited to accept a life annuity on the Carnegie Foundation, he retired from active service July 1, 1906, and is now (1908) emeritus professor of philosophy in the University of Virginia.
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As a lecturer in the class-room, Dr. Davis has had few equals in imparting instruction. He cares little for rhetoric or for ora- tory, but is profound, earnest and logical; and his manners are the perfect representation of his thoughts, being full of kindness and marked with simplicity, directness and honesty. The stu- dent's attention is secured from the first by the conviction which promptly arises that his time is well spent.
It is fortunate, moreover, that Dr. Davis has not trusted to the fleeting results of oral lectures the excellent and profound ideas which he has digested on philosophy and its kindred branches of intellectual science. His treatises on logic, psychology and ethics are the text-books in more than fifty schools and colleges in the United States. In addition to the work of the class-room, he has delivered for the past twenty-five years at the University of Virginia upon Sunday afternoons Biblical lectures, which have been the means of grace to hundreds of young men. The sub- stance of these lectures has been embodied in two books: "Juda's Jewels: a Study in the Hebrew Lyrics," and "The Story of the Nazarene in Annotated Paraphrase." The local Young Men's Christian association owes its preparatory and present strength in large measure to the untiring efforts exerted by Dr. Davis during his years of residence at the university.
Dr. Davis has made many contributions to periodical litera- ture and has delivered many addresses before literary, scientific and religious bodies. He is a great reader, a true friend and genial companion, and no one ever came under his influence that did not profit by the fortunate circumstance.
On November 25, 1857, he married Miss Ella C. Hunt, of Albany, Georgia. Their children are Noah Wilson, Marella, Archibald Hunt and Clara Bell Davis.
A sketch of the life of Professor Davis has been published in the illustrated "History of the University of Virginia," 1904. His address is University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
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WALTER FENTON DEAL
D EAL, WALTER FENTON, of Emporia, Virginia, was 'born in James City county, Virginia, on the 17th of December, 1855, the son of William Deal, a farmer and merchant, and inspector of oyster vessels, who is remembered as " sober, methodical and attentive to business." His father's grandfather was born in England.
Born in the country, but spending part of his early life in ยท the village of Cabin Point, he attended the schools of that vil- lage, and assisted as a clerk in the store of an uncle after school hours each day. He says of his opportunities for attending school; " the Civil war left us in such a condition that we were compelled to provide for ourselves at an early age; and we got only such education as could be obtained from country and village schools, private schools at that. I had to stop school at the age of sixteen."
Beginning to support himself as a clerk in a country store, he learned bookkeeping and became bookkeeper for a lumber company. This led to his being identified with the lumber busi- ness, which in recent years has occupied him entirely. He attributes much that is best in his life, first to " home, and early home influence, and second to contact, later in life, with honor- able business men."
Mr. Deal has never held any public office except that of a member of the town council of Emporia. This office he still (1907) holds. The work in business life which has brought him more prominently before the public than that of any other has been his connection with several lumber industries, chief of which is the Emporia Manufacturing company, which manu- factures lumber and boxes, and of which he is at present presi- dent and manager.
On the 29th of April, 1890, Mr. Deal married Miss Lucy Weaver. Their only child is no longer living.
He is a Democrat by political conviction and party allegiance. He is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal
Washington- 7-
yours truly,
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church. While his time has been so fully taken up with work, that he declares he has "had no time for amusement," yet he adds, " I enjoy riding and driving more than any other form of exercise."
Vol. 5-Va .- 5
RICHARD LOUIS DIBRELL
D IBRELL, RICHARD LOUIS, wholesale tobacconist, capitalist, was born in Richmond, Virginia, on the 19th day of September, 1855, the fifth child of Richard Henry and Mary Lee (Jones) Dibrell. He is of French Hugue- not lineage, and represents the sixth generation of the American line in direct descent from Dr. Christopher DuBruill, who settled in Manakintown, Virginia, about 1700 to 1704. Three genera- tions ago, the family name was changed to the present Anglicised form, Dibrell, by Edwin Dibrell, grandfather of Richard Louis. On the paternal side his ancestors in the direct line were as fol- lows: Richard Henry Lee Dibrell, his father, was the son of Edwin Dibrell, the fourth child of Anthony DuBruill, who, in turn, was the fourth child of Anthony DuBruill, Sr., the only son of Dr. Christopher DuBruill, founder of the American branch of the family.
On the maternal side, his great-grandmother's father whose name was Roche, or Rochette, lived in the city of Sedan. He had three daughters, who embarked for Holland before the ecclesiastical authorities of France had completed plans to place them under their supervision and surveillance. Here the oldest of the sisters married and went to the West Indies; the youngest, Susannah, married Abraham Micheaux, a guaze weaver, and after five or six children had been born, they emigrated to Staf- ford county, Virginia, finally settling at a place known as Micheaux's Ferry.
Richard Louis Dibrell received his business training in the office of his father. His grandfather, his father, and all his elder brothers being tobacconists, he took up his present occupa- tion largely through heredity. He removed to Danville, Vir- ginia, in 1873, when but seventeen years of age, and engaged in the leaf tobacco business as a partner of the firm of Dibrell and Snodgrass. This firm began in a small way as brokers for larger Richmond concerns, and continued for a year or more when,
Aily yours VAL Dibrell
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RICHARD LOUIS DIBRELL
through the acquisition of the interest of Mr. Snodgrass by the late Alfonso Dibrell, the firm name became Dibrell Brothers.
The firm as thus constituted continued in active business until dissolved, in 1890, by the death of Alfonso Dibrell, though the firm name did not change. In October of the year following an interest in the business was acquired by A. B. Carrington, and the firm was duly incorporated under the laws of Virginia as a self-perpetuating corporation, of which Mr. Dibrell was elected president.
In addition to his tobacco interest, Mr. Dibrell is associated directly or indirectly with a number of financial and business enterprises. He is president of the Peoples Savings Bank and Trust Company, of Danville; director of the First National Bank of Danville; director of the Morotoch Manufacturing company ; vice-president of the Crystal Ice company; and is an officer or stockholder in a number of other concerns.
Politically, he is a conservative Democrat. He is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He is a Knight Templar and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine.
Mr. Dibrell is a man of large business experience, ripe judg- ment, and progressive spirit, who has demonstrated rare executive ability in the direction of large affairs. He has made frequent visits to Europe, besides traveling extensively in Japan, China, Canada, and throughout the United States. He has a world- wide acquaintance with the chief men in the tobacco industry of the present day. As a patriotic and public-spirited business man he is held in high esteem in both local and foreign commerical circles.
Mr. Dibrell has been twice married : first, on June 17, 1884, to Ida Nelson, daughter of the late George W. Nelson, M. D. and Pauline E. Nelson of Boonville, Missouri, who died November 24, 1896, leaving one child; second, on May 27, 1903, to Mary E. Boyd, daughter of Col. A. J. Boyd and Sarah (Richardson) Boyd, of Reidsville, North Carolina.
His address is Danville, Virginia.
EDWARD DILLON
D ILLON, COLONEL EDWARD, for thirty years promi- nently connected with the interests of the James River Valley and interested in the manufacturing of lime at the limestone quarries of Indian Rock,-was for the last six years of his life a resident of Lexington, Virginia, where he died on the 11th of August, 1897.
He was born at Salem, Roanoke county, Virginia, on the 4th of May, 1835. His father was a physician, Dr. John G. Dillon, who had married Miss Mary Johnston. Through his mother, Colonel Dillon was related to General Joe Johnston, the great Confederate leader, and to Dr. George Ben Johnston, the emi- nent physician and surgeon. The earliest known ancestor of the family in America was Edward Dillon, who left Roscommon, Ireland, in 1780, and settled at Sandford, Prince Edward county, Virginia. It is a pleasant bit of the family records to find a neighbor of this Edward Dillon writing of him in these words: "A good neighbor whose heart knoweth no guile."
Until he was nine years old his family lived in the country. In 1844 they removed to Richmond, Virginia. His early educa- tion he had begun at the New London academy, Bedford county, Virginia, and he now attended the schools of Richmond for several years. But business claimed him very early, and he be- came a clerk in Richmond.
In 1855, at the age of twenty, he started for the far West to seek his fortune. At Fort Kearney he volunteered in an expedi- tion against the Cheyenne Indians; and by reason of the quali- ties he displayed in this expedition, he was commissioned (in 1857) a second lieutenant in the regular army, and assigned to the 6th infantry.
Stationed with his regiment on the Pacific Coast in 1861, when the Civil war broke out he resigned, came East, joined the forces of the Confederacy in Missouri, and was at once assigned to the staff of General Ben McCulloch. He took part in the first great battle of the Southwest, at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, 1861,
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in which General McCulloch was killed. Lieutenant Dillon then served upon the staffs of Generals Van Dorn and Bragg. Later he was made colonel of the 2nd Mississippi cavalry and with his command, under General Forest, he participated in the engage- ments of Elkhorn, Corinth, Missionary Ridge, Chickamauga, and the almost daily fights in which Forest's cavalry were engaged. He also saw service under General Polk, and as a capable cavalry officer he had the esteem and confidence of his superiors as well as of his own men. In May, 1865, Colonel Dillon surrendered his forces to General Wilson of the Union army in Alabama.
Soon afterward he returned to Richmond and engaged in business, having charge of the boat lines of the James River and Kanawha Canal for several years. In 1868, with Turpin and Ellet, he leased the limestone quarries at Indian Rock, and began the manufacture of lime. Making his home in Botetourt, he became thoroughly identified with the industrial history of the James River Valley and of the state. He developed the valuable lime works with which his name was long identified as pro- prietor. When the great freshets of 1870, and a few years later, the high water of 1877, seriously damaged, and almost destroyed these works, his energy and ability were shown in planning and carrying through their reconstruction.
He had also a share in the work of the final substitution of the Richmond and Alleghany railroad for the slow and uncer- tain transportation facilities of the canal. For over thirty years his thought, energy and will power were devoted to the material development of his section of the state, and the great benefit of all the residents of the James River Valley. Few men were so well informed as he on the resources and the possibilities of the val- ley; and few did such effective work in developing these re- sources.
On the 29th of November, 1866, Colonel Dillon was married at Hamilton Place, Ashwood, Maury county, Tennessee, to Miss Fanny Polk, daughter of General Lucius Polk. Of their five sons and two daughters, all except the eldest son were able to gather at the bedside of their father during his last illness, and were with him at his death. President J. A. Cunningham, of the State Normal college at Farmville-a half-brother of Colonel Dillon, was also with the family at Colonel Dillon's death bed.
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EDWARD DILLON
He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal church. He had a rare capacity for sympathetic friendship; and the circle of friends who felt a sense of personal bereavement at the news of his death was exceptionally large. One of the Southern corres- pondents of the "Baltimore Sun," in an interesting letter upon "The Conversationalist at Summer Resorts," enumerates half a dozen gentlemen of the South, among them the late B. Johnson Barbour and Dr. John A. Broadus, who were recognized masters of that rare accomplishment, the fine art of conversation, and adds: "There recently died at Lexington, Virginia, a gentleman known to many of our readers, who was hardly surpassed by any as a truly delightful conversationalist,-Colonel Edward Dillon."
The last six years of his life were passed at Lexington; and he is buried in the cemetery of that city.
Trulyyoursve And Donovan
JOHN DONOVAN
D ONOVAN, JOHN, president of the Clifton Forge board of trade, president of the Clifton Forge Grocery com- pany (incorporated), and a director of the National Bank of Clifton Forge, was born in Washington, District of Columbia, on the 29th of November, 1847.
His father, John Donovan, was a railroad contractor who had been engaged in the early work of construction on the Vir- ginia Central railroad, and having been robbed of all his prop- erty by a partner who absconded but a little time before Mr. Donovan's death, left his family in straitened circumstances financially. They are of Irish descent; and the father was a man of forceful nature, dominant will and kindly feeling.
As a boy, the son was trained to "work with his hands," and after his father's death, at the age of eleven he began to work for his own support. He attended school but two years. The education which has fitted him for the work he has accomplished in life, he says was chiefly acquired by night-study, in the years after he had passed his majority.
He was but twelve years old when the Civil war broke out; and as a boy of fourteen he was appointed military telegraph operator in the service of the Southern Confederacy. At that time the boy who had experience in the use of a telegraph in- strument and in the construction of telegraph lines, was of far greater value to the Confederate cause than was the private who carried a gun in the army. Of course the boy operator, John Donovan, was not expected, and was not supposed to be per- mitted, to share in active service in the field. On one occasion he was threatened with court martial for leaving the telegraph office and going to take part in a battle. Yet so intense was his interest in the struggle, that voluntarily, and contrary to orders, he did participate in several engagements during the war, and of course on the Confederate side. He was in the fight near New Hope; and he shared in two of the engagements at and near Waynesboro. After the close of the war he spent a year at
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school. He then engaged in business at Clifton Forge, Alleghany county. Although he began life as a Democrat, he is a pro- tectionist by conviction; and he became a Republican and voted for Grant when the Democrats nominated Horace Greely in 1872. In 1880 he was elected a delegate from the 6th Virginia district to attend the Republican National convention which nominated James A. Garfield; and he was one of Grant's "306" in that historic body.
For a number of years he was in the Unted States internal revenue service as chief deputy collector for the 6th Virginia district. For a short time he also served as chief deputy and acting collector of United States internal revenue for the state of Alabama.
Governor Holliday commissioned Mr. Donovan captain of Company C., 2nd Virginia volunteer militia; and he held that commission and served in the militia with that regiment for seven years. He is a member of the Clifton Forge Camp of Confederate Veterans and has been awarded a Confederate Veteran's cross of honor.
Mr. Donovan married Miss Mary Scherer on the 31st of December, 1867. Of their four children, three survived their mother and are living in 1908. They are: John Donovan, Jr., member of the city council of Clifton Forge and recently a can- didate for mayor of that city; B. Fabian Donovan, secretary, treasurer and assistant manager of the Clifton Forge Wholesale Grocery company (incorporated) ; and William Fitz Donovan, a merchandise broker doing business in Birmingham, Alabama.
For some years Mr. Donovan was president of the Clifton Forge City council. He has also served for a long time as a member of the city school board and he is now vice-president of that body. By religious conviction and early training he is iden- tified with the Roman Catholic church.
Asked for his favorite form of amusement and exercise, he writes: "My pastime is now, and has always been, 'work.'"
To young people Captain Donovan gives this advice: "Map out a course to be followed, and an end in life to be attained; and pursue it vigorously to the end, not faltering at times when failure threatens you. If you are a young man who by stress of
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circumstances has been prevented from acquiring a collegiate education, study persistently by yourself. Honest methods and honorable purposes in dealing with your fellow-men will give you the confidence of the business world."
His address is Clifton Forge, Virginia.
WILLIAM FRANCIS DREWRY
D REWRY, WILLIAM FRANCIS, physician and alien- ist, was born in Southampton county, Virginia, March 10, 1860. His parents were James David Humphry Drewry and Martha Jane Francis Drewry. He was the second of five brothers. His father was a planter, with marked literary tastes, and a great fondness for books; and it is doubtless to the influences exercised by him upon the early life of his son that Doctor Drewry may ascribe his own fondness for reading and study from his boyhood.
Doctor Drewry's family are of English-French descent, his earliest paternal ancestor in America having come to Virginia from England in the seventeenth century; and his maternal ancestors were of French stock. Many of the name on each side were prominent as planters and large slave owners and in the social life of Eastern Virginia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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