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 6
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Doctor Drewry's physical condition in childhood was some- what delicate; and, while his earlier years were spent upon his father's farm, he had no fixed tasks of manual labor assigned him. His energy, however, was always great, and he varied his studies, for which he possessed a natural aptitude and inclina- tion, with the performance of many farm duties.
His father's death, when the youth was thirteen years of age, left the family with but a small estate; and in consequence Doc- tor Drewry's acquisition of an education put to the test his best energies and aspirations. His earlier instruction was had in the common schools of the neighborhood and later in an academy in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, for one year. Being without sufficient means to continue at school, he secured a position as a clerk in a commission house in Norfolk. He showed great apti- tude for business, but felt it his duty to return to his mother's farm and aid her and her young family and to give an oppor- tunity for his brothers to attend college. In 1877, he became a student in Randolph-Macon college, at Ashland, Virginia, and,
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after leaving there in 1880, he taught a public school in his county two years, and then entered the Medical college of Vir- ginia, at Richmond, where he remained from 1882 to 1884, grad- uating with distinction in the last named year with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and finally achieved the purpose to which his own inclinations and the examples of two of his uncles and several others of his relatives directed him, of becoming a physi- cian. In achieving both his collegiate and professional educa- tion, Doctor Drewry showed both the ambition and the determi- nation to accomplish what he undertook, traits which have char- acterized his life from boyhood and made his career a highly dis- tinguished one. He worked, taught, or engaged in other occupa- tions, in his vacations, to make money enough, with what he bor- rowed from an uncle, to take him through college, and to enable him to study medicine, punctiliously returning, out of his earliest subsequent earnings, whatever he had borrowed.
Having taken his professional degree at the Medical college of Virginia, he returned to his native county to practice his pro- fession, and conducted a successful country practice there from 1884 to 1886-in the meantime, during a portion of that period, managing a drug store in connection with his professional work. At one time during that period his health failed, necessitating his discontinuing active practice; he, however, continued doing office practice, at same time teaching a large public school. In September, 1886, he was appointed second assistant physician, and in 1887, was promoted to the post of first assistant physician of the Central State hospital, at Petersburg, Virginia. In 1896 he was unanimously elected by the board of directors superin- tendent of this hospital, which in the number of its inmates and the magnitude of its equipment is the largest in the state of Virginia, and one of the largest in America, for the care of the colored insane. This office Doctor Drewry has filled from that date to the present (1908), showing, in his management and direction of the institution, an administrative and business capacity not inferior to the high professional ability which has distinguished him as one of the leading alienists and neurologists in the South.
Doctor Drewry is frequently consulted in many quarters as
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an expert in insanity, epilepsy, and other nervous disorders, and upon medico-legal questions, upon all of which subjects he has been a prolific contributor to medical societies and to the various journals and publications of his profession. He has been called in as an expert in many of the important mur- der trials and other cases in the courts of the state. In January, 1906, he was elected by a unanimous vote of the board of general directors of the State hospitals for the insane, to the position of superintendent of the Western State hospital, at Staunton, Virginia, the largest of the state hospitals for whites, but de- clined the election.
He is a member of the American Medical association, being a member of the house of delegates from his state; of the Virginia Medical society, of which he is president; of the National association for the care of epileptics and the study of epilepsy, being its vice-president; of the New York Medico-legal society; of the American Medico-Psychological as- sociation; of the Tri-State Medical association of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina; of the Petersburg Medical faculty ; and honorary member of the Southside Virginia Medical as- sociation. He organized, in 1900, the Virginia Conference of charities and correction, in which are now enlisted the interests and energies of many of the most prominent people of Vir- ginia, and is now its president; and he originated and led the movement in Virginia in behalf of a state colony for epileptics, which was recently established. He is a member of the National Conference of charities and correction and its corresponding secretary for Virginia. He is greatly interested in education, and is a member of the board of trustees of the Southern Female college, Petersburg; and is president of the board of visitors of the Virginia Home and Industrial school for girls. He has recently been appointed by Governor Swanson a member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia for a term of four years, and he is member from the fourth congressional district of the newly created State board of health.
He is the author of the present law regulating the exami- nation and commitment of the insane, and of several other statutes affecting the hospitals and the insane. He was first to
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segregate the epileptics in the state institutions, and to adopt the tent and open air treatment of the tubercular insane in Virginia. He was also first in the state to adopt the absolute non-physical restraint system of managing the insane, and in- stituted many other reforms in the care and treatment of the insane and the management of state hospitals. He is author of a number of published papers, chiefly on insanity, epilepsy, care of the insane and epileptics, tuberculosis, nervous diseases, and medico-legal subjects.
Doctor Drewry is a member of the Sigma Chi college fra- ternity, and belongs to the Royal Arcanum. He is a member of the local social club in Petersburg; but his time is too fully occupied to give him much opportunity in the direction of club life or of active affiliation with purely social or secret organi- zations. He is a student by inclination, and finds his keenest pleasure in his domestic life and in the performance of his professional and official duties, and in his books-though he is sociable, genial, and is fond of social life at seasonable opportuni- ties. His relaxations and amusements consist of walks in the country, drives, and short visits or trips to various points of interest in city or country. His infrequent vacations are spent largely in visiting other hospitals for the insane.
Doctor Drewry is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is an official in his church. His life has been largely influenced by the altruistic spirit; and some of his most interesting sociological work has been in his official connection with the movements to establish in Virginia a re- formatory for girls, a sanitarium for consumptives, and the colony for epileptics. He is a Democrat in politics, and has never changed.
Doctor Drewry was married December 20, 1892, to Bessie Seabury, of Petersburg, Virginia; and of their marriage have been born four children, three daughters and one son, all of whom are now (1908) living.
Doctor Drewry's address is 16 Filmore Street, Petersburg, Virginia.
HUGH MILLER DUDLEY
D UDLEY, HUGH MILLER, lawyer and financier, was born May 4, 1855, at "Midway," the plantation home of his parents, near Washington, Rappahannock county, Virginia. His father, William T. Dudley, planter and assessor of lands in Rappahannock, was a man of the strictest integrity. His mother, Achsah Ann (Miller) Dudley, a pious woman of strong intellect and high ideals, had a powerful and lasting in- fluence upon his life. His brother, Lieutenant J. W. Dudley of Company G, 49th Virginia infantry, Confederate States army, was killed, April 2, 1865, while directing his men at the seige of Petersburg. His elder sister, Fannie T. Dudley, married John W. Wood, a farmer and noted apple-grower of Rappahannock; his younger sister, Jessie Dudley, married Judge Walter W. Moffett of Salem, Virginia. His brother, Frank Dudley, is a leading business man of Rappahannock.
Hugh Miller Dudley was reared on a plantation and was healthy, strong and active, with the average boy's fondness for play. His father being a slaveholder, he spent the first ten years of his life under that regime which helped to give to the South the culture which marked it before the war. Later he did some work on his father's plantation when not at school, for the in- culcation of habits of industry. He acquired his education under private teachers in his father's home; at East View seminary, in his native county, conducted by Reverend Thomas Holtzman, a noted educator; and at Washington academy under the instruc- tion of S. W. Barksdale, a master of arts of the University of Virginia. Having decided from personal preference to enter the legal profession, he attended, in 1876, the summer law lectures of Professor John B. Minor, at the University of Virginia. He studied privately the remainder of the year, and, in 1877, was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law in Washing- ton, Rappahannock county, Virginia.
His practice was a success from the start, and it steadily grew; and his elevation to the bench as judge of the county court
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of Rappahannock, January 1, 1898, was regarded as only a proper reward for his good work and clean record as a practicing attorney. He remained on the bench until February 1, 1904, when, under the new state constitution the county courts went out of existence. His decisions, both for thorough knowledge of law and for broad comprehension of equity and justice, will compare favorably with those of any county judge in the state, during the same period. His home at Washington, Virginia, nestled like a gem among the foothills of the Blue Ridge, is a center of culture and hospitality.
He had been a good financier during his entire career; but it was not until August, 1890, when he became president of the Rappahannock branch of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Culpeper, that his ability in that line became generally known outside his list of clients, many of whom had previously profited by it. His work was so markedly profitable to the Culpeper bank that on October 1, 1902, he was elected president of the Rappahannock National bank, Washington, Virginia, and was given a wider field for his ability as a financier. Though still practicing law, since his retirement from the bench, he has given most of his personal attention to the bank and to the Rappahan- nock Mutual Fire Insurance company, of which he is secretary and treasurer, and has placed them among the successful finan- cial institutions of the State.
He is a member of the Baptist church, is a past master Mason and high priest in the Royal Arch chapter. In politics he is a Democrat.
On November 10, 1885, Judge Dudley married Eugenia Eastham, whose parents and ancestors for generations had been numbered among the leading people of Virginia. Mrs. Dudley was born in Texas, but was educated at Hollins institute, Vir- ginia, and has spent the greater part of her life in the state of her ancestors. Two children, Delha Miller Dudley and Luther Harris Eastham Dudley, have been born to them, both of whom are now living.
Since the above was written, Judge Dudley died suddenly, on September 3, 1907, while attending to the affairs of the National bank at Washington, Virginia, and was laid to rest at
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"Midway," his boyhood home, beside his father and soldier brother. He was a typical Virginia gentleman, and his services to his state will long be remembered.
My Cordially your David Danlofa.
DAVID DUNLOP
D UNLOP, DAVID, a wealthy merchant of Petersburg, Virginia, was born at Petersburg, November 6, 1841, and his parents were David Dunlop, Sr., and Anna Mercer Minge, his wife. His uncle, James Dunlop, who was born in Dundonald Parish, Ayrshire, Scotland, August 13, 1770, came to Petersburg from Ireland in the early part of the nine- teenth century and established the business of manufacturing tobacco. He died July 13, 1827. He was succeeded in the busi- ness by his brother, David Dunlop, father of the subject of this sketch, who acquired a reputation as a remarkably successful merchant.
Mr. Dunlop was brought up in the city and was well educa- ted at private schools, at Washington and Lee university, and by study in Europe. Taking up the business of his father and uncle he became one of the most successful tobacco manufacturers and exporters in the United States. And yet, though one of the richest men in the South, he was simple and unpretentious in his habits; preferring to live the quiet existence of a private gentle- man to engaging in the turmoil of public life. He was a Presby- terian in his religious affiliations. He was twice married; first to Kate Compton, of Lexington, Virginia, January 18, 1866, by whom he had one son, David Dunlop, Jr .; second, to Mary Corling Johnston, on February 4, 1896, by whom he had four daughters: Mary Mercer Dunlop, Sally Harrison Dunlop, Mar- garet Agnes Dunlop, and Charlotte Lemoine Dunlop.
On his mother's side Mr. Dunlop traced back to James Minge, clerk of Charles City county, who was prominent as a friend of Nathaniel Bacon. William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States, was a great uncle of Mr. Dunlop.
Mr. Dunlop died in Petersburg, Virginia, October 26, 1902.
Vol. 5-Va .- 6
OLIVER DURANT
D URANT, OLIVER, pioneer and mine operator, was born in Buffalo, New York, September 12, 1837. His father, John Durant, was an architect and builder. His mother, Martha Durant, was a woman of fine character who exerted a strong and beneficent influence upon her family and her friends. The first representatives of his father's family in this country were Huguenots, but came from England, where they had been engaged in manufacturing.
Oliver Durant, the youngest of three children, while fond of sports and pastimes, as a boy was interested in mechanics. When he was eleven, his father died, leaving the family in straitened circumstances. Wishing to care for himself and to lighten the burden of his relatives, Oliver soon obtained a position as errand boy. He worked faithfully during the day, and when it was possible attended school at night. At fourteen he decided to become a machinist, but he had worked only a week when his older brother was drowned, and his mother, his sister and him- self, were left without means of support beyond the two dollars per week which Oliver was receiving as an apprentice. He there- fore gave up the idea of learning a trade, and secured a position in the freight office of one of the leading railroads in the city at a salary which enabled him to maintain the little family in com- parative comfort. But he felt the need of a wider field and better opportunities, and when he was nineteen years of age he started for the new and thinly settled region then known by the indefinite name of "Out West."
At St. Joseph, Missouri, he became a clerk for a merchant who took him not only into his business house but into his home, where he found good friends. After a few years, Mr. Durant formed a partnership with two of his acquaintances and engaged in a mercantile business which was quite prosperous until the autumn of 1861, when the disturbed conditions caused by the Civil war threatened its ruin. He then decided to go still further west, and in the autumn of 1861 made a journey into what was
-Wynne C. Publish --- -Amyth Buster
yours Respectfully Oliver Durant
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then a wild and almost uninhabited territory. The trip from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Denver, Colorado, took about forty days and involved many and severe hardships. A considerable stock of goods was transported by teams, one of which Mr. Durant himself drove. On the long journey from Missouri no white men were seen. Fortunately the Indians, of whom there were several bands, were friendly, and he reached Denver in safety.
In March, 1864, Mr. Durant fitted out an expedition with cattle teams, and himself driving a team of oxen started for Alder Gulch, at which place gold had been discovered in large quanti- ties. On the first day out from Denver they encountered a bliz- zard which caused intense suffering and seriously threatened the lives of the men and cattle. Later in the journey there were heavy snow storms, one of which continued for thirty consecutive days. The perils of the journey were increased by the hostility of the Indians, at that time very pronounced; but Mr. Durant was not molested, and after having been on the road for four months he reached Alder Gulch. Finding conditions unfavor- able, late in the autumn of 1864, he went to Salt Lake City, Utah. Soon after his arrival Mr. Durant sent for his wife and little son to join him. After a tedious and extremely perilous journey, they reached Denver. The stage in which they arrived at this point was the last one to cross the plains for more than three months, as the Indians took possession of the entire region, killed all the white people and destroyed the property at the stations.
During his residence at Salt Lake, from 1864 to 1878, Mr. Durant, beside attending to his mercantile interests, became largely engaged in mining and smelting; and during a consider- able part of this time he gave employment to several hundred men in developing and making available the resources of the country. Late in the autumn of 1878 he removed to Leadville, Colorado, where he engaged in business and mining. From there he visited several of the great mining regions of the United States and Mexico, and later he went to British Columbia. In the autumn of 1890 he secured for himself and a few others a six month's option on a newly discovered mineral field in British Columbia, and proceeded to open a mine. As all supplies had to be brought on the backs of animals from Marcus, Washington,
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a distance of eighty miles, the work of preparation was extremely difficult. The ore proved very rich; and when the option expired the syndicate which Mr. Durant had formed closed the contract and secured the property which has since become widely known as the Le Roi mine. The purchase price was $30,000. After it had been developed, this mine was sold to a London syndicate for $3,500,000.
In the spring of 1891, Mr. Durant purchased for himself and a business associate two claims which then were nothing but prospects but one of which, under Mr. Durant's management, became the Centre Star mine. The cost of development was met by the sale of stock. In September, 1898, Mr. Durant sold the mine to a syndicate for $2,000,000 in cash.
To Mr. Durant belongs the honor of opening one of the richest mining regions in the Great Northwest. He did the first mining in Trail Creek, in the West Kootenay district of British Columbia. He was also prominent in the organization of the West Kootenay Power and Light company, which was incor- porated under the laws of British Columbia, in 1896, and of which he was the first president. The main office is at Rossland, but power is generated at the Bonnington Falls, thirty-two miles away. The substitution of power supplied by this plant for steam power, which was formerly used, has resulted in a saving of nearly fifty per cent in the cost of operating the mines at which the change has been made. The demand for electric power rapidly increased and the works of the company have been en- larged to some three times their former capacity, and have cost fully $2,000,000.
What will be the final outcome of this pioneer work by Mr. Durant, no man can venture to predict. It is interesting to note that already the opening of a great district which gives employ- ment to more than three thousand miners, the establishment of a town or six thousand or eight thousand people, and the building of two large smelter works and of two railroads, are among the results which have thus far followed.
Mr. Durant was married December 11, 1859, to Mary T. Griffin, whose grandfather was a soldier in the War of the Revo- lution, and whose father, John N. Griffin, of Griffinsburg, Vir-
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ginia, was a captain in the War of 1812. They have had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom are living in 1908. Mr. Durant is a member of the Masonic order; of the Rossland, British Columbia club, and the Rossland board of trade. In politics, he is a Republican. He finds his principal amusement and relaxation in quiet indoor games.
After the sale of the Centre Star mine Mr. Durant retired from active business and removed to the old home of his wife in Virginia-a home to which she was much attached. Here the family is gathered, and here Mr. Durant hopes to spend, in well earned quiet and rest, the remainder of his days.
His address is Culpeper, Culpeper County, Virginia.
JOHN ECHOLS
E CHOLS, JOHN, lawyer and soldier, was born in Lynch- burg, Virginia, March 20, 1823. His father was Joseph Echols, a native of Halifax county, Virginia, who was born March 23, 1789; and his mother was Elizabeth F. Lambeth, who was the daughter of Meredith Lambeth, and was born January 14, 1795 and married to Joseph Echols on June 14, 1814.
General Echols was educated at Washington college, now Washington and Lee university, at Lexington, Virginia, from which he was graduated with distinguished honor in 1840. He afterwards took a post-graduate course of study at the Virginia Military institute; and later went to Harvard college, where he studied law ; and where among his other instructors was Professor Greenleaf, the famous author of the treatise on "The Law of Evi- dence."
Returning to Virginia from Harvard, he began his active work in life by teaching in Harrisonburg. In November, 1843, he was admitted to the bar of Rockbridge county, Virginia; but soon afterwards settled in Monroe county, now in the State of West Virginia, where he practiced his profession of law up to the beginning of the War between the States, in which he later came to bear a highly honorable and distinguished part. He had not long been a resident of Monroe county when his unusual talents and fine legal acquirements begun to attract attention ; and he was elected to the responsible position of commonwealth's attorney for the county, an office which he filled for many years with conspicuous ability, and to the satisfaction of his constit- uents. His close contact with the people due to his occupancy of this position naturally brought about his later selection by them as their representative in the general assembly of Virginia ; and when the question of secession became a burning issue, he was chosen as a delegate, along with the Honorable Allen T. Caperton, to represent the county of Monroe in that memorable convention which in 1861 enacted the ordinance that dissolved the relations of Virginia with the Federal Union. While the
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convention was still in session, but after the adoption of the ordinance of secession, he tendered his resignation as a member, which was accepted; and on the following day, viz: November 19, 1861, the president of the convention presented a communica- tion from the executive of the commonwealth transmitting his nomination with that of a number of others, for confirmation as colonel of volunteers. On December 6, 1861, this nomination was confirmed, along with those of J. E. B. Stuart, John H. McCausland, John B. Baldwin, Beverley H. Robertson, Francis H. Smith, William H. Harman, George Wythe Randolph, Lewis A. Armistead, Dabney H. Maury, and a number of others to similar positions.
In the meantime, however, and before the ink of the signa- tures to the ordinance of secession was well dry, he had returned to his county and organized a company which was assigned to the 27th regiment, Stonewall brigade, of which he had thereupon been commissioned lieutenant-colonel. He commanded this regi- ment at the first battle of Manassas; and was at its head at the battle of Kernstown, on March, 23, 1862. In the last named battle he was severely wounded. After recovering his strength he returned to the army; and was subsequently commissioned brigadier-general under General Loring, whom he accompanied in his expedition through the Kanawha Valley in the fall of 1862. While in Kanawha he was ordered to relieve General Loring; and remained in command of the department of South- western Virginia for some time. In 1864 he marched with his brigade, under General John C. Breckinridge, to the Valley of Virginia, and bore a gallant and conspicuous part in the battle of New Market on May 15 in that year,-a battle made ever illus- trious in military annals by the heroism of the cadets of the Vir- ginia Military institute.
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