USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 24
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will live as long as unswerving honesty in the administration of public trust and great ability, wisdom and patriotism in the discharge of official duty shall be honored among men." His venerable wife and seven children survive Governor Letcher : Samuel Houston, a promi- nent lawyer of Lexington, who gallantly served as the Colonel of the 58th Virginia Infantry during the late war; John Davidson, a civil engineer; Greenlee Davidson, now a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute ; Elizabeth Stuart; Margaret Kinney, married, February 26th, 1884, Robert J. Showell, of Maryland; Virginia Lee, and Fannie W'. Letcher. There is an excellent portrait of Governor Letcher in the State Library at Richmond, Virginia.
FRANCIS HI. PIERPONT.
Another example is now presented of an honorable and successful career attendant upon probity and persistent purpose.
Francis H. Pierpont, third son of Francis and Catharine (Weaver) Pierpont, was born Jannary 25th, 1814, in Monongalia County, Vir- ginia, four miles east of Morgantown, on the farm settled by his grand- father, John Pierpont, a native of New York, in 1770, then in West Augusta County, who erected a dwelling and a block-house, also, for protection against the Indians. In the last was opened the first land office in that section of the State. John Pierpont married a daughter of Colonel Z. Morgan, the proprietor of Morgantown, and who mi- grated thither from Eastern Virginia. Joseph Weaver, the maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, a native of Central Pennsyl-
vania, settled on a farm near Morgantown about 1785. In 1814 Francis Pierpont moved from the homestead to land purchased by him in Harrison County, about two miles from the present Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia. In 1827 he made his residence in Fairmont and conducted a tannery in connection with his farm. His son, young Francis, assisted his father in his several occupations until manhood. His educational opportunities were in the meanwhile limited. In June, 1835, he entered Allegheny College, at Meadville, Pa., from whence he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in September, 1839. He now taught school until 1841, when he removed to the State of Mississippi, where he continued teaching, but the following year he was recalled to Virginia by the failing health of his father. Having studied law in the leisure intervals of his career as a teacher, he was now admitted to the bar. From 1848 for a period of eight years, he served as the local counsel of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company for the counties of Marion and Taylor. In 1853 he engaged in mining and shipping coal by rail, and a little later in the manufacture of fire bricks. In December, 1854, he married Julia A.,
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daughter of Rev. Samuel Robinson, a Presbyterian minister of New York. In religious faith Mr. Pierpont was himself a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with which he connected himself at the age of seventeen. Reared in a section in which there were but few slaves, and deeply impressed in his youth by several instances of emancipation of which he was cognizant, his prejudices against the institution of slavery strengthened with his years. His observation of the planta- tion system in Mississippi confirmed him as an uncompromising opponent of slavery. He early took an interest in politics, and though not an aspirant for office, he actively participated in the campaigns of the Whig party, with which he affiliated from 1844 to 1860. In 1848 he was a Presidential elector on the Taylor ticket. In the momentous Presidential campaign of 1860, Mr. Pierpont charged the Democratic party with a predetermined design to dismember the Union, and asserted that the split in the party at Baltimore was with the expectancy that it would secure the election of a Republican President and precipitate secession. Whilst the Ordinance of Secession, passed April 17th, 1861, by the State Convention at Richmond, was ratified by the people of Eastern Virginia, the vote in Western Virginia was largely against it. In this dilemma, Mr. Pierpont conceived the idea of a "restored gov- ernment," and at his instigation a Convention en masse was held at Wheeling on the 11th of May, 1861, which was attended by the leading men of Northwestern Virginia. After a session of two days spent in fruitless discussion, Mr. Pierpont proposed a Convention to be held at Wheeling on the 11th of June following, to be composed of delegates favorable to the Union, from among those who might be elected on the 23d of May to the General Assembly, and of twice the number of citizen delegates from each county as it was entitled to as representatives in the General Assembly. He also proposed the appointment of a "Commit- tee of Safety," to consist of nine members, whose duty it would be to supervise the election of delegates and to call the Convention. The resolutions were adopted, and Mr. Pierpont was appointed on the " Committee of Safety," which met the next day after the adjourn- ment of the Convention. To the committee Mr. Pierpont stated his views regarding the relation of the seceded State to the Union, and held that "its officers being in rebellion had abdicated the government of the State," and that " the loyal citizens of the State were entitled to the government of the State during such insurrection." He suggested the passage by the ensuing Convention of an ordinance embodying this enunciation, and that the body should make provision for the establish- ment of a State government, fill its offices with "loval" men, and secure the occupancy of the Monongahela Valley by Federal troops. He further suggested that upon the recognition of the State by the Federal Government, it might be erected into a separate State. The plan was favorably received and became the basis of future action. In
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SOUTH VIEW OF THE CAPITOL, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, Where the Confederate Congress held its sessions.
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the Convention held at Wheeling on the 11th of June, forty counties of the mountain region were represented. It met in the Custom House; and each delegate, as his credentials were read, took an oath to the National Constitution and its Government. The Convention was organized by the appointment of Arthur I. Boreman, of Wood County, as permanent President, and G. L. Cranmer, Secretary.
The Convention went earnestly to work. A committee was appointed to draw up a Bill of Rights, and on the following day it reported through its chairman, John S. Carlile. All allegiance to the Southern Confederacy was denied in that report, and it recommended a declara- tion that the functions of all officers in the State of Virginia who ad- hered to it were suspended, and the offices vacated. Resolutions were adopted declaring the intention of the " people of Virginia " never to submit to the Ordinance of Secession, but to maintain the rights of the Commonwealth in the Union. On the third day of the session, June 13th, an ordinance was reported for vacating all the offices in the State held by State officers acting in hostility to the General Govern- ment, and also providing for a Provisional Government by the election of officers for a period of six months. A Declaration of Independence of the old government was adopted on the 17th, which was signed by all the members present, fifty-six in number, and on the 19th the ordi- nance for the establishment of a Provisional Government was adopted. On the 20th there was a unanimous vote in favor of the ultimate sepa- ration of Western Virginia from Eastern Virginia. On that day the new or "restored Government " was organized. Francis HI. Pierpont, of Marion County, was chosen Provisional Governor, with Daniel Polsley, of Mason County, as Lieutenant-Governor, and an Executive Council of five members. Governor Pierpont was prompt and energetic. His first official act, the next day after his accession, was to notify the President of the United States that the existing insurrection in Virginia was too formidable to be suppressed by any means at the Governor's command, and to ask the aid of the General Government. It was promised, and thus the action of the Convention was sanctioned by the Government. Governor Pierpont was authorized to raise volunteer regi- ments and officer them for the United States service. He speedily or- ganized twelve regiments of militia. He procured a greater and lesser seal of State.
Money was needed. There was no treasury, and Governor Pierpont borrowed on the pledge of his own private means $10,000 for the public service. He also secured by military seizure $28,000 which had been transmitted from Richmond to Weston, Lewis County, to pay for work on the lunatic asylum there; and collected from the United States Government $50,000, the share of the State of Virginia in the proceeds of the sale of publie lands appropriated by Congress in 1836. A legislature was elected, met on the 1st of July and immediately
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elected John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willie to represent the "re- stored Government" in the Senate of the United States as successors of Messrs. Hunter and Mason, from Virginia, who had resigned. Repre- sentatives were also elected by the people, and both were admitted to seats in Congress, which met in extra session on the 4th of July. The Convention re-assembled on the 20th of August and passed an ordinance for the erection of a new State, in which slavery was prohibited, to be called Kanawha. This ordinance was ratified by the people on the 24th of October following. At a subsequent session of the Convention, on the 27th of November, the name was changed to West Virginia, and a State Constitution framed, which was ratified by the people on the 3d of May, 1862, when, also, Governor Pierpont was elected Governor to fill the remaining portion of the term of Governor Letcher. The Legislature, at a called session, also approved of the division of the State and the estab- lishment of a new Commonwealth. Governor Pierpont was tireless in his official duties. His daily office duties for several of the earlier months of his administration, it is stated, occupied from thirteen to sixteen hours. The State Auditor refusing at this period to issue warrants for an appropriation of $50,000 made by the Legislature for the public serv- ice, Governor Pierpont, by an arrangement with the bank, disbursed this sum in recruiting by personal check. West Virginia was admitted as a State into the Union on the 20th of June, 1863, by an Act of Congress, approved by the President, on the 31st of December, 1862. Governor Pierpont, who had been elected in the month of May Governor for the term of three years, commencing January 1, 1864, now removed the seat of Government to Alexandria, Virginia. Upon the issuing by President Lincoln of his proclamation emancipating the slaves, Gov- ernor Pierpont apprehending a conflict between State and Federal author- ity regarding the freedmen, recommended to the Legislature, which as- sembled in December, to call a Convention to pass an ordinance of general emancipation, and accordingly, on the 22d of February, 1864, an ordinance was passed in Convention abolishing slavery in the State forever. Another ordinance also made it the duty of the Governor to nominate all the judges of the State for confirmation by the Legislature. Governor Pierpont about this time conducted quite a spicy correspond- ence with General B. F. Butler, (sometimes designated as " Beast,") whose lawless acts he complained of to President Lincoln, and urged his removal. The President is said to have expressed himself as being sat- isfied of the truth of the complaints, and said to Governor Pierpont that he would remove Butler if the Governor would tell him how to silence the press, which Butler seemed to control, and through its medium ap- peared to the Northern populace as the embodiment of all that was potent in subduing the " rebellion." On the 25th of May, 1865, Governor Pierpont removed his seat of Government to Richmond, the capital of
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the late Confederate Government. He was immediately waited upon by citizens from all portions of the State, and generally took counsel with them in their misfortune.
In response to his inquiries he learned that but few in any county, and in some none, could vote or hold office because of the disqualification im- posed by the Alexandria constitution for participancy in the rebellion. He at once sent his Adjutant-General personally to all the counties that had elected delegates to the Alexandria Legislature, summoning the members to Richmond whose legal term expired on the 1st of July. They attended in June and met in the gubernatorial reception room. The Governor explained to them that without the removal of the disfranchisement he could not reconstruct the State, as there was nobody to vote ; that they had the power to remove the disability, and that if they would agree to do so, he would call them in extra session at once. They assented. The extra session was called, the disability to vote was removed, and a resolution was passed giving the next legislature conventional authority to remove the disqualification to hold office. He also found, upon his arrival in Richmond, the United States Marshals busy libelling the property of the late Confederates for con- fiscation. A few days afterward President Johnson issued a proclamation confiscating the estates of certain classes unless pardoned. It was stip- ulated that all petitions should be recommended by the Governor. He soon perceived that the President was temporizing, and was led to ap- prehend that the " pardon mill " was a farce at least, if no worse. He accordingly determined to recommend all petitions offered him. He next protested to the Attorney-General against the further iniquity of libelling property which it was never designed to confiscate, and which only entailed grievous expense on the owners. His protest was effec- tive. He next interposed for the suppression of the class of pardon- broker harpies, who obstructed the due course of the Executive clem- ency as provided. He refused to recommend any petition which would pass into the hands of a broker, and thus disarmed these rapa- cious thieves. He next interposed for the relief of citizens who were under civil indictment for offences which were within the province of military authority, and recommended leniency and conciliation to the courts. With a contingent fund supplied by the Alexandria Legislat- ure, he rehabilitated the Western Lunatic Asylum and the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, at Staunton, which was destitute of sup- lies and necessary equipments. He also appointed, upon the recommen- dation of those duly interested, efficient regents for the University of Virginia and the Virginia Military Institute, without reference to party affiliation. Governor Pierpont continued in office beyond the period of his term, which expired January 1, 1868, and held until April 16, 1868, when he was succeeded by General Henry H. Wells, appointed Provis-
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ional Governor by General John M. Schofield, commanding the Mili- tary Department of Virginia. Governor Pierpont then retired to private life. He was subsequently elected Clerk of Marion County Court, and now resides in Fairmont.
HENRY II. WELLS.
Henry H. Wells was born in Rochester, New York, September 17, 1823. He was educated at the Romeo Academy in Michigan, and, studying law, was admitted to the bar in Detroit, where he successfully practiced his profession from 1846 to 1861. He served as a member of the Michigan Legislature from 1854 to 1856. Upon the breaking out of the late civil war, he entered the volunteer service of the Union army, in which he served with distinction, attaining the brevet rank of Brigadier-General. Having resigned from the army, he located in 1865 in Richmond, Virginia, and resumed. the practice of law. He was ap- pointed April 16, 1868, by General John M. Schofield, United States Army, commanding the First Military District of Virginia, Provisional Governor of Virginia, superseding Governor Francis H. Pierpont. He held this station until April 21, 1869, when he resigned, and Gilbert Carle- ton Walker, Governor-elect of the State by popular vote, was appointed in his stead by General E. R. S. Canby, United States Army, then com- manding the First Military District of Virginia. General Wells was soon after appointed United States Attorney for the Eastern Distriet of Virginia, which position he held until 1872, when he resigned, and re- sumed the practice of law. In 1875 he removed to Washington City, and in September of that year was appointed and entered upon the duties of United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. His son, H. H. Wells, Jr., received the appointment of Assistant Attorney for the District. They held office until 1879, when they were succeeded respectively by George B. Corkhill and R. Ross Perry. General Wells now resides in Washington, engaged in the practice of his profession.
GILBERT CARLETON WALKER.
Gilbert Carleton Walker was born in Binghamton, New York, August 1, 1832. After a preliminary course of tuition in Bing- hamton Academy, he entered Williams College, Massachusetts, and subsequently Hamilton College, New York, graduating from the latter institution in July, 1854. Having studied law, he was admitted to the bar in September, 1855, and commenced practice in Oswego, New York. Entering politics, in 1858 he served as a member of the State Democratic Convention. In 1859 he removed to Chicago, Illinois, continuing the practice of his profession there and participating in politics. In 1864 he located in Norfolk, Virginia, and soon became the President of a
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bank, the Exchange National, and also held other positions of honor and trust. He subsequently settled in the city of Richmond, and in January, 1869, was elected, on the Liberal Republican ticket, Governor of Virginia over Henry H. Wells by a majority of over 18,000 votes. On the 21st of April following he was appointed, by General Canby, Provisional Governor, to succeed General Henry HI. Wells, the State then not having been readmitted to the Union. He thus acted until January 1, 1870, when he entered upon the regular gubernatorial term, under the State Constitution of 1869, of four years, to which he had been elected. He was succeeded, January 1, 1874, by General James Lawson Kemper as Governor. In 1875 he was elected to the. Forty-fourth Congress from the Third District of Virginia, as a Conserv- ative, over Rush Burgess, Republican, and served as Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor. In 1877 Governor Walker was re- elected to the Forty-fifth Congress, as a Democrat, over Dr. Charles S. Mills, Republican, and served on the Committee on the Revision of the Laws of the United States. He was, in 1876, an aspirant for the Democratic nomination of Vice-President of the United States, and it was thought at one time that he had enlisted much support in the South. He was for several years associated in the practice of law in Richmond with General George J. Hundley, and was also the President of the Granite Insurance Company, which he organized. In 1881, Governor Walker removed to his native place, Binghamton, New York, and for a time practiced his profession there. He is now located in New York City, and enjoys there an extensive and lucrative law practice. In person Governor Walker is highly prepossessing. His imposing stature, grace- ful mien, finely chiselled features, and silvered head, render him marked in a multitude. He is a pleasing speaker, and his personal ad- vantages enhance his powers over an audience. As a public speaker he is effective and never fails to enchain attention and command applause. He has also frequently proven himself an acceptable lecturer on literary and scientific topics before educational institutions and other bodies. There is a strikingly faithful portrait of Gov. Walker in the State Library at Richmond.
JAMES LAWSON KEMPER.
The Kemper family of Virginia is of German extraction. Its founder, John Kemper, was a member of one of the twelve families from Oldensburg which, accompanied by a Government agent of Great Britain, arrived in Virginia in April, 1714, and constituted the Palati- nate Colony, seated by Governor Alexander Spotswood upon his lands at Germanna, which, according to Colonel William Byrd in the " Westover MSS.," was "located in a horse-shoe peninsula formed by the Rapidan River, containing about 400 acres." There is a locality corresponding to this in Madison County, upou which the ruins of a settlement are
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said to have been identified. The settlers soon becoming restless and dissatisfied under the management of Governor Spotswood, determined to secure lands of their own, and succeeded in obtaining a grant on the Licking River, some twenty miles distant, to which they removed in 1719. They called the new settlement. Germantown, which is eight miles from the Warrenton of the present day. They erected a church and applied themselves earnestly to industrial pursuits. Their religious worship and all business was transacted in their native tongue, which was long the only language spoken. Their religion, for the free exercise of which they left home and crossed the ocean for the American wilder- ness, was the " Reformed Calvinistic Church." This colony, augmented in number by another band of emigrants, were the progenitors of many of the most worthy of the present families of Madison and other counties contiguous thereto. John Kemper married, in 1717, Alice Utterback, and their son, John Peter Kemper, married, in 1738, Eliza- beth, daughter of John and Agnes (daughter of Dr. Haeger, the pastor of the settlement) Fishback. From this worthy pair was de- scended in the fourth generation James Lawson Kemper, the subject of this sketch, born in Madison County in 1824. After a preliminary tuition in the schools of his native county, he entered Washington Col- lege (now Washington and Lee University), and was graduated thence with the degree of Master of Arts. He then studied law in the office of Hon. George W. Summers, in Charleston, Kanawha County.
In 1847 he was commissioned a Captain in the volunteer service of the United States by President James K. Polk, and joined General Zachary Taylor's army of occupation in Mexico, just after the battle of Buena Vista, and thus failed of the desired honor of active service in the Mexican war. Returning home and entering political life, Captain Kemper was soon honored with the suffrage of his native county, and for ten years represented it in the House of Delegates, of which body he served two years as Speaker, and was for a number of years Chair- man of the Committee on Military Affairs. He served also as President of the Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute. On the 2d of May, 1861, he was commissioned by the Virginia Convention, on the nomination of Governor Letcher, Colonel of Virginia volunteers, and assigned to the command of the 7th Regiment of infantry, which command he assumed at Manassas. Colonel Kemper was first en- gaged with his regiment in the battle of Bull Run, July 18, 1861, and thereafter at the first battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861, where his regiment was temporarily incorporated in a brigade command- ed by Colonel Jubal A. Early, and aided in striking the final blow on the extreme left of the Federal line, which immediately preceded the retreat and final rout of that army. Three days after the battle of Manassas his regiment was assigned to a brigade commanded by General
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Longstreet. This brigade was subsequently commanded by General A. P. Hill, and under him Colonel Kemper with his 7th Regiment was in the hottest of the fight at the battle of Williamsburg, May 5, 1862, and engaged with the enemy for nine successive hours, capturing sev- eral pieces of artillery and four hundred prisoners. Immediately after; the battle Colonel Kemper was promoted to the command of the old brigade, which had been successively commanded by Generals Long- street, Ewell, and A. P. Hill, and at its head participated in the first day's fight at Seven Pines, May 31, 1862, and in the seven days' san- guinary encounters around Richmond, commencing June 26th fol- lowing.
In the second battle of Manassas, Brigadier-General Kemper com- manded temporarily a division composed of several of the brigades afterwards composing Pickett's division, Here, with these same " Pickett's Men," subsequently so celebrated for valor, he was posted i to oppose the extreme left of the enemy ; but acting upon the momen- tary dictation of his own judgment, he changed front so as to strike the right flank of the enemy, and soon after this accomplishment re- ceived orders from General Lee to make the same movement which he had already so successfully effected with the infliction of a terrible loss on the enemy. General Kemper commanded his own brigade in the battles of South Mountain and Sharpsburg. Soon after the return of the invading army from the Maryland campaign, Kemper's brigade was incorporated in Pickett's division. At the battle of Fredericks- burg, in December, 1862, General Kemper with his brigade was tem- porarily detached from the division, and joined the troops on Maryes Heights on the afternoon of that day under a hot fire. He was again detached from the division early in 1863, and sent with his brigade to North Carolina, where he commanded the forces at Kingston opposed to the Federal force under General Foster, who then held Newbern. He rejoined Pickett's division in front of Suffolk, Virginia, participated in the operations at that place, and marched with the division into Pennsylvania, his troops participating in the ever mem- orable charge at Gettysburg, and meeting their full share of its terrible massacre. General Kemper was desperately (it was supposed mor- tally) wounded whilst gallantly leading his brigade, and was being carried in a bloody blanket to the rear when he was met by General Lee, and the following colloquy ensued : Said General Kemper- " General Lee, they say I am dying, and you see the last of me. Before I go, I have one thing to demand : I have seen in the fight what you have not seen-I have seen the splendid heroism of my boys; when you make up your reports do them justice and cover them with glory ; they have won it." General Lee replied with deep emo- tion: " I will. I will do all you ask, but I trust God will spare your life and yet restore you. I hope you will live, General Kemper, for Virginia to honor and reward you, as she will." Upon the examina-
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