USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 25
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IVY-GROWN GRANITE LODGE. Entrance to Hollywood Cemetery, the beautiful "City of the Dead," at Richmond.
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tion of his wound, it was thought that it would be impossible for him to live. This fact was reported to the officers and men of his brigade, and they waited in a drenching rain near the hospital for several hours, expecting to hear momentarily of his death. In fact, a coffin was obtained and placed in an ambulance, so that as soon as breath had fled, they might take his body and retreat with it. He was held a prisoner in the hospital for three months, but upon the written cer- tificates of several United States surgeons that he must soon die, he was finally exchanged. After his exchange and return to Virginia, General Kemper was for a long time too much disabled to perform any duty in the field. He attempted to return to the command of his brigade, but was totally unable to do so. To this day he carries a ball near the base of his spine, the effects of which have finally caused partial paralysis. Although unable to perform field duty, he was assigned to the important command of the local forces in and around Richmond, the frequently beleaguered capital of the Southern Confederacy. March 1, 1864, he was commissioned a Major-General. General Kem- per continued in command of the forces protecting Richmond until its evacuation. At all times his position was delicate and peculiarly embarrassing, yet his duties were performed with such manifest fidelity and regard for the feelings of all with whom he held relation, that he won alike the affections of the people and the commendation of his superior officers. After the close of the war, General Kemper retired to his home in Madison county, and resumed the practice of law. His voice was highly effective in the Walker gubernatorial campaign, which triumphantly redeemed Virginia from military bondage; and in the Presidential canvass of 1872, as one of the Greeley and Brown electors for the State at large, he stumped every section of the State, and, by his earnest and potent appeals, was most influential in reconciling the people of Virginia to that ticket. In 1873 he was elected Governor of Virginia, and took his seat January 1, 1874, as the successor of Governor Walker. His administration was highly satisfactory .*
* The first year of his incumbency, 1870, was marked by several calamitous visitations, and is memorable in the annals of Virginia as the year of disasters. On the 27th of April occurred the "Capitol disaster." In the room of the Court of Appeals, on the third floor of the State Capitol, on the morning of that day a large concourse of persons, including many distinguished men, had assem- bled to hear the decision of the Court as to the constitutionality of the " En- abling Act," under which Hon. Henry K. Ellyson (now one of the proprietors of the Richmond Dispatch) had been elected Mayor of Richmond. His seat was contested by George Chahoon, who had been the military appointee of the Federal Government. Suddenly and without warning, by the falling through of the floor, the audience were precipitated to the hall of the House of Dele- gates below. The awful scene was heartrending in the extreme. In confused mass were piled and lay struggling, amid the debris of the floor and galleries, the dead and dying. Piteous moans and screams of anguish rent the air and
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Upon the expiration of his term January 1, 1878, he was succeeded by Governor F. W. M. Holliday. and retiring to his home in Madison county, has not since re-entered public life. Governor Kemper mar- ried Miss Cave, of Orange county, descended in the fourth generation from Benjamin Cave, the joint patentee with Abraham Bledsoe, on the 28th of September, 1728, of 1,000 acres of land on the Rapidan river, and a member of the House of Burgesses. She died some years ago, leaving issue several children, of whom the eldest, Meade C. Kemper,
smote the ears of the crowd which pressed to the rescue of the victims. Sixty-five persons were killed and two hundred maimed and wounded. The whole city and State were thrown into mourning, of which the only parallel was the preceding horror, the burning of the Richmond Theater, December 26, 1811. The second memorable visitation was on October 1st, when James river was flooded at Richmond to a little more than twenty-four feet above high tide, water invading the streets of the city so as to admit the propelling with poles of a fishing smack along Seventeenth to Franklin street. The
height that the water attained is indicated by a memorial stone of granite with brass tablet bearing appropriate inscription, erected by order of the city council on the north side of Main street, near Fifteenth street, in front of the St. Charles Hotel. For convenience of reference it is deemed that mention of other note- worthy floods in James river will not be unacceptable here. As remarkable as the flood of 1870 had seemed to those who witnessed it, it was eclipsed by another, which reached the maximum height of twenty-five feet six inches on the night of Sunday, November 25, 1877. They were both instanced by great loss of life and destruction of property ; the angry waters being laden with almost every kind of portable property, houses, furniture, provinder, produce, etc., etc. Accounts of two similar preceding visitations have been preserved in the annals of Virginia. Colonel William Byrd, writing June 5, 1685, from his seat near the present site of Richmond. says: "About five weeks since there happened here such a deluge that the like hath not been heard of in the memory of man ; the water overflowing all my plantation came into my dwell- ing-house. It swept away all our fences, * * carried away a new mill, stones, house and all. The water hath ruined my crops, and most of my neighbors'." There was another like disaster in 1771, lasting from May 27th to June 8th, when, according to the inscription on an obelisk erected on Turkey Island, then the seat of William Randolph (the founder of the famous Virginia family of the name) to commemorate it-" all the great rivers of the country were swept by inundations never before experienced, which changed the face of nature and left traces of their violence that will remain for ages." The water came within Shockoe Warehouse, in Richmond, which then stood where the Exchange Hotel is now located. The third memorable catastrophe of 1870 was the burning of the Spotswood Hotel (so famed during the days of the Confederacy, and which was located on the southeast corner of Main and Sev- enth streets, where the Pace Block now stands) between two and three o'clock A. M. on Christmas Day. Six persons perished in the flames, among them Captain Samuel C. Hines, who sacrificed his life on the altar of friendship in endeavoring to save E. W. Ross, a fellow-member of the fraternity of the Knights of Pythias. His sublime offering has been justly commemorated by the order in the institution of Hines Lodge, one of the most flourishing in the city. The morning of the fire was so intensely cold that the water cast on the burning building congealed in mammoth icicles from portions of the edifice yet unreached, and on the buildings contiguous thereto.
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M. D., is a practicing physician in West Virginia. An excellent por- trait of Governor Kemper is in the State Library at Richmond.
FREDERICK WILLIAM MACKEY HOLLIDAY.
William Holliday, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, of staunch Scotch-Irish lineage, was born in the north of Ireland, and accompanied his parents to America, a youth of fourteen years. They settled in Pennsylvania, and he subsequently located permanently in Winchester, Virginia, having married, in Baltimore, Maryland, Mrs. Blair, nee Duncan, who had previously resided in Philadelphia. William Holliday became a successful and prominent merchant. His son, Richard J. McKim Holliday, M. D., a skilled and prominent physician of Winchester, uniformly beloved for his noble and generous traits, married Mary C. Taylor. Her father, Samuel Taylor,* M. D., born near Dover, Delaware, after a preliminary reading under Dr. James Craik, the personal friend and family physician of General Washington, completed his medical studies in Philadelphia, and located in Berryville, then in Frederick, but now Clarke county, Virginia, where he married a daughter of Dr. Robert Mackey, who efficiently served as a surgeon in the Revolution, and at its close settled in Winchester, where his professional ability and social worth were warmly and justły esteemed. Several prominent families in that city and in other portions of the State are descended from him. Dr. Samuel Taylor also rendered the nation service as a surgeon in the war of 1812.
Frederick William Mackey Holliday, the son of Dr. Richard J. McKim and Mary C. (Taylor) Holliday, was born in Winchester, February 22, 1828. After preparatory tuition in the academy of his native place, he entered the junior class at Yale College, from which he was graduated with distinguished honors in 1847. On his return to Winchester, he read law for a year with Barton and Williams, eminent practitioners there, and then entering the University of Vir- ginia, in one session he graduated in Law, Political Economy, and Moral and Mental Philosophy, and was selected as the " Final Orator " of the Jefferson Society of that Institution. Returning to his home, he entered diligently upon the practice of his profession, devoting his leisure moments to literary pursuits. His fidelity and ability speedily secured him reputation in his profession, whilst his scholarship entailed frequent service by request as a lecturer. These early efforts exhibit a remarkable maturity and depth of thought and
*The progenitor of this family in America was Robert Taylor, an English emigrant, who settled in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1685. His son, Isaac Taylor, was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly from Chester County, in 1711 and 1712, and in 1726, and whose son Benjamin was the father of Joseph (born in 1732), who was the father of Dr. Samuel Taylor, who was thus fourth in descent from the emigrant ancestor.
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accuracy of expression for one so youthful, and the prognosti- cations which they make with regard to the working of our insti- tutions have been most curiously verified in both our State and National Government. He found time withal to serve his party. effi- ciently as a canvasser in several Presidential campaigns, though he persistently declined all political office. Within a year after coming to the bar he was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for all the courts of the city of Winchester and county of Frederick, and continued to hold this position by successive re-election until the breaking out of our late civil war, when at the first sound of conflict he abandoned all else and went with the first troops to Harpers Ferry, and was ap- pointed aide to General Carson, who was then in command there. Returning to Winchester for a short time to arrange his official busi- ness, he was tendered the command of a choice company of infantry, of which organization, or its desire, he had no knowledge until they marched in a body to his door. He promptly accepted the proffered command, and assiduously devoted himself to its thorough discipline and drill. It for a time was employed in detached service, during which period Captain Holliday was offered a position upon the staff of General "Stonewall" Jackson, but declined to surrender his com- pany, which was soon assigned to the 33d Virginia Infantry, Colonel A. C. Cummings, "Stonewall" Brigade, and he by successive promo- tion attained the command of the regiment. As a field officer, Colonel Holliday exhibited fine military perception and judgment, and was conspicnous for his gallantry, participating in all the encounters in which his command was engaged, including the sanguinary battles of Kernstown, MeDowells, Winchester, Port Republic, and those around Richmond, without being absent from duty for a single day until Au- gust 9, 1862, when at the battle of Cedar Run, or Slaughters Mountain, he lost his right arm. This injury entailed prolonged suffering and un- fitted him for service in the field. He was then elected to the Confed- erate Congress, of which body he continued a member until the close of the war. Returning to his home, he resumed the practice of his pro- ression, taking position in the front rank of a bar long and justly celebrated for its learning and ability. Upon the death of General Robert E. Lee, Colonel Holliday, at the request of the authorities and citizens of Winchester, delivered an address on his life and character, which was a chaste and eloquent utterance replete with noble concep- tions. In 1875, by invitation he delivered an address before the Alumni of the University of Virginia on " Higher Education," which from the bold presentment and searching analysis of the subject. the breadth of its range and the beauty and purity of its diction, enlisted the attention and excited the admiration of his audience, and, in pub- lished form, widely of scholars and statesmen.
Colonel Holliday was tho Commissioner for Virginia at the United
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States Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia, and was appointed elector at largo for the State in the Presidential canvass of 1876. From the conclusion of the war until then he had taken bnt little active part in politics, though ever a close and critical observer of the drift of public affairs, and he had been repeatedly urged to enter public life. The. judicious and effective manner in which he conducted that canvass directed attention to his varied gifts and abilities as a statesman and speaker. Though, in harmony with his tastes his preference was for privato life, in deference to his duty as a citizen he accepted the nom- ination for Governor of the State the following year, was elected for the term of four years without opposition, and entered upon the duties of the office January 1, 1878. His public acts during his term were chiefly : expressed through his inaugural and annual messages, and vetoes, which, in the discussion of the relations of the State debt, and their co- gent arguments for maintenance of the public credit, are regarded as State papers of the highest order. By invitation of the authorities, also during his term of office, he attended the commencements of nearly all the colleges and institutions of learning in the State, and delivered addresses to the students, as he did at different times to conventions of the teachers of the Publie Schools, and to National organizations the guests of the city of Richmond or the commonwealth, which were published in the papers of the day. His " Address of Welcome," at Yorktown in 1881, is an able and glowing conception. Governor Holliday has not resumed the practice of his profession since his retire- ment from office, devoting his time mainly to study and the cultiva- tion of his farm near Winchester. He has spent much of his time in travel in both hemispheres, having visited Mexico, the West Indies, the Sandwich Islands, the western slope of the Pacifie and the interior States and Territories in the Western, and Great Britain and Ireland, and a large portion of the north of the continent of Europe in the Eastern-most of it on foot In these tours he keenly enjoyed the study afforded by critical observation of the grandeur and beauty of nature and of art, the material development and the social life of the countries through which he wandered. He was everywhere the re- cipient of marked attention, private and official. Governor Holliday has been twice married, first in 1868 to Hannah Taylor, daughter of Thomas McCormick of Clarke county, Virginia. She lived bnt a short time. In 1871 he married secondly, Caroline Calvert, daughter of Dr. Richard H. Stuart, of King George county, who also died within a year. No issue survives by either marriage.
The following are among the published addresses of Gov. Holliday : "Oration before the Library Company and Citizens of Winchester, Virginia, July 4, 1850."
" Principle and Practice, an Address before the Winchester Library Company, April 14, 1851."
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"Oration before the United Fire Department and Citizens of Win- chester, July 4, 1851."
" In Memoriam-General'Robert E. Lee-Ceremonies at Winchester, January 19, 1871."
" The Higher Education, the Hope of American Republicanism, an Address before the Society of the Alumni of the University of Virginia, June 29, 1876."
" Welcome Address, Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 1881, by appoint- ment of the Commission of the Congress of the United States for the Centennial Celebration."
In person Governor Holliday is of commanding stature, being fully six feet in height and finely proportioned. Markedly intellectual in feature, genial and prepossessing in manner, his presence inspires confidence and respect. Himself the synonym of honor, jealous of the slightest infraction of that of Virginia, a pure executive and a faithful citizen, his administration reflects enduring lustre upon himself and those whom he represented. Time will yet vindicate the justness of his actions and of his recent affirmation : " As Governor in a prominent light before the people of my own State and before the world, I rejoice in all my efforts then to keep alive in the hearts of Virginia the honor and glory of a famous commonwealth, and, from subsequent events, am only the more confirmed in the correctness of my course. I would not for my life blot one word I then spoke or wrote."
WILLIAM EWAN CAMERON.
The descent of William Ewan Cameron, representative as it has been of valor, genius and worth, may justly excite regard. According to family tradition, he was paternally descended from the Scotish chieftain of the clan Cameron, Sir Ewan Lochiel, who during the civil wars adhered to the Stuarts until their cause was hopeless, and whose prowess is celebrated in song as well as preserved in history. Rer. John Cameron was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, and being ordained by the Bishop of Chester in 1770, came to America. His first charge was St. James' Church in Mecklenburg county, Virginia. In 1784 he removed to Petersburg, Virginia. In 1793 he served as rector of Bristol parish. He was an excellent scholar, and for a time con- ducted a classical school. His learning was recognized in the degree of Doctor of Divinity, conferred by William and Mary College. Of the issue of Dr. Cameron, a danghter became the wife of Rev. Andrew Syme, of Petersburg, Virginia ; another the wife of Walker Anderson, whose son was Judge Walker Anderson, of Florida. Judge Duncan Came- ron, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was his son. Another son, William Cameron, married Anna, daughter of Daniel Call, an eminent lawyer, Reporter of the Virginia Courtof Appeals, and brother-
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in-law of Chief Justice John Marshall, and of his issue was Walker Anderson Cameron, who married in 1841, Elizabeth Harrison Walker, a granddaughter of Benjamin Harrison, of " Berkeley," and a great- granddaughter of William Byrd, of " Westover," James River, Vir- ginia. Of their issue was the subject of this sketch, who was born in Petersburg, Virginia, November 29, 1842. His advantages of educa- tion were limited, and he was carly thrown upon his own resources by the death of his parents. At the age of sixteen he went to the West in pursuit of fortune. Upon the breaking out of our late civil war in 1861, he was in St. Louis, Missouri. He promptly returned to his na- tive Stato and enlisted as a private in Company A, 12th Regiment Virginia Volunteers. His soldierly merit speedily secured his pro- motion successively through the non-commissioned grades to the rank of Lieutenant of his company, and subsequently to the posts of Regi- mental Adjutant and Brigade Inspector. He served with uniform gallantry throughout the war, was several times severely wounded. and surrendered finally at Appomattox Court House with the rank of Captain. Upon the conclusion of the war he was led by Hon. Anthony M. Keiley, who was then conducting the Daily News of Petersburg. to employ his pen in journalism, and first contributed to the News a serial of sketches of the war. The News soon fell under the ban of Federal authority, and was suppressed, but was renewed by its pro- prietors as the Index, which is still conducted as the Index and Appeal. William Ewan Cameron was first employed on the Index as local ed- itor, but in a few months was sent to Norfolk, Virginia, to edit the Norfolk Virginian, in the publication of which the proprietors of the Index were interested. From Norfolk he was recalled to Petersburg to take editorial charge of the Inder, which he conducted until 1870, when he became the editor of the Richmond Whig. In 1868, Captain Cameron fought a duel, growing out of political differences, with Robert W. Hughes (now United States Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia), and was severely wounded. In 1872 he assumed control of the Richmond Enquirer, which he conducted until October, 1873. Returning to Petersburg, he for a time served on the editorial staff of the Index. In 1876 he was elected the Mayor of Petersburg, and thus served by four successive elections until nominated as Governor of Virginia. In 1877 Captain Cameron resumed editorial control of the Whig, and continued that connection with some interruption until December, 1879. In 1881 Captain Cameron was elected Governor of Virginia over the Conservative candidate, Major John Warwick Daniel, and entered upon the duties of the office January 1, 1882, for the term of four years. Governor Cameron exhibited much talent as a journalist. He is a vigorous writer and an effective speaker. He is of medium stature and prepossessing in person. IIe is married and has issue .*
* Sketch of Governor Fitzhugh Lee in volume IL .. VIRGINIA AND VIRGINIANS.
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AMBROSE POWELL HILL, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL CONFEDERATE STATES ARMY.
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The name Hill is of early prominence in the annals of Virginia. The primary ancestor of the subject of this sketch in Virginia it is be- lieved was Edward Hill, who received a grant of 450 acres of land in Charles City county, July 25, 1638 .* (Virginia Land Registry, book No. 1, p. 579.) In 1644 he appeared with the rank of Captain as Speaker of the House of Burgesses. In March, 1645, he was sent with Captain Thomas Willoughby as commissioners to Maryland " to demand the re- turn of persons who had left the colony." He served as a member of the House of Burgesses from Charles City county from 1645 to 1654, the last year as Speaker of the body. In 1656, as commandant with the rank of Colonel of the Colonial Rangers and the friendly Indians under Totopotomoi, the Pamunkey Chief, he was disastrously defeated in an encounter with the Richahecrian Indians from mountains at a point in the present eastern limits of Richmond, known as Bloody run, which has its source in a bold spring. The slain were so numerons (Totopotomoi being among them) that the tradition is that the stream- Jet ran with blood, and hence its designation. Such was the indigna- tion against Hill that he was disfranchised by the Assembly. His son, Edward Hill, Jr., however, became a man of station in the colo- ny, serving as County Lieutenant of Charles City county with the rank of Colonel, and as a member of the council, but he, too, fell under the ban of the General Assembly, and in May, 1676, was " disabled from holding office for participating in the patriotic uprising known as ' Bacon's Rebellion.' " " Ambrose Powell Hill, a lineal descendant of Captain Ambrose Powell,t a vestryman of Bromfield parish in 1752, and the son of Major Thomas Hill,t was born in Culpeper county November 9, 1825. He entered West Point Academy July 1, 1842, and graduated thence July 1, 1847, the fifteenth in merit in a class of
" There were previous grants to John Hill and Nicholas Hill in Elizabeth City county in 1635 and 1637, respectively, and to Richard Hill in James City county, May 4, 1633, and subsequent grants to John Hill and Thomas Hill, the latter receiving 3,600 acres in James City county, the last grant being in James City county December 1. 1643. Col. Edward Hill, the elder, is said to have been of the family of the Marquis of Downshire, and the arms of his tombstone are said to establish the claim. John Carter. the son of Robert (" King") Carter and grandson of John Carter, the founder of the Carter fam- fly in Virginia, married in 1723, Elizabeth Hill, a daughter of Colonel Edward Hill, the younger.
+ It has been suggested that Captain Ambrose Powell was of the lineage of Captain Nathaniel Powell, some time acting Governor of Virginia, and who was slain in the memorable Indian massacre of March 22, 1632.
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