USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 16
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of Archibald Woods. John List was the first clerk. The next and second President was Colo- nel Woods, who succeeded Noah Zane. The earliest record obtainable is 1839. At that time the officers were: Archibald Woods, President; John List, Cashier. This was after the panic of 1837, through which Colonel Woods had safely conducted the institution; "it was one of the very few banks in the country that did not sus- pend specie payment, but all through that dark period in our financial history it met all its en- gagements promptly." Archibald Woods con- tinued President of the North Western Bank until October 26, 1846. He was succeeded by Thomas Johnston. Colonel Woods was a man of much force and integrity, and was a member of the Richmond Convention of June, 1788, which rat- ified the Constitution of the United States. The inost eminent men of Virginia were members of this convention, including Marshall, Madison, Monroe, Mason, Nicholas, Henry, Randolph, Pendleton, Lee, Washington, Wythe, Harrison, Bland, Grayson, and others. Archibald Woods represented Ohio County, which was formed from the District of West Augusta by act of Assembly passed October, 1776. Col. Woods' wife, whose maiden name was Ann Pogue, lived until 1856. Of the large number of children born to them not more than four or five reached matu- rity. One of the younger of these, John Woods, was born in 1807. He was raised as a farmer and followed that occupation during his life. He married Ruth H., daughter of Dr. Joseph Jacob, an early physician of the county. She is still living and has her home on the farm that Colonel Woods purchased a century ago. Her husband, the father of Joseph J. Woods, died in the spring of 1888. Six children were born to them, of whom three survive, Archie, Joseph J., and George W., all residents of Ohio County. As above stated, Joseph J. Woods was born on December 15, 1851, making him at this writing about forty-two years of age. He received an aca- demic education while a boy, first in the schools of the county, then in private schools at Wheel- ing, and remained over a year in Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, after which he entered Princeton College, New Jersey, where he was graduated in 1872. He adopted the law as his profession and began the study of practice with Judge James Paull, of Wheeling,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
and after the election of the latter to the Su- preme Court of Appeals, he went into the office of J. H. Good, with whom he read law until 1874, when he was admitted to the bar, where he has achieved an honorable position as a successful and able advocate. The State of West Virginia is noted for her young lawmakers both in State and National legislation ; and it is generally ad- mitted that her interests have prospered largely from that fact, that the energy and fidelity of her young representatives have been largely the medium and cause of her advancement in general progress with the older and richer States about her borders. Certainly her young men in not a single instance have ever betrayed the confidence reposed in them as officials or repre- sentatives, and the subject of this sketch is one of the most distinguished of her sons who in her State Legislature, first in 1883 and again in 1888, was the presiding officer, charged with the reponsibility of naming the members of com- mittees and enforcing the rules of parliamen- tary procedure as Speaker of the House of Delegates. He was first a Senator in 1878, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, and de- clining a renomination, became a candidate for the House of Delegates from Ohio County- always Ohio County and the Democratic party, both of which have honored him as a worthy son of noble ancestors. Upon the organization of the House in 1883 he was chosen Speaker, and presided throughout the session with nota- ble tact and ability. In 1886 he was again the choice of Ohio County and elected, and still again in 1888, serving as "a Delegate with his usual fidelity and ability. In 1889 the House wanted him the second time for Speaker, and elected him as presiding officer for the session. It is needless to say that Mr. Woods represented his county faithfully and efficiently; and the admirable manner in which he performed the duties of Speaker won for him many friends without regard to politics throughout the State. As a Senator he represented the First District, comprising Ohio, Brooke, and Hancock Coun- ties. In the House of 1886, he served upon the committees of Judiciary, Elections and Privi- leges, Private Corporations and Joint Stock Companies, Forfeited and d Unappropriated Lands, and Rules. His second election to the Speakership was almost without opposition.
Referring to Mr. Woods in connection with this session, Hon. George W. Atkinson, in " Promi- nent Men of West Virginia," says: "The pend- ing session of the Legislature, which began its roll call in January, 1889, and still is subject to an expected reconvening by Executive order, has occasioned vivid interest, as well as adverse criticism by some, and with others approval over the entire State and awakened the attention of even the nation. The election of a Senator was unusually exciting, the Democratic party having but one majority upon joint ballot, but the Declaration duty of the Joint Session upon the vote for Governor in 1888 was the thrilling theme. The centre of observation was the Speaker of the House, who, by virtue of the position, presided also over the Declaration As- sembly. Those who attended at the State House during those exciting hours will recognize his face in the engraving fronting this sketch." (For further reference to the proceedings of the joint session on the Governorship, see sketches of Hon. A. B. Fleming, Hon. E. W. Wilson, Hon. Nathan Goff, and Hon. R. S. Carr, in other parts of this volume.) Mr. Woods continues his law practice and residence in Wheeling, and a stranger meeting such a self- contained and unassuming gentleman as he is, would never suspect that he had been through several years of important political experience, or possessed such latent powers and abilities as are unquestionably his at command.
ROBERT WHITE.
COLONEL ROBERT WHITE, of Wheel- ing, a distinguished citizen of West Virginia, and at one time Attorney-General of the State, is a member of a family which has been notable in the history of Virginia. His great-great- grandfather, Robert White, was a surgeon in the British Navy, and at a very early period in the settlement of the State made his home in the valley of Virginia. His son, Alexander, was a man of note, a worthy patriot and leading states- man, and exerted great influence "in moulding public opinion, especially during the period em- braced by the treaty of peace with Great Britain and the adoption of the Federal Constitution."
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
As a member of the Virginia Assembly he was a leader, was elected to the first Congress of the United States, and served in that body for four years. The historian says of him that "in all public bodies of which he was a member, whether at home or abroad, his ready informa- tion, his eloquence and his decision, placed him in the front rank." Robert White, the grand- father of the subject of this sketch, whose birth- place was in Winchester, Va., was an officer in the Continental army, and received a severe wound at the battle of Monmouth, though at that time only seventeen years of age. Subse- quently he became a successful lawyer; sat upon the bench for some forty years, and was Presi- dent of the old General Court of Virginia. His son, John Baker White, was born at Winchester in 1794, and was Clerk of the Circuit and County Courts of Hampshire County from the time he was twenty years of age until his death in 1862. The eldest son, Robert, whose name stands at the head of this article, was born in Romney, Hampshire County, then in the Old Dominion, February 7, 1833. During his boyhood educa- tional facilities in Virginia were by no means advantageous. Public schools were indifferent,
academies and colleges were scarce, and means of travel were slow, expensive, and tiresome. But the young man was ambitious. At the age of about fourteen years he became an assistant clerk in his father's office, and by a resolute determination succeeded in obtaining, not a
college course, but a solid English training. He went further. He took up the study of law
at home, and after reading with care all the elementary books within his reach, attended the famous law school of Judge John W. Brock- enbrough at Lexington, Va. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and immediately opened an He be- office for the practice of his profession.
burst upon the country, and in May, 1861, he, gan a prosperous career, when the Civil War
being a Captain of a uniformed militia company organized some time previously, was ordered by the Governor of Virginia to report at Harper's
Ferry for active service. He reported promptly
with his command, and joined the forces of
Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson, his company being assigned to the Thirteenth Infantry, under Colonel, afterward Gen. A. P. Hill. He subse- quently raised a battalion of cavalry, which was
increased to a regiment (the Twenty-third Cav- alry), of which he was commissioned Colonel. He served as such until the close of the war, and then returned to Romney, May 14, 1865. Soon after he formed a law partnership with Judge J. J. Jacob, who afterward became Gov- ernor of West Virginia, and this partnership existed until the election of Mr. Jacob to the gubernatorial chair. Mr. White became a lead- ing attorney, and also took a prominent part in measures designed for the public good. Chiefly through his efforts the institution for the deaf, dumb, and blind was located at Romney, and he was for several years one of its Board of Regents and its Secretary. He organized and was Presi- dent of the South Branch Railroad Company, the railroad now connecting his native town with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In the summer of 1876 Colonel White was nominated by the Democratic party for the office of Attor- ney-General, and was elected in the following October by a majority of nearly 17,000, the largest ever given in the history of the State. On the morning of April 1, 1877, when he left his old home at Romney, where he was born and had resided for forty years, to remove to Wheeling to enter upon the duties of his new position, the entire population, old and young, of all colors, met in front of his residence and with two brass bands escorted him and his family through the town. Upon reaching the suburbs an address was delivered by one of the citizens; cheer followed cheer; handshakings and "God bless yous" flowed thick upon them, and the bands played a parting "Good-by." It was a mark of high and deserving apprecia- tion from the community where he had so long lived. Colonel White in 1859 married Ellen E.,
daughter of James C. Vass, an influential banker
of Richmond, Va. Mrs. White's mother's family were related to Chief-Justice Marshall; also to Gen. Robert E. Lee. Her paternal grandfather was a wealthy merchant of Fredericksburg, Va. Colonel White has been the father of an inter- esting family of six children, two daughters and four sons, only two of whom are living. The eldest daughter was accidentally killed in a railroad collision near Grafton, W. Va., Septem- ber 13, 1881. The Colonel is an enthusiastic Free Mason. For years he has devoted a large measure of his spare time to the interests of that
Damp Lucas
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
time-honored fraternity. He has filled nearly all the offices in both the subordinate and Grand Lodges, including the exalted position of Grand Master of the State. In his religious belief he is a Calvinist, and for many years has been a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church. In 1890 Colonel White was elected to the Legisla- ture, where he was made Chairman of the Fi- nance Committee and was also one of the Judi- ciary Committee. At the close of the session, March 12, 1891, the following tribute to his ability as a legislator was presented by the members of the Legislature, being signed by all the Democrats present and by all the Repub- licans to whom it was presented:
" Hon. Robert White:
"SIR :- Among the members of the Legisla- ture of West Virginia, there is a general desire to express to you in some formal way their appre- ciation of the great zeal, ability, and untiring industry that have marked your course in the Legislature at this session. As Chairman of the Finance Committee and one of the Judiciary Committee of the House, the duties incumbent upon you have been exceedingly important and exacting, both in committee-room and on the floor of the House. In the performance of these duties you have been so zealous, industrious, painstaking, and conservative as to attract the attention and win the respect and confidence of the entire Legislature, and to deserve the thanks and gratitude not only of our fellow-members but of the State at large. Permit us, therefore, to tender to you some expression of our appre- ciation of the benefits to the State derived from your earnest labors, and to say that we feel that you have fully deserved, not only every com- mendation, but a right to the gratitude and re- spect of your fellow-citizens throughout the State of West Virginia."
DANIEL B. LUCAS.
HON. DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS, LL.D., Presiding Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia and widely known as a man of letters and "the Poet of the Shen- andoah Valley," was born at Charlestown, Va., March 16, 1836. He comes from distinguished ancestry, and is a Virginian "to the manner born"-his family on both sides having for sev- eral generations been conspicuously identified with the history of the " Old Dominion" through
Revolutionary times, the Indian wars, and the late civil strife, in which the subject of this sketch took an active part. Very few family records anywhere are more replete with roman- tic and military history than that of the Lucas and Bedinger families of Virginia: and it is difficult in a brief biographical notice to fully treat the significance of these remarkable family exploits and characteristics, which are too nu- merous to be more than passingly alluded to in this article. Robert Lucas was the founder of the family in this country, where he landed in 1679, in that historical old ship the Elizabeth and Mary, upon whose decks came some of the most noted colonists. About nine months after Robert Lucas reached America, his wife Eliza- beth and their children arrived from London in the Content. Robert Lucas was a native of Dev- erall, Lingbridge, County of Wilts, England, and was one of the first settlers in the Province of Pennsylvania, where his name is recorded in the ancient registry of Berks County as having arrived " the fourth of the fourth month, 1679," in the good ship Elizabeth and Mary, of Way- mouth. This Robert Lucas was a member of the first Assembly under Penn's Charter of 1682, of which great bill of rights he was one of the signers " at Philadelphia, the second month, 1683." He was also a member of the Pennsyl- vania Assembly of 1687 and 1688, and died during the latter year before the expiration of the session. He owned considerable land on Falls River, in the parish of that name, where he had his home. His son Edward, who survived him, was a Supervisor of Falls Township in 1730; but shortly after that date he crossed the mountains and settled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia-as beautiful then as it is to-day, but of course much more secluded from the outside world. Edward Lucas selected a large tract of land on the headwaters of Rattlesnake Run, which empties into the Potomac a few miles below Shepherdstown. For his first wife he married Mary Darke, sister of the gallant Wil- liam Darke, a famous general of the Revolution. They had a large family of seventeen children. Edward, the eldest, was born in 1738. Like many of the early settlers in that region, he had his rifle always ready for the Indian depreda- tions, and with his brothers often engaged in hand-to-hand fights with the savages, also tak-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
ing part in the noted engagements of the old French War, in which General Braddock was killed and Washington at one time taken pris- oner. He was also a Revolutionary hero, and was one of Captain Morgan's famous cominand " which at the first drum-beat of the Revolution marched by a bee-line to Boston," with Edward Lucas as First Lieutenant. A fifth brother, Wil- liam, was perhaps the most daring and intrepid fighter in the old Indian campaigns. He shoul- dered his gun in his seventeenth year, and en- gaged in many desperate encounters. Four of his brothers were massacred with all the attend- ing horrors of that warfare, and for years after- ward he was their relentless avenger-his unerr- ing rifle carrying death to many a dusky form in the wilds of Virginia and Pennsylvania. This lion-hearted man-William Lucas-had a son Robert, who was Governor of Ohio during the years 1832-36 and first territorial Governor of Iowa, 1838-41. William's elder brother Edward, above alluded to, also had a son Robert, who was born in 1766, in that part of Berkeley County, Va., now forming Jefferson County, W. Va. This Robert left issue, three sons, Edward, Robert, and William Lucas, the last-named the father of the subject of this sketch. Edward was a soldier in the War of 1812, serving as Lieutenant in the battle of North Point and in the fight at Crany Island. He was elected to Congress from the Valley District and served two sessions. William Lucas, father of our subject, was also elected from the same district, and served two terms in Congress from 1839 to 1843. This gentleman was an able lawyer and an opulent planter. He owned a beautiful es- tate named " Rion Hall," which at his death he bequeathed to his only surviving child, Daniel Bedinger Lucas, who cherishes it as a heritage and homestead ever dear to his heart. It is situated on a high eminence a short distance from the Shenandoah, in one of the loveliest regions of that picturesque valley. The mother of Judge Lucas was Virginia A. Bedinger, daughter of Captain Daniel Bedinger, also a Revolutionary soldier, and a man gifted with great poetical genius. One of his effusions, " The Cossack Celebration," is a poem of extra- ordinary vigor, which a critic has said "would not discredit the author of Hudibras." Daniel B. Lucas is the third child and second son. His
brothers and sisters were born and named as follows : William, 1830; Sally E., 1832 ; Virginia, 1838. After attending several private acade- mies young Lucas was sent to the University of Virginia. He began with the session of 1851-52 and continued there for four years, graduating in the elective system in most of the schools of that famous seat of learning. Mr. Lucas com- bined with poetic temperament the gift of ora- tory, and was chosen the valedictorian of the Jefferson Society of the University in 1856. After leaving the University he entered the well-known law school of Judge John W. Brock- enbrough, of Lexington, Va., where he gradu- ated in 1858. He then obtained admission to the bar and began practice at Charlestown, his native place, in the spring of 1859. Early in 1860 he moved to Richmond, where he was es- tablished when the Civil War broke out. His sympathies were with Virginia, and he followed her fortunes, determined to fight for her as his illustrious ancestors had done, and like them give up his life if need be in her defence. He joined the staff of General and ex-Governor Henry A. Wise in June, 1861, and served under him during his campaign in the Kanawha Valley, which terminated October I of that year. In all these years Daniel B. Lucas had been culti- vating the Muse, which came to him inherited from his grandfather, and a talent that had not been laid away, but, on the contrary, had been assiduously improved, not only for the love of verse-making but in obedience to that family pride which seemed to incite him to the achieve- ment of genuine laurels in the highest of all the arts. His first and most perfect compositions were written during the war period, and have a military character beautifully expressed, which attracted attention and gave them the stamp of true genius. Mr. Lucas "ran the blockade" to Canada, leaving Richmond January 1, 1865, in order to assist in the defence of Captain John Yates Beall, a college friend of his youth, who was tried as a spy and guerilla at Governor's Island, New York, by a court-martial, and con- victed and executed February 24, 1865. In order to get away from Richmond, Mr. Lucas was obliged to cut through the ice in a small open boat or skiff and cross the Potomac at a point where it was nine miles wide. But his efforts for his friend proved unavailing, as Gen-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
eral Dix, the commandant of the department, would not permit him to take a part in his friend's defence, who was ably defended by New York's great lawyer of that day, James T. Brady. Mr. Lucas therefore continued his resi- dence in Canada for several months, and there wrote, shortly after the surrender of General Lee, his celebrated poem, "The Land where we were Dreaming." This stirring poem was published first in the Montreal Gazette, and was then copied in many papers in this country and also in England, calling forth numerous notices of commendation. He followed this poem with a Memoir of John Yates Beall's life and diary and the official report of his trial (John Lovell, Montreal, 1865). Shortly after the close of the war Mr. Lucas returned to Virginia, which now had been divided, leaving the Lucas home in the new State of West Virginia, of which Jeffer- son County comprises the most eastern boun- dary. The "test oath" was then in force with all its restrictions against those who had joined the Southern Confederacy, and it excluded Mr. Lucas from the practice of his profession. In the year 1870 the radical element of the West Virginia Legislature, which seemed to know no limit in its zeal against "rebels," became offset by the more conservative class of legislators who could get it into their heads that the war was over, and who at once swept the obnoxious and unjust test oath-especially the attorney's test oath-from the statutes. Mr. Lucas in that year began practice in partnership with that distinguished jurist, Judge Thomas C. Green, who had been connected with the Confeder- ate government at Richmond, and a member of the Legislature, and was afterward chosen Pre- siding Judge of the Court of Appeals of West Virginia. In 1869-70 Mr. Lucas was co-editor of the Southern Metropolis, a weekly published in Baltimore owned and conducted, as editor- in-chief, by J. Fairfax Mclaughlin, LL.D. Of this paper the late Alexander H. Stephens said : "I have read the Southern Metropolis from its first number, and have often said and now re- peat that it comes nearer filling the place of the London Saturday Review than any other paper on this continent." Mr. Lucas devoted himself to the law and soon attained high rank in his profession. The West Virginia Reports con- tain many of his cases, and show that he was
one of the most successful practitioners before that tribunal. For instance, out of forty-five cases-some of them involving profound ques- tions of law-he won thirty and lost fifteen. In 1872 Mr. Lucas was a Democratic Presidential Elector for his Congressional District, and again in 1876. In 1884 he was Elector-at-Large on the Cleveland ticket in West Virginia. Mr. Lucas took an active part in these campaigns as a Jef- fersonian Democrat, of which school he has always been an uncompromising champion. Another writer in " Prominent Men of West Vir- ginia" has said: " His addresses on the 'Renais- sance of the Jeffersonian Democracy' and kin- dred topics have exercised a potential influence upon public sentiment in West Virginia. Wen- dell Phillips, during the days of the Abolition movement, never displayed more resolute pur- pose or inflexible devotion to his cause than Daniel B. Lucas has shown in his rigid adher- ence, both in practice and oratorical appeals, to the Jeffersonian standard of Democracy." Mr. Lucas was a Regent of the State University for eight years, and in July, 1876, was unanimously elected Professor of Law in that institution, an honor which his law practice obliged him to de- cline. For the same reason in the same year he also declined the office of Judge of his Cir- cuit Court, to which he had been appointed by Governor Mathews to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge Hoge. The degree of LL.D. was most worthily and appropriately con- ferred upon him in 1884 by the University of West Virginia, which was a mutual honor cred- itable to the man and the institution. It is per- tinent to remark just here that a stronger thinker or a more accomplished gentleman than Daniel B. Lucas it would be difficult to name in the State of West Virginia. In honoring him the University won glory for itself and distinction for the State and her citizens. In 1884 Mr. Lucas was called upon to enter the Legislature, in which he took an active part against sump- tuary laws, and declared his opposition to co- education of the sexes in the State University. He also favored high license and equalization of taxation of all property, whether real or per- sonal, corporate or individual. He maintained that inequality of taxation in various forms had been the bane of all republics, a truth of history which cannot be disproved. Indeed, his career
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