USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 21
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Wheeling Shakespere Club, and for several winters past has given weekly select readings from Thackeray before a class of ladies and gentlemen prominent in Charleston society. It may also be mentioned, as an incident of
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his Masonic history, that he was selected to assist the presiding officer at the funeral of that eminent Freemason, General Albert Pike, and read the solemn service of the Kadosh, at midnight, in the presence of an immense assembly in the Congregational church at Washington City. In the year 1866 Mr. Long married Miss Mary Tait Smith, who died in December, 1867, at the birth of their only child, a daughter. Since the summer of 1885 Mr. Long has resided in Charleston, the capital of the State, where he enjoys a beautiful home, tasteful in architecture and liberally supplied with the comforts that make life enjoyable, chief among which is one of the best private libraries in the State, well furnished with many rare volumes and complete in English classics. In the words of a writer in " Prominent Men of West Virginia:"
"Mr. Long enjoys the fullest confidence and esteem of all the Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and is very highly respected by all of the members of the bar with whom his official duties bring him into close relation."
BENJAMIN W. BYRNE.
HON. BENJAMIN WILSON BYRNE, mem- ber of the Legislature in both Virginias and State Superintendent of Free Schools in West Virginia, was born on May 16, 1820, on the Little Kanawha River, at the mouth of Salt Lick Creek, near Burnsville, in Lewis, now Braxton, County. He had six brothers and four sisters. When he was one year old his parents moved to the Bull- town Salt Works, where he was brought up. He was the son of John B. Byrne and Ann Haymond Byrne. His paternal ancestor came to Virginia and settled in Prince William County about the year 1720, and his great-grandfather was de- scended from this ancestor. Colonel Byrne's father was the son of Peyton Byrne, who moved from Prince William County, Va., early in the present century, to the Little Kanawha River, in Harrison County-now Braxton-and settled at the mouth of Salt Lick Creek. His mother was the daughter of Col. John Haymond, who lived in the Monongahela Valley from boyhood and who took part in the struggle with the In- dians when making incursions into the white
settlements of the Monongahela Valley. Colonel Haymond married Mary Wilson, daughter of Col. Ben Wilson, of Harrison County, who was a col- onel under Governor Dunmore in the war be- tween the English and the French and Indians on the western frontier, and one of the early settlers of the Monongahela Valley, and was the progenitor of thirty children, most of whom lived to rear families. The Haymond family were about half as numerous, being about fifteen or sixteen children of William Haymond, the father of Col. John Haymond. These two fami- lies of Haymond and Wilson, together with a contemporary family, the Jacksons, are prob- ably the most numerous families now in the State. B. W. Byrne was raised on his father's farm, attended the winter schools, and when he was twenty years old attended Rector College two years and a half under the tuition of Prof. Charles Wheeler, an eminent educator from Massachusetts. Later on he read law with the Hon. William G. Brown, of Kingwood, Mathew Edmiston, of Weston, and attended Judge Lucas P. Thompson's law school at Staunton. He obtained his license to practise law in the spring of 1848, being signed by Judges Baldwin, of Vir- ginia Supreme Court, Smith, of the Rockingham County Circuit, and Thompson, of the Augusta Circuit Court. On returning home from the law school he was elected to the Legislature of Vir- ginia from the district composed of the counties of Braxton, Lewis, and Gilmer, the same terri- tory which now covers the counties Calhoun, Upshur, half of Clay, and half of Webster Coun- ties ; also that part of Barbour County that was taken from Lewis and that part of Ritchie County that was taken from Lewis. He served in the winter session of 1848-49 and in the extra summer session of 1849 which was called for the purpose of revising the code of the State laws. On the 18th of September, 1849, he married Mary Louisa Holt, daughter of Jonathan Holt. His wife was born in Beaver, Pa., but moved with the family to Virginia in infancy. She had one brother, the Hon. Homer A. Holt, of the State Supreme bench, and one sister, Susan E., the wife of Dr. Thomas B. Camden, of Par- kersburg. She had also two half-brothers by a subsequent marriage of her father. Mr. Byrne then continued the practice of his profession till the fall of 1860. In 1857, however, he was again
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elected from Braxton and Nicholas Counties to the House of Delegates of Virginia; and during the winter session he procured the passage of the law creating the county of Clay out of the coun- ties of Nicholas, Braxton, and Kanawha. He also served another short extra session in the spring of 1858, which was called by Governor Wise immediately after the adjournment of the regular session to finish up business of impor- tance. In 1859 Mr. Byrne and Johnson N. Camden concluded to try to have a county formed on the upper Elk River. They accordingly prepared, published, and posted notices, as the law re- quired, that an application would be made to the Legislature, and placed the matter in the hands of Joseph A. Alderson, who then represented that district in the Senate, and who engaged earnestly in the object of the petition and suc- ceeded in forming the new county, which, much to the gratification of its friends, he named Webster, after the great statesman Daniel Web- ster. In December, 1860, the oil excitement was running high at Burning Springs, in Wirt County, and at the suggestion of Johnson N. Camden, Colonel Byrne went to Burning Springs and se- lected a lease and went on to Parkersburg, where he was joined by Hon. J. N. Camden, the Hon. Gideon D. Camden, and the Hon. John J. Jack- son, Jr. They all journeyed to the oil field and purchased the lease of J. C. Rathbone as equal partners. The others returned home, leaving Colonel Byrne in charge to sink a well on the lease, which he did; and late in January, 1861, at the depth of one hundred and fifty feet, he struck a very valuable well which promised large remuneration, but not being equipped with engine, tubing, and tanks to pump and store the oil, it being a flowing well, only as much of the oil was saved as could be gathered in excava- tions in the ground, and by storing in what few small boats could be brought near the well on the edge of the river, amounting to about one hundred barrels per day. This was the well which became noted by being named the "Eter- nal Centre." About this time and before he had the well equipped for successful work, Colonel Byrne was notified by special messenger from home that he had been elected by his constitu- ents to the Virginia convention which played such an important part in the drama of the next four years-the secession convention of Vir-
ginia. He was notified by his constituents that they had elected him without his knowledge or consent because they had more confidence in his conservatism than they had in the other candi- dates, and that they thought he would be less likely to be carried away by excitement. This was an appeal and a compliment which he could not resist. He therefore very reluctantly ac- cepted the position, went to Richmond, and en- tered upon the discharge of his duties, and ex- cept for a very short interval he saw nothing more of the oil field for four long and eventful years. His course in the convention was con- servative from first to last, voting against every proposition looking to secession, and when the final vote came he was one of the fifty-five who voted against the ordinance of secession in op- position to the eighty-three who voted for it; and, unlike most of those who voted against it, he refused to change his vote and record it with the majority. The issue of war having been made up, the most important problem was then presented, what course to take in the great struggle that was pending? He was bitterly op- posed to secession and strongly attached to the Union as the palladium of our liberties; but be- lieving, as he did, that the issue presented was that of independence or subjugation, after ma- ture thought he could not persuade himself that it was right for him to aid in the subjugation of his own people. He therefore determined to follow the fortunes of his fellow-citizens among whom he was born and raised, and although he had little hope of independence, it was his duty to share the fate of his State and section. He, as Colonel of the militia of his county, organized and commanded them for a few weeks, disband- ing them when Governor Wise retreated from Kanawha Valley; he was engaged during most of the war in the Nitre Bureau and as enrolling officer at Staunton when the war ended. At the end of the war he returned with his family, who went south with him to Parkersburg, and again went into the oil business, was unsuccess- ful, and moved from there to Clay County, where he spent several years in the settlement of land titles to large bodies of lands, in which he was very successful. He probably settled the title to more lands with more adverse claim- ants, mostly by compromise, than any man in the State, amounting to nearly 200,000 acres,
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nearly all of which he made sale of for the own- ers. In 1871 he was elected in Clay and Nicholas Counties to the Convention to amend the State Constitution which met in Charleston in Janu- ary, 1872. In that convention he was made Chairman of the Committee on County Organ- ization. He took an active part in the dis- cussion and organization of the school system provided for in the constitution, also in forming the chapter on land titles. At the August elec- tion in 1872 he was elected State Superintendent of Schools, in which office he served accept- ably for four years. The school system of West Virginia was then in its infancy, and he devoted his time more especially to or- ganizing the financial part of the system and procuring proper returns from the school offi- cers, who had not yet acquired such experiences as to make them efficient in their duties. In 1882 he was elected to the State Senate for the term of four years. In the session of 1883 he was made Chairman of the Committee on Free Schools, and also of a special committee to in- vestigate the general subject of the school funds, which had gotten a little out of joint. In the session of 1885 he was appointed Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which was charged with the duty of preparing a bill to revise the laws of the State for the proper assessment of property and collection of the State taxes. Most of the session was spent in the preparation and discussion of a bill covering the whole subject of the tax laws, but which he and other Senators who were equally earnest with him failed to have enacted into a law. In January, 1892, Colonel Byrne was appointed by Governor Flein- ing to procure from the Legislature of Virginia the passage of an act to transfer from Virginia to West Virginia such of the title papers as still remained in Virginia relating exclusively to land titles in West Virginia, and to copy such others as could not be so transferred. He vis- ited Richmond on this mission and was entirely successful. In the same year he was also ap- pointed by the Governor President of the Board of Regents in charge of the West Virginia Col- ored Institute, a school organized under the provisions of a law passed by Congress for the instruction of the colored race in the English branches of education as well as in agricultural and mechanical pursuits. For this position his
large experience in educational administration qualifies him admirably. Colonel Byrne is one of the best of authorities on the geographical formations and political history of the two Vir- ginias, and takes a zealous interest in promoting the West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society, of which he is a director.
JOSEPH MORELAND.
HON. JOSEPH MORELAND, a prominent lawyer, Mayor of Morgantown, and a member of the Board of State Regents, is a native of Con- nellsville, Pa., where he was born May 26, 1842. His ancestry dates back as follows: His father was John Moreland, his grandfather was Wil- liam Moreland, and his great-grandfather was Isaiah Moreland. Isaiah Moreland came from England in colonial times and settled in Hamil- ton, Bauro Township, in York County, in the Province of Pennsylvania. In 1770 William Moreland, the grandfather, removed from York County to Fayette County and settled on the banks of the Youghiogheny River, where he patented a large scope of land all underlaid with the Connellsville coking coal. On this farm John Moreland, the father of Joseph Moreland, was born on 4th of July, 1800, and there also was born and reared his family, his father being a pioneer in the coking business. His mother's name was Rogers-a daughter of Wil- liam Rogers, a family which for four genera- tions had lived in and near Connellsville, in Fayette County, being one of the earliest and also one of the largest and best-known families in that community. Young Moreland attended Monongalia Academy at Morgantown until 1861, when the Civil War caused him to return to Pennsylvania, where he resumed his studies at Dunlap's Creek Academy, and he continued until 1864, when he entered Washington and Jeffer- son College, where he graduated in 1866. In the following year he returned to Morgantown to settle permanently, and having chosen the law began his reading preliminary to practice in the office of Brown & Hagans, both distin- guished lawyers of that day, and was admitted to the bar February 10, 1869. His license was signed by Judge R. L. Berkshire, J. H. Brown,
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and John A. Dille. Mr. Moreland, while attend- ing his studies in Pennsylvania, had been Town Clerk of Dunbar, Fayette County, so that when in 1872 he was first elected Mayor of Morgan- town Borough, he was not wholly inexperienced in municipal routine. He was re-elected in 1873 and 1874; again in 1878 he was chosen to the same position and re-elected in 1879. He has also served in the Town Council several terms. In 1874 he was appointed by Governor Jacob one of the Commissioners to assess railroad property in the State. In 1887, to fill the va- cancy caused by the death of W. W. Houston, Judge Fleming, of the Second Circuit, appointed him Prosecuting Attorney of Monongalia County. In 1888 he represented his district as Delegate to the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis that nominated Cleveland and Thurman. In 1882 Governor Jackson appointed him a member of the State Board of Regents, in which position he still continues as Chairman of the Executive Committee, for which duties Mr. Moreland is peculiarly well qualified. He has been thoroughly educated and knows the needs of a university to keep it in a flourishing condi- tion. Much of the success that has attended the University of West Virginia has been owing to
his careful and painstaking efforts, in co-opera- tion with the other members of the Executive Committee in their co-labors with President Turner. On October 26, 1875, Mr. Moreland married Miss Mary E., daughter of the late Thomas Brown, Esq., of Kingwood, Preston County. They have two children, Eleanor Brown Moreland and James Rogers Moreland. Mr. Moreland was again elected Mayor of Mor- gantown at the last municipal election. At the last State Convention, held in Parkersburg, of the Democratic party, Mr. Moreland was a very probable candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and his name had been favor- ably considered by leading newspapers, who in- dorsed his superior qualifications for the posi- tion, where sound learning, high character, and exemplary deportment are so essential. The New Dominion newspaper refers editorially to his candidacy in these words :
" We can console ourselves that without the aid of any combinations or unseemly scramble Mr. Moreland received a vote in the convention of which any man might be proud. He had the
personal support of many of the best lawyers in the State, and when the roll-call on the last bal- lot was finished he seemed to be the successful candidate, but at that period in the proceedings of a convention delegations begin to pay debts and avenge slights on previous ballots, and these influences brought about changes before the an- nouncement of the ballot that lost him the nomi- nation. But Mr. Moreland has no complaint to make. He is fully satisfied with the result, and he will join the Democracy of Monongalia in rolling up a bigger vote for the ticket next fall than we have ever given before."
Mr. Moreland has identified himself steadfastly with the interests of Morgantown and is highly respected as one of the leading citizens. He refers with pleasant memories to the fact that for twelve years, from 1872 to 1884, he was law partner with Hon. Waitman T. Willey; and during all that time "there was not a jar be- tween them-owing entirely to Mr. Willey's kind nature and equable disposition," as Mr. Moreland says, but no doubt Senator Willey would not coincide in such a manifestly one- sided and partial verdict. Few men are more congenial and at the same time more dis- creet in their dealings with others. Mr. More- land as a representative citizen of Morgantown is well known throughout the State and retains the friendship and respect of all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance. Mr. Moreland is the author of a pamphlet entitled "Jokes and Thrice-Told Tales." It was contributed at the Centennial anniversary, when citizens were invited to furnish all they could relating to the history of Morgantown. The title of the pam- phlet is not a correct index of its contents, for it has much pioneer history of most tragic as well as important nature, but the jokes and stories are worth preserving, and two or three are here given. One relates to the homespun "Squire" of the old Virginia County Court :
"Hon. W. T. Willey was perhaps the most effective speaker at the Morgantown bar. His great earnestness, combined with his eloquence and logic, made him almost irresistible. It is related of Mr. Willey that he was once pleading the cause of a criminal before the County Court, on which sat Squire K-, one of those rugged specimens of old-time magistrates who, with his rough exterior, concealed a heart full of gen- erous emotions, and susceptible to the touch of eloquence. After analyzing all the evidence in the case and demonstrating the impossibility of
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his client's guilt, he was proceeding to close with an appeal. Looking Squire K- squarely in the eye, and after a burst of eloquence and with all his earnestness, Mr. Willey repeated once or twice: 'Guilty? Do you believe it?' Squire K- turned away, shook his head as he wiped the tears from his eyes, and said in an audible voice : 'No; I'll be d-d if I do!' "
Another relates to Mrs. Mary Jarrett, who kept a hotel in Morgantown :
" She was a most excellent woman and always entertained her guests in a very satisfactory manner, but was fond of compliments-espe- cially if bestowed upon her table fare; and when she knew her coffee and tea were most excellent she had a way of fishing for a compliment by speaking disparagingly of it. A guest was once seated at Mrs. Jarrett's table who was not just a common mortal, but one of the ho' aristo, and the good hostess was doing her best. A cup of coffee was passed to this guest which she knew was 'A No. I,' and thereupon she began apolo- gizing for its quality. The guest took her at her word. He said : 'It is not as good as it might be.' The disappointment was visible upon the countenance of the good woman as she replied : 'No, but it is not so bad either.'
Another story relates to an old lady who as a witness upset all geological theories as to when the Monongahela River first got through to Morgantown. She could not tell her age. Her lawyer asked her to give the Court some idea- for instance, something about her first visit to Morgantown. For a moment the old lady bowed her head in deep thoughtfulness, and then an- swered : " I could not pretend to give my age, but I am very certain that when I was a little girl and first visited Morgantown there was no river there." The old lady was politely requested to stand aside, and the counsel sub rosa told the sheriff to call a witness who was born after the flood.
JOSEPH L. FRY.
HON. JOSEPH LAPENOY FRY, an emi- nent lawyer and from 1831 to 1852 Circuit Judge of the First Judicial District of Virginia, was born in Culpepper County, Piedmont, Va., on the 2d of February, 1795, and died at Lewis- burg, W. Va., June 10, 1865. Judge Fry came of the best English stock in the colony. His father, Reuben Fry, dying when he was only
ten years of age, much of his time was spent at Elim,* the home of his grandfather, the Rev. Henry Fry. His great-grandfather, Col. Joshua Fry, an English gentleman of worth and edu- cation, held many distinguished offices under the colonial government: Civil engineer, pro- fessor at William and Mary College, Williams- burg, Va., Commissioner of the Crown, one of the Commissioners at the Treaty of Logstown, appointed commander of the Virginia forces by Governor Dinwiddie in 1754, a large landed proprietor, and a man of sterling worth-the highest honors of the colony were within his grasp, when his death at Will's Creek, en route to Fort Cumberland, closed his career t and placed Lieutenant-Colonel Washington in com- mand (see Sparks' "Life of Washington," pp. 104, 126). Judge Fry's mother was a daughter of Col. James Slaughter, of Culpepper County ; his grandmother, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Walker, of Albemarle; his great-grandmother, the daughter of Paul Micon, a French physician and Huguenot exile from France. His grand- father, the Rev. Henry Fry, left fine estates to all of his children, but Reuben Fry died when his son Joseph was only ten years old, and the latter does not seem to have inherited any of his property-for he was almost entirely self- educated. He acquired a great deal of knowl- edge by reading and studying. When quite a young man he frequently read sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. He did not attend any col- lege, but studied law for a while under that dis- tinguished jurist, the elder Sheffy, of Staunton, Va. He afterward removed to Charleston, Ka-
* On an eminence stands a house hoary with a century's mosses, and having in it a historical room originally dedi- cated to music and the dance; in which William Wirt, in his youth, played his pranks and wrote his comedies ; where Thomas Jefferson, in his journeys to and from Washington in his French landau, refreshed himself with hospitable cheer, and which the pioneer Methodist ministers made vocal with the preached word, the voice of prayer, and the songs of Zion. This plantation (originally 4,000 acres) now belongs to John Lightfoot, Esq., lineal descendant of the original patentee. This old mansion was sixty-seven feet long, but only one story high. The historical room remains intact, ex- cept a new door opening on the front porch ("Memoirs of Col. Joshua Fry," by Rev. Philip Slaughter, D.D.).
t Washington and the army attended the funeral, and on a large oak tree which now stands as a tomb and a monument to his memory Washington cut the following inscription, which can be read to this day : "Under this oak lies the body of THE GOOD, THE JUST, AND THE NOBLE FRY " (Slaughter's Memoirs).
Joseph L. Fin
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nawha County, Va., where he succeeded to a successful practice for that early day. His first wife was Martha, daughter of Capt. James Wil- son, of Kanawha, by whom he had four children, only two of whom lived to be grown. James Henry died at Galveston, Texas, unmarried. He was a young man of fine talent and warm feelings. The only daughter, Jane Ann, a lovely and accomplished woman, was early married to James Paull, afterward Judge Paull of the Wheeling Circuit. She left three sons, Messrs. Archibald W., Joseph F., and Alfred Paull, all prominent citizens of Wheeling. In 1831 Judge Fry removed to the city of Wheeling,* where he soon after brought his second wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of the late Rev. John McElhenney, of Lewisburg, W. Va. They had eight chil- dren, five of whom are still living. His widow, a refined, cultivated Christian lady, is still liv- ing in Lewisburg, at the same place that was the home of her father for more than half a century. The eldest son, John Joseph, fell at the battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861. The second son, Judge Henry Fry, died in 1883, leaving a widow and three children. The third son, William Wirt, is married and living with his family in Augusta, Ga. The eldest daughter, Lucy Clay- ton, married the late Gov. Henry M. Mathews, of Lewisburg, W. Va., where she resides with her son and two daughters. Elizabeth married Capt. Archibald Graham, of Lexington, Va. Rebecca married Col. George M. Edgar, of Tal- lahassee, Fla. They have six children. Of the twin-daughters, Lily married Mr. Guy, a lawyer of Staunton, in May, 1880, and died March, 1881. The second twin, Rose, is unmarried, and lives with her mother in Lewisburg. Judge Fry combined the highest legal talent with scrupu- lous integrity in the discharge of his official duties. He had the greatest horror of anything approaching a bribe. The following anecdote will illustrate his scrupulousness on this point. A certain merchant of Wheeling, Mr. Selby, being desirous of introducing a new style of gloves to his customers, presented a pair to his wife and to Mrs. Fry. On hearing of this oc- currence, the Judge said : "Elizabeth, you must carry those gloves straight back to Mr. Selby."
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