USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 26
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
1, 1892, was accompanied by this editorial in- dorsement :
"Old and young will recognize the familiar face of Hon. James A. Brown, whose portrait and picture is hung up in the Press gallery this issue. For over thirty-two years he has been a leading lawyer at the Kingwood bar during which time he has counselled with the old, the young, the rich, and the poor. Mr. Brown is public-spirited and enjoys a good practice in his chosen profession-the bar. He is urged by his friends for the nomination of Judge of the Supreme Court, a position he neither seeks nor declines, but leaves the matter with the party."
As a Union man, Mr. Brown was among the few stalwarts in Preston County who fearlessly denounced the action of the Richmond Con- vention and gave the title of "The Banner County" to Preston in the independent move- ment that led to the Wheeling Convention, of which he was an active young member. In those times there were no newspapers in Pres- ton County, and Union sentiments and doctrines were communicated to the people at public meetings only. These assemblings were held throughout the county, and among the most earnest and energetic speakers was the sub- ject of this sketch, who, often in the snow of that memorable period, and with a barrel-head for a platform, enunciated to his fellow-citizens the words of patriotism that were so radically the opposite of secession doctrines held at Rich- mond and throughout Eastern Virginia. A thorough lawyer by inclination, Mr. Brown has pursued the even tenor of his way in his native town, and stands at the head of the Kingwood bar and has had abundant success. A gentle- man of social, kindly nature and devoid of all duplicity, Mr. Brown has the respect and confi- dence of all who know him, and is justly re- garded a good lawyer and a worthy and pro- gressive citizen whose dealings are open and honorable in all the relations of life. At the Republican State Convention held in Hunting- ton, in July, 1892, Mr. Brown was a favorite choice for Judge of the Supreme Court of Ap- peals and would have received the nomination, in all probability, had not the candidates for Governor and State Superintendent of Schools been selected from his section of the State, thereby necessitating a choice from the southern
tier of counties. Inheriting a good name from an honored father, Mr. Brown has zealously maintained the same during his lifelong resi- dence in Kingwood, and has many warm friends in Preston and adjoining counties irrespective of political affiliations.
JOSEPH M. MCWHORTER.
HON. JOSEPH MARCELLUS McWHOR- TER, ex-Auditor of West Virginia, ex-Judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit, and prominently identified with the history of the State, was born in a place at the time known as McWhor- ter's Mills, seven miles north of Weston, Lewis County, Va., April 30, 1828. As the name indicates, he comes of good Scotch-Irish stock. He is the son of Dr. Fields Mcwhorter, now living in Sullivan County, Mo. There is much that is interesting in Mr. McWhorter's gene- alogy: it is therefore worth preserving. The family migrated from the north of Ireland prior to the Revolutionary war and first settled in the State of New York. The great-grand- father of the subject of this sketch was Henry McWhorter, who was the youngest of six sons, James, Thomas, John, Robert, Gilbert, and Henry. The number of daughters in the family is not known. The father died before the family were grown up, and it became necessary to put out some of the boys at service or ap- prenticeship. The master to whom Henry fell was so unkind to him and treated him so harshly that before the boy was sixteen years of age he ran away, joined the army, and served through the Revolutionary war. He married Mary, daughter of Walter Fields, a resident of New Jersey. After the war he went to the frontier and settled on Hacker's Creek, near where the town of Jane Lew is now situated. This was about the period of the close of the Indian war in that country. Henry reared three sons, John, Thomas, and Walter. He died in 1848 at the age of eighty-seven. For many years he was a Methodist class-leader, and he was a consistent member of that church up to the time of his death. His son John raised a company of sol- diers of which he was captain and served in the War of 1812. At the conclusion of that
James ABrown
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
struggle he returned to his native county, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and continued to practise his profession until he had reached the ripe age of seventy-two. He then professed conversion to the Christian religion, joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, was licensed a local preacher, and from that period up to the time of his death, at the age of ninety-five, he occasionally officiated in the pulpit. It is a feature of this family that many of its members have reached an advanced age. John McWhorter never married. His brother Thomas married Delila, a daughter of Samuel Stalnaker, and they had some four or five chil- dren. One of these, a son, Henry by name, when past the age for enlistment volunteered into the United States service during the War of the Rebellion and was killed in battle. Walter, the third son of Henry and grandfather of Joseph M. McWhorter, married Margaret Hurst, a young lady of German descent. They lived on a farm and raised ten children, includ- ing six sons, Fields, Eli, Levi, John M., Wal- ter, and Mansfield, and four daughters, Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Cassa. The eldest son, Fields McWhorter, married Margaret M. Kes- ter, a daughter of Joseph Kester, of Harrison County. Her father was also a Revolutionary soldier and lived to the age of eighty-seven. A matter worthy of note is that Joseph Kester was the brother and half-brother of a family of twenty-seven children, twenty-four sons and three daughters. In the family of Fields Mc- Whorter there were four sons, J. M., Henry C., John D. W., and Walter F., and three daugh- ters, Mary L., Margaret E., and Sarah A. In the year 1833 Fields Mcwhorter moved West, accompanied by his family, and settled in what is now Morrow County, Ohio. Here he resided for eight years, returning to his native State in the spring of 1841. Joseph M. McWhor- ter accompanied the family to Ohio, being at the time of their migration five years old, and it was in that State that he received the first rude elements of instruction, such as could be obtained in the public schools of Ohio, these being for the time rather better than those of other Middle and Southern States. After his family returned to Virginia, the opportunities for education which were offered to the boy were much less valuable than they had been
found to be in Ohio, Virginia having at that time no regular system of public schools of any kind, their place being filled by subscription schools. In these latter the teachers were any persons with a smattering of information who could gather a sufficient number of pupils sub- scribing each from two dollars to two dollars and a half for three months' instruction. Joseph was the eldest child of the family, and the three next children were daughters. His father pos- sessed but little means, and it followed that the care of the family and its support developed upon him to a certain extent early in his life. The boy was ambitious and aspired to have as good and complete an education as was possible, and he did not fail to exhaust such opportunities as fell to him; so it came about that by the time he was twenty-one years of age he was very fairly instructed in all the English branches of learning as these were then taught in the schools throughout the country. It chanced that for a time the young man's ambition was guided in a military direction. This was brought about from the fact that the since cele- brated "Stonewall" Jackson, who was raised in the same section of country, graduated at West Point and roused notions of military success in young Joseph's mind-so much so, in fact, that he applied, with strong recommendations, for a cadetship at the Military Academy. He would doubtless have obtained this position but that, on receiving the specifications and require- ments which formed the law for entrance, he discovered that at the period when the appoint- ment would be made he would be about one year older than the legal age. It is related that some of his friends thoughtlessly suggested to him to report himself as being within the age required, but after possibly a slight struggle his love of truth prevailed and he made no further effort to obtain the appointment. Mr. McWhorter now began to teach school during the autumn and winter seasons, occupying him- self in the spring and summer, and between the years 1851 and 1856 in working on his father's farm. In the latter year, in March, the organi- zation of Roane County having been effected, he was appointed Clerk of that county. Two months later an election took place and he was elected, by a handsome majority, to fill the same position for two years. At the end of
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
that period, a general election taking place throughout the State, Mr. Mcwhorter was again a candidate, with six others, for the same office, and was elected by nearly one hundred and fifty majority over the next highest candidate. This was in 1858, and he was also Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court, performing nearly all the duties of both offices. As this was Mr. Mc- Whorter's first experience of the kind, it became necessary for him not only to give strict atten- tion to his duties, but to study and work with constant assiduity in order that he might not fail in any part of them, and he very soon be- came proficient in all that appertained to his positions. Before his time of service expired the War of the Rebellion broke out. It hap- pened that Mr. Mcwhorter had been for a year or two captain of a company in the State militia and he therefore had some military experience, while his old aspirations no doubt pressed him to enter the service on one side or the other. As with so many others in the border States, the question whether to tie to his State or to the Union became one of great gravity for him to consider. He was not only a native and citizen of Virginia, but he held office under the county government, and most of the officers of the county declared their intention of adhering to the cause of the State, while even a majority of the officers of the militia had formed a similar determination. Mr. McWhorter had decided political opinions; he believed the union of States constituted a nation of people. In poli- tics he was a Whig, and no doubt the policy taught by that party had much to do in shaping his course in the nation's struggle for existence. He did not believe in the institution of human slavery, considering it repugnant to the very spirit of the American Government and its in- stitutions. He was a man of convictions and swayed only by what he believed to be right and for the true welfare of the whole country, and he therefore stood firmly by the Union and without experiencing a doubt as to its ultimate ability to put down the Rebellion. It followed from the nature of the man that he was ready to do anything in his power to aid the cause with which he cast in his lot. A company of State troops in the service of the Union being formed, Mr. McWhorter joined it as a private, in which capacity he served during the year
1861. He saw plenty of active service, as the company to which he belonged was under severe fire on three different occasions. On one of these they were surrounded by at least three times their own number, who besieged them in their roughly fortified position during nearly a week. At length a force of twenty-four volun- teers made a sally during the night and surprised a camp of the besiegers, who were completely discomfited, one of the Confederates being killed, several wounded, and a number of pris- oners made, while the wounding of one man in the State troops was the only casualty on that side. This attack resulted in raising the siege, and Federal soldiers coming up, nearly the whole of the State companies joined the Union forces. Two of these companies were formed for the Ninth Regiment Virginia Infantry and one for the Eleventh Regiment. At the time of the breaking out of the war, Mr. McWhorter packed up his official records and hid them in the house of a Union man in the country, and there they remained until a reorganization of the civil authorities was effected. In May, 1862, the government as reorganized was at the city of Wheeling, and an election being held, a Union man, James H. Brown, of Kanawha County, was elected Judge of the Circuit Court and J. M. McWhorter Clerk of the same court, and the records were brought to the court- house. Only one term of the court was held, however, for the place was raided by Confeder- ate cavalry and the record of proceedings of the term of court just closed was cut out and de- stroyed. Otherwise the records were not dis- turbed. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed the bill by which West Virginia became a separate State. Mr. McWhorter was elected from Roane County to the first Legislature con- vened at Wheeling, June 20, 1863. He was soon appointed a member of the Judiciary Committee, and in his committee work and generally in his legislative career his course on the necessarily momentous questions raised by the condition of the country was such as to claim and hold the respect of all who knew him. Meanwhile he was not swayed by party preju- dice or feeling against his views of the right; an instance showing this being his opposition to and vote against the prescription of the " test oath" on the ground that it was unconstitutional,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
as the organic law of the State prescribed the oath to be taken, and his position was that the Legislature had not the power to prescribe another; and while all the members of his party sustained and supported it, he opposed it. No one doubted his loyalty to his party, however. Another instance was the action of Mr. Mc- Whorter on the matter of the use of intoxicating liquors on election days, which had become a very serious abuse, it being no uncommon thing to see a voter led to the polls in such a condi- tion of intoxication as to be unable to read the names on his ticket or vote intelligently. Mr. McWhorter succeeded in procuring the passage of a law prohibiting the use of intoxicating liquors on election days and making it a penal offence for any one to offer them to voters, and this law has remained in force in West Virginia ever since. Soon after the Legislature con- vened the Confederate General John Morgan made a raid through Kentucky, crossed the Ohio River into the State of Indiana, and thence into the State of Ohio. His object then seemed to be to recross and get back to his own terri- tory through West Virginia. A portion of his command succeeded in crossing at Briffington's Island, but the principal part of his command was forced to seek a crossing higher up the river. Great excitement was produced all along the border, for it was unknown where his next attempt at crossing would be made. Many thought the bridge at Wheeling was his objec- tive point. A company was organized, com- posed principally of members of the Legislature, that manned a boat. They had two pieces of artillery on board, and with bales of hay as a barricade and each member armed with an Enfield rifle, they started up the river to pre- vent his crossing. Gunboats were horrors to the common soldier, and as their boat, manned as it was, passed for a gunboat, it could not have been more effective in its object if it had been a regular gunboat than what it was. Mor- gan and his command kept away from the river until he was captured with his forces. Mr. Mc- Whorter has a regular discharge from this com- pany, in which he feels a pride. When the war broke out, Fields McWhorter, father of J. M., enlisted in the army, joining the Twenty-third Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and served during the entire war, although over age, and was in
the battle of Shiloh. Two of Mr. Mcwhorter's brothers also enlisted and served in the Ninth Virginia Volunteer Infantry, Captain H. C. and Walter F. The latter was killed at the battle of Cloyd's Mountain, in 1864. After the adjourn- ment of the first Legislature of West Virginia, Mr. McWhorter was appointed by the Governor of the State Superintendent of the Penitentiary. The county jail at Wheeling had been adopted as the penitentiary for the time being, and the condition of the institution was such that he found he could be of no real service to the State in that position, and he soon resigned. In 1864, at the Republican convention held in Grafton, Mr. McWhorter was nominated for State Auditor, and was not only elected to that high position in the fall, but was re-elected for a second term in 1866. In 1868 he declined a renomination and also declined standing as a candidate for the governorship of the State, though strongly backed up by his political and personal friends and by so powerful a news- paper as the Wheeling Intelligencer. In the winter of 1869 the West Virginia Insurance Company was organized, and Mr. McWhorter was elected its Secretary and filled the posi- tion until March, 1870, when, the resignation of Judge Harrison leaving a vacancy in the Circuit Court, he was appointed to that po- sition, the circuit comprising the counties of Greenbrier, Monroe, Nicholas, and Pocahontas. In August, 1869, Mr. McWhorter had the mis- fortune to lose his wife, who died, leaving to his care a family of seven small children. On receiving his appointment as Circuit Judge, he removed to the town of Lewisburg, where he has since resided. Judge McWhorter's term of office expired January 1, 1873, and in July of the same year he was appointed Superintendent of Public Schools for the county of Greenbrier, where he also practised his profession, as well as in the adjoining counties, and with marked success and general popularity. In the dis- charge of his duties as Superintendent of Public Schools he was successful in infusing new life into the system of education, making it thoroughly practical and causing it to be gen- erally sustained. Judge McWhorter has been named frequently as a candidate for Congress, and was indeed nominated by one Republican convention, but was despoiled of the nomination
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through factious troubles in the convention, but the large Democratic majority in that district made the position not worth contending for. Judge McWhorter was appointed by President Garfield Postmaster at Lewisburg, and indeed both before and during the war he filled that office at Spencer, Roane County. In all posi- tions in which he has been placed Judge Mc- Whorter has done credit to himself and satisfied his constituents and the public. While a thorough upholder of the organic rights of the States, he believes firmly in the supremacy of the United States Government. In 1892 Judge McWhorter received the Republican nomination for Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals for the long or twelve-year term, and ran the full strength of his party, less the Populist vote that went out of the Republican party during that most extraordinary campaign-resulting in the election of the Democratic candidate, who had also been nominated by the People's or Populist party for the twelve-year term. In his relig- ious belief Judge McWhorter is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Judge McWhorter was married twice, first to Julia Stalnaker, of Harrison County, in 1852, and to them were born ten children, eight sons and two daughters,: Alessandro G., born April 15, 1854; Artemas W., born June 21, 1855; Louis E., born November 30, 1856; Virgil S., born September 22, 1858, died October 29, 1859; William B., born October 1, 1859; Buell M., born September 13, 1861, died September 12, 1862; Maggie E., born November 6, 1862; Joseph C., born February 17, 1864; Walter W., born April 11, 1867, died July 1, 1867; and Deccie J., born December 16, 1868. Mrs. McWhorter died August 26, 1869. On October 26, 1870, Mr. McWhorter married Julia A. Kinsley, daughter of Rev. Hiram and Elsie L. Kinsley, of Geneva, Ohio. Their children are Emma L., born No- vember 4, 1872; Jennie P., born August 3, 1874; Kinsley F., born November 25, 1875, died in January, 1876; and Charles N., born July 17, 1877. Alessandro G. McWhorter, the eldest child of the Judge, married Miss Connie Makowicz, of Lewisburg, and his second son, Artemas W., married Libbie Church, of Fresno, Cal., and both of these sons reside in San Fran- cisco. Louis E. married Emma Champ, of Charleston, W. Va., where he is settled in the
practice of law. William B. married Mattie McCleary and lives in Greensboro, N. C. Mag- gie McWhorter married D. W. Lewis, a Welsh- man, and they live in Newport News, Va. Joseph C. married Miss Lulu Dunn and lives at St. Louis, Mo. Deccie J. married Claud L. Carr and resides in Newport News, Va. The other children are still single. Judge McWhor- ter, who is still in robust health, lives in Lewis- burg, W. Va., and enjoys universal respect for his integrity, his learning, and the candor and courtesy of his nature. He obtains a large share of the legal business of Lewisburg and its vicinity.
MARCELLUS J. KESTER.
MARCELLUS J. KESTER, of Union, Monroe County, born in Harrison County (then Vir- ginia) November 23, 1830, was a son of Conrad and Elizabeth (Lowther) Kester. His parents were both born in Harrison County, his father on the 3d of March, 1803, and his mother on the Ioth of June, 1810. She was of the pioneer family of Lowthers which included "Colonel William Lowther," delegate to the Convention of the States from Virginia. She died in Lewis County (then Virginia) June 18, 1859. In Jackson County (then Virginia), May 29, 1856, Marcellus J. Kester was united in marriage with Lourania E. Dilworth, who was born in Har- rison County June 16, 1832. Anthony and Mary Dilworth, her parents, were born in Har- rison County, and moved to Jackson County, where Mr. Dilworth died a few years since. During the war between the States Marcellus J. Kester was a Confederate soldier in William L. Jackson's cavalry brigade. He took up his residence in Monroe County in 1867, was Clerk of the Circuit Court, and is now a Commis- sioner in Chancery of said court. Mr. Kester studied law and practised his profession in Jackson County until the breaking out of hos- tilities in 1861, when he cast his lot in with the Confederate cause. He writes a fine bold hand and is regarded one of the best Circuit Court clerks in the State. He was Deputy Clerk of Monroe County Circuit Court for a while after the close of the Civil War, during Judge Har- rison's term, and filled the same position again
yours Truly, B.F. Harlow
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
from 1870 to 1872, with Judge McWhorter on the bench of the Seventh Judicial Circuit. In that year Mr. Kester was elected Clerk for the term of six years and then re-elected-making twelve years of continuous service as Clerk of the Circuit Court of Monroe County. He is very amiable in disposition, kind of heart, and altogether is one of the best citizens in the county, having the confidence of all who know him. Politically he is a Democrat, a member of the Methodist Church, and is Recording Stew- ard on the circuit. Mr. Kester is a man of fine literary taste and possesses a large and valua- ble library. His home, near Union, bears evi- dence of culture and prosperity.
BENJAMIN F. HARLOW.
HON. BENJAMIN F. HARLOW, Mayor of Lewisburg, a well-known newspaper editor, member of three Democratic National Conven- tions, and a prominent citizen, was born near Monticello, in Albemarle County, Va., July 20, 1835. He is the son of Henry Martin Harlow and Mary Elizabeth Harlow, née Hawley. He received a common-school education, and at the age of sixteen engaged to learn the printing business in Charlottesville, Va. At eighteen he became one of the editors of the Farmers' Friend, a weekly paper published in Union, Monroe County (then Virginia). The young editor had won his spurs by good work, which had been warmly commended by the public and without in the least exciting his vanity, yet it had fired his ambition to excel as a careful and conscientious writer. In 1855 he took charge of the Greenbrier Era, at Lewisburg, which he edited until November, 1858, when he removed to Memphis, Tenn., and there took a position on the Daily Bulletin. In 1859 he returned to Lewisburg and began the profession of law, in which he continued until the breaking out of the war, at which time he enjoyed quite an ex- tensive and lucrative practice. (The Era ran down and finally ceased publication in 1861.) He had read law in the office of Hon. Samuel Price while conducting that paper, and was ad- mitted to practice at Memphis, Tenn., in 1859, his license being granted by Judge McKernan
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