USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 9
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
vice. At the close of the war he settled in peaceful pursuits on the Potomac River, in historic old Hampshire County, where he mar- ried Mrs. Mary Cresap, widow of Capt. Michael Cresap, who commanded one of the two battal- ions of troops sent by Maryland to Boston at the opening of the Revolutionary War, and who died early in that conflict. Upon the death of his wife, Captain Jacob married Susan McDavitt, a niece by marriage to Sergeant John Champ, who was selected by Washington to attempt the capture of the spy Benedict Arnold. By this second marriage there were issue four chil- dren, two of whom died in infancy. One of the survivors, Julia, became the wife of John W. Vanderver, of Missouri, in which State she died in 1882, at the age of fifty-five years. The other, John J., is the subject of this biography. Captain Jacob died at his home in Hampshire County in 1839, in his eighty-first year. After the war he was a local preacher of the Metho- dist Church, not an itinerant in the full sense, as he had no circuit, nor did he have a pastor's appointment and salary, but simply conducted service for the people of his vicinity, and was much esteemed for his intelligence and high character. He was also a member of the County Court of Hampshire, and as the oldest magis- trate became High Sheriff. He was also a can-' didate for Congress but not elected. After Captain Jacob's death the mother of John J. moved to Romney, where he attended school at the academy, then in the Classical Institute. He finally went to Carlisle, Pa., where he studied at Dickinson College, from which he graduated in 1849. He returned to Hampshire and engaged in teaching as well as in the study of law, which profession he had decided to fol- low; but in 1853 he was appointed to the Chair of Political Economy in the University of Mis- souri, at Columbia, and continued in that pro- fessorship until 1860, and then began the practice of law at Columbia, Mo., where he continued until 1864, when he returned to Hampshire County and continued in law practice at Rom- ney with Col. Robert White as partner. He became popular and prominent in Hampshire County and vicinity, where his learning and ability won recognition in nomination by the Democratic party for the House of Delegates, to which he was elected in 1869. In the follow-
ing year he was nominated by his party in con- vention at Charleston for Governor, and elected. The agitations over the test-oath restrictions against those who had been identified with the Confederacy were very pronounced during this campaign, and in the Legislature of that year the Flick Amendinent was proposed, and the bill passed to submit the question to the people in the following year, 1871, when it was adopted by popular vote of over 17,000 majority. A wise, conservative, experienced man was never needed in the executive chair of West Virginia more than during the transition period from 1869 to 1870-71, in which, under the operation of the amendment removing the disqualification which had so long remained upon the statutes, a large number of citizens of the better classes were restored to the privileges of the ballot. In addition to that, the Democratic sentiment of the State favored the removing of the Capital from Wheeling to Charleston, which was accom- plished by the Legislature of 1870, and in 1871 the whole State government went to that city, where it continued until 1875, when it again re- moved to Wheeling for ten years. (For further reference to the State Capital and Capitol build- ing, see article on "Charleston, the Capital City of West Virginia," in another part of this vol- ume.) Governor Jacob was the first Democratic Governor since the organization of the State, succeeding Governor Stevenson, and, as before remarked, he proved most admirably equipped for the stormy period of his first term of office, which he filled so acceptably that he was again put in nomination as his successor. A sketch of Governor Jacob in "Prominent Men of West Virginia" refers to his second election as fol- lows: "During his administration a Constitu- tional Convention was called, new and in many respects different fundamental law enacted, the entire membership of Circuit and Supreme courts changed, and the party to which he be- longed, from its heavy majority and the envious desires of leaders, was threatened with dissen- sions. The Convention of the party in 1872 nominated Hon. Johnson N. Camden for his successor. Many of the prominent leaders deemed that the excellent administration of Governor Jacob entitled him and the situation demanded for him a second term, and accord- ingly an 'independent' movement was put in
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action, his candidacy announced, his acceptance given, and the two Democratic aspirants for leadership were in the field. The Republicans indorsed the independent one, and in the elec- tion he was successful, and March 4, 1873, was inaugurated for an extended term of four years more." The Legislature of 1875 again changed the Capital to Wheeling, where Governor Jacob removed and continued until the end of his term, March 3, 1877, completing two terms of office in the most acceptable manner, not only to his party but to people of all shades of polit- ical opinion throughout the State. Upon leav- ing the executive Governor Jacob resumed the practice of his profession. In 1878 he was again called on by his party in Ohio County and elected to the House of Delegates-session of 1879. In 1881 Governor Jackson appointed him Judge of the First Circuit, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Hon. Thayer Melvin. In 1882 he was the candidate of his party for the judgeship of the same circuit and was elected. He filled the office to the end of the term, December 31, 1888, when he again returned to private life and the practice of the law. In the " History of the Upper Ohio Valley" Judge Jacob is spoken of in these well-chosen words: " As a lawyer and a judge, Governor Jacob deserves to be classed among the ablest of those who have practised at the bar or sat upon the bench of the First Judicial Circuit. He is a careful, wise, and safe counsellor, an ad- vocate earnest, convincing, and effective, a judge of the strictest honesty and integrity. He has a mind well grounded in the elementary princi- ples of the law, and has exhibited a wonderful familiarity with the rules governing practice. His decisions were reached after the most care- ful and exhaustive research into the authorities bearing on the cause, and if the members of the bar considered him at times tedious, he was re- warded in the end by the large per cent of af- firmed decisions by the higher court." West Virginia has reason to be proud of her Gov- ernors; and, like all the loyal States, she had her "War Governors." Pre-eminently, it may be said of her that she had a model "Peace Governor" in the distinguished subject of this sketch : a Peace Governor in that he was firm, diplomatic, impartial, and absolutely just in his administration, thereby harmonizing the oppos-
ing elements of his party and effectually put- ting an end to all internecine strife. He cer- tainly proved " the man for the hour." In 1853 Mr. Jacob married Miss Jane Baird, a native of Washington, Pa., and a daughter of William and Nancy Baird. Mr. Baird was a prominent lawyer. They are the parents of three children, one of whom, a daughter, survives. Governor Jacob presents the same evenness of disposition and character out of office that he exhibited as Governor, and is a gentleman whom it is a pleasure to meet and converse with. Added to a quiet manner is a friendly, peace-loving dis- position, combined with good judgment and un- perturbed firmness of will. He is one of the few public officials to be found anywhere whose con- sistency has been proof against the attacks of the opposition, and who retire to private life carry- ing with them the universal esteem of their fellow-citizens. He is a member of the National Society of the Sons of the Revolution and Presi- dent of the West Virginia Association.
HOMER A. HOLT.
HON. HOMER A. HOLT, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Vir- ginia, and who was for sixteen years Judge of what is known as the Greenbrier Circuit Court, was born at Parkersburg, Wood County, W. Va., on the 27th day of April, 1831. He is the son of Jonathan Holt and Eliza (Wilson) Holt, and his father was, as far back as 1824, one of the pioneer ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the central part of what is now West Virginia; and he located in 1831 at Weston, Lewis County, where he resided for many years. The family of Judge Holt com- ing from England in colonial days had settled in the neighborhood of Norfolk, Va., where his grandfather, John Holt, was born, who in 1794 moved to and settled in the valley of the Monongahela River. His ancestors on the mother's side came from New England and the North of Ireland, settling at Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) and below there on the Ohio River immediately after the close of the Revolution- ary War. Young Holt received as good an edu- cation as the schools of that day and country
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afforded. He attended Rector College for three years under the tuition of Dr. Charles Wheeler, a distant kinsman on the mother's side, and completed his academical course at the Uni- versity of Virginia during the sessions of 1849-50 and 1850-51. He taught school at Weston during a part of the years 1851 and 1852, and studied law with his brother-in-law, Col. B. W. Byrne, in 1852 and 1853. In the fall of 1853 he was examined by Judges Summers, Edmiston, and Camden and granted license to practise law. He located at Braxton Court-House and was taken into partnership by his brother-in-law, Colonel Byrne, now of Charleston, W. Va. Dur- ing the years 1854, '55, and '56 he was Deputy Surveyor of the counties of Braxton and Nich- olas, and in that capacity became quite familiar with the region lying between the two Kanawha Rivers, having at one time and another surveyed and helped to survey in numerous tracts more than three hundred thousand acres. In the early part of 1862 Mr. Holt was arrested as a Confederate sympathizer and sent to Camp Chase. In January, 1863, he was sent down the Ohio and Mississippi to be exchanged at Vicks- burg, but before reaching that point the ex- change of prisoners was stopped, the steamboats were turned up the Mississippi, and the numer- ous prisoners carried to St. Louis and thence to Camp Douglas, at Chicago. From this point he with many others was in April, 1863, taken east to Baltimore, down Chesapeake Bay, and up James River and exchanged at City Point. He immediately joined Jenkins' Brigade, then at Salem, Roanoke County, Va., afterward com- manded by General McCausland, of Point Pleas- ant, remained with his command until the sur- render in April, 1865, when he returned to Braxton Court-House, W. Va., his old home. He was the member from Braxton County in the Constitutional Convention of 1872, serving on the Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Land Titles, representing the chairman of the latter on the Committee of General Revision. In 1872 he was elected for the term of eight years, beginning Ist January, 1873, Judge of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, comprising the counties of Greenbrier, Pocahontas, Monroe, Summers, Fayette, Nicholas, Braxton, and Clay, a territory of about five thousand square miles, holding two terms a year in each county. Over this large ter-
ritory Judge Holt travelled chiefly on horseback, having one horse that he had ridden more than ten thousand miles. A new circuit having been formed, taking off the counties of Nicholas, Braxton, and Clay, he was again elected for the term of eight years in the remaining five coun- ties, now called the Tenth Circuit. In the year 1890 he was appointed by Governor Fleming to fill a vacancy on the Supreme bench, and was in 1892 elected to the same office, which he now holds. On the 27th January, 1857, Judge Holt married Mary A., daughter and youngest child of John Byrne, Esq., deceased, owner of Bulltown Salt Works, on Little Kanawha River. They have four children living: John H. Holt, a young lawyer of Huntington, W. Va .; Fannie D., wife of W. O. Wiatt, Esq., of the same city; and Robert B. and Nina, who live with their father. The Judge lives on a farm in the edge of the pleasant old town of Lewisburg, in the county of Greenbrier. His home is delightfully situated in latitude 37-40° and 2, 200 feet above sea-level, with mountains in view on all sides for a distance of twenty miles and more. He is thoroughly familiar with the southern half of the State and has long taken a deep interest in its development. During the past twenty years he has seen many of its forests penetrated and seams of coal opened up and made useful by the building of several railroads and the im- provement of one of the principal rivers. He has great faith also in his own section as con- taining valuable beds of iron-ore, and, together with a few energetic friends equally hopeful, is working with might and main to prove their existence and bring them into use. He has long taken an interest in stock-raising and in farm- ing in general, and no year has passed since 1865 that he has not tried to make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before.
ALPHEUS F. HAYMOND.
HON. ALPHEUS F. HAYMOND, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1872, and a distinguished citizen of Fairmont, Marion County, ranks high among the eminent lawyers of West Virginia. His father, Hon. Thomas S.
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Haymond, was one of the most prominent and highly honored citizens of Virginia forty years ago. In fact, the location of that magnificent highway of commerce, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, so as to pass through the county of Marion, was largely due to the labors and the influence of Thomas S. Haymond in the Legis- lature of Virginia, and the debt of gratitude owed by the people of northern and western Virginia in this behalf was fully recognized and acknowledged at that time and for many years thereafter. The strong mind, sound judg- ment, and strict integrity of the father were fully inherited by the son, and he has enjoyed a like degree of public confidence and has been re- peatedly called in various capacities to render service to the State. Alpheus F. Haymond was born near Fairmont, in Marion County, on the 15th of December, 1823. He received the ad- vantage of such education as the times afforded in the common schools of the neighborhood, the academy at Morgantown, and one term in Wil- liam and Mary College at Williamsburg. He studied law in the office of Edgar C. Wilson at Morgantown and was admitted to practice in 1842. Then, as now, lawyers were apt to be called into politics, and " Alf" Haymond (as he has always been familiarly styled) was sent to Richmond as the representative of his county in 1853 and again in 1857. In the stormy days of 1861 he was a member of the Convention called to determine what part Virginia should take in the fearful controversy then pending, and by voice and vote he opposed the plan of secession. How the Convention was at last stampeded into withdrawal from the Union and the protests of the minority were overborne is matter of common history and need not be mentioned here. Impelled by his sense of alle- giance due to his State and his duty of obedience to her laws, Mr. Haymond entered the military service of Virginia in 1862. During nearly four years he served in the Confederate army, in peril, privation, and hardship as all Southern soldiers served, and in 1865 was paroled at the end of the war. In the mean time his family had been compelled to leave their home at Fair- mont and become refugees within the Confed- erate lines; and the husband and father, in hun- ger and thirst and cold and nakedness and in anxiety for those he loved far more than in care
for his own surroundings, did duty as a field com- missary in General Early's brigade of Jackson's army corps. Upon his return to Marion County after the war, he found almost every avenue to livelihood closed against him. The lawyer's test oath debarred him from the practice of his profession, but it was not long before many who knew his ability and desired to avail themselves of his services united in petitioning the Legisla- ture to make an exception in his favor and by formal act authorize him to resume the practice of the law. An enabling act was passed by the Legislature of West Virginia in 1868, and was the first of the special acts adopted for this pur- pose prior to the repeal of the whole system in 1870. When the Democratic party came into power in West Virginia, Mr. Haymond was chosen a member of the Constitutional Conven- tion which assembled in Charleston in 1872, as a representative of the Second Senatorial Dis- trict. In the Convention he was Chairman of the committee that prepared the article on the legislative department, and no member of the Convention wielded a greater influence or had a more potent voice in the shaping of the new Constitution than he. At the election in 1872, which resulted in the adoption of the new Constitution, a full corps of officers was chosen, A. F. Haymond being one of the four Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals. Two were to serve for four years, one for eight, and one for twelve years, and it was provided that elections thereafter were to be for the term of twelve years. Among the four first elected the terms were fixed by lot, and to Judge Haymond was assigned one of the four-year terms. When this expired in 1876 he was elected to a full term, receiving a majority of 15,400 over his highest competitor. During six years of this term he continued to serve upon the bench of the court of last resort in the State, and then resigned the office at the close of the year 1882, having been for ten years a member of the court and during a great part of the time the Presi- dent of that distinguished body. At the end of his long service upon the bench he returned to his home in Fairmont and resumed the practice of his profession as a lawyer. But his public services were not to end here. In 1884, obedi- ent to the wish of the people of his county, he consented to become a member of the House of
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Delegates, and in the Legislature that assem- bled in January, 1885, he was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In all of his long public career as a legislator and as a judge, Judge Haymond has always enjoyed to the fullest ex- tent the confidence of his fellow-citizens. He has never been defeated in his candidacy for any position he was willing to accept. He has never disappointed public expectation, but has always measured up to the full standard. Those who put their trust in him have never been dis- appointed. His influence in the Constitutional Convention and his judicial opinions while upon the bench of the Supreme Court of Appeals will doubtless constitute the chief impression to be left by Judge Haymond upon the history of the State of West Virginia. During his service as a judge many new questions arose out of the adoption of a new Constitution and a new code of laws, and in the determination of these ques- tions he had an important part. The decisions of the court settled the practice in this State and established the rule, and the influence of opinions rendered by Judge Haymond in cases coming before the court will continue to be felt and followed as long as the Constitution and the code endure. Judge Haymond has a pleasant home in Fairmont and is still a lawyer, but his services are now rendered rather in accordance with his own choice than at the request of every ordinary client. Another writer says: "He is a man of whom his fellow-citizens are proud be- cause of his many intellectual and social quali- ties, as well as of his great popularity through- out the State." In 1847 Judge Haymond was happily united in marriage with Maria F. Bog- gess, of a large and influential family in West Virginia, and eleven children have blessed their union. Seven of the children, two sons and five daughters, all prosperous and respected, are living. His son W. S. Haymond is Judge of the Intermediate Court of Marion County, and worthily sustains the high reputation so firmly and so long established by his father in the legal profession. He is also President of the People's Bank of Fairmont, and takes an earnest interest in the progress of Fairmont and its industrial development. Mr. W. S. Haymond was united in marriage to Miss Agnes B. Cruise on the 29th day of January, 1879, and they are the parents of four children.
ADAM C. SNYDER.
ADAM C. SNYDER .- One of the most emi- nent lawyers in West Virginia is Hon. Adam C. Snyder, of Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals. He is a son of John and Elizabeth (Halderman) Snyder, who were early settlers in Pendleton County, Va .; his grandfather, Jacob Snyder, having removed thither from Pennsylvania soon after the close of the Revolutionary War. His mother was a daughter of John Halderman, who was a soldier in the War of Independence. Adam C. Synder was born in Highland (then Pendleton) County, Va., in 1834, and after a preliminary education in such schools as the neighborhood afforded, he attended Mossy Creek Academy, in Augusta County, Va., in 1852-53; Tuscarora Academy, in Mifflin County, Pa., in 1854-55; Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pa., in 1856; and Washington College, at Lexing- ton, Va., in 1857-58. After completing his col- legiate course he entered the law school at Lexington taught by Hon. J. W. Brocken- brough, then Judge of the United States Dis- trict Court for the Western District of Virginia. In those days the business and jurisdiction of the Federal courts had not grown to the enor- mous proportions they have assumed since the war, and hence the Judge had ample time to devote to his students of law. It was his custom to have a number of the students enrolled as jurors, and in that capacity they attended the court at the several places of its sitting in the district. The practical knowledge obtained in this way was of immense advantage to the students and gave them rare opportunities for becoming familiar with the routine work of practice at the bar. No one profited more from his instructions at the law school than did Mr. Snyder, and in 1859 he was admitted to the bar and opened an office in Lewisburg. There was but little work for a young lawyer in a country town in Virginia in 1859, '60, '61, and conse- quently during that time Mr. Snyder occupied a part of his time in writing editorials for one of his town papers. The great storm of war soon to burst upon the country cast its forerun- ning shadow already upon the hearts of men, and in the midst of political agitation business of all kinds languished or stood still. Never-
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theless, Mr. Snyder met with a fair degree of success and was building up a lucrative practice when the war began. In Greenbrier County public sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of the Southern cause, and almost the entire able- bodied male population went into the Confeder- ate army. The Greenbrier Rifles was the first organized company in the county, and it took the field early in 1861 and was mustered in as Com- pany E of the Twenty-seventh Virginia Regi- ment, forming a part of what was afterward called the "Stonewall Brigade." Mr. Snyder joined the company at Harper's Ferry as a pri- vate, and was subsequently elected and commis- sioned a Lieutenant, but was soon after made Adjutant of the regiment. With his regiment he participated in numerous skirmishes in the Shen- andoah Valley, and at Bull Run on the 21st of July, 1861, was wounded in the side by a mus- ket-ball, producing an injury the effects of which are still felt, although the wound healed sufficiently to permit him to remain upon duty in the field and to take part in the expedition to Romney with Jackson and in the battles at Kernstown, Winchester, Cross Keys, Port Re- public, and in the seven days' fighting about Richmond. He remained with the army during the second Manassas fight and was at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettys- burg, thus participating in the hardest-fought conflicts of the war. In August, 1863, he was on furlough and visited friends in Monterey, Highland County, Va., and while there was made a prisoner by a detachment of Federal soldiers. He was taken to the Athenæum, the military prison in Wheeling, and remained there in close confinement until March, 1864, when he was exchanged. Broken down in health, suffer- ing from the wound received in 1861 and from scurvy contracted in prison, he went to his old home in Highland County, and being incapaci- tated from further service he did not rejoin the army. He resumed the practice of law as soon as his health would permit, and in 1865 was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Highland County, Va. Upon the opening of the courts after the war he soon acquired a large practice in the courts of the United States, and took position at once as a leading member of the bar in Greenbrier and adjoining counties. In April, 1882, upon the death of Judge James F. Patton,
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