USA > West Virginia > Monongalia County > History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, from its first settlements to the present time; with numerous biographical and family sketches > Part 26
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His uncle, Col. McCleery, who had previously held the office of Deputy Attorney-General in the old District Court, and afterwards Attorney for the Commonwealth in the County Court of Monongalia County, having, in 1811, resigned the office, Mr. Gay, near the close of the war (June, 1814), was appointed Commonwealth's Attorney in the County Court of Monongalia; and so great was the confidence reposed in him, that he was appointed to and held the office for thirty-three consecutive years (until 1847), when he resigned.
In 1814, at the call of the Governor of Virginia for sol-
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diers to repel the threatened invasion of Virginia by a large British military force, which it was supposed would land within the Chesapeake Bay, Mr. Gay volunteered in a cav- alry company raised in Monongalia County, and commanded by Captain William N. Jarrett, of Morgantown. The com- pany was ordered to the defense of Washington City; but before it had proceeded on its march very far, was met by the news that the National Capital had been burned, and the enemy had embarked on board their vessels for the South, and that the further services of the company were not required.
On the 1st of December, 1814, "The Monongalia Farm- er's Company of Virginia," a bank of exchange, discount and deposit, was organized in Morgantown under a charter granted by the General Assembly of the State. Mr. Gay was chosen among its first Board of Managers (directors), and was annually chosen a member of its Board until it ceased to transact business. In 1840, he was appointed trustee by its Directors, collected its assets, and, after pay- ing its liabilities, equitably distributed the residue among its stockholders.
The people of Monongalia County, and indeed of West- ern Virginia, have always cherished a just pride in the past history of Monongalia Academy. The practical record of this far-famed institution, is found in the hundreds of thor- oughly educated men-not only in Western Virginia, but in all the adjacent and many of the distant States of the Union,-who have been fitted in its classic halls for the highest positions in church and state, and whose honorable, useful and successful lives, keep fresh, and will indefinitely perpetuate the memory of the men who through so many laborious years, without fee or reward, unselfishly devoted
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themselves to the cause of education in Northwest Virginia. Monongalia Academy lives to-day in the University of West Virginia, for whose use, in 1867, all its valuable real estate, library, apparatus, moneys and investments were donated to the State of West Virginia. In 1827, Mr. Gay was elected President of the Board of Trustees, and was re-elected continuously and consecutively until his death in 1857. The following record of his faithful services is found upon the minutes of the proceedings of its Board :
"At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Monongalia Academy, held May 2, 1857, the following resolution, presented by Edgar C. Wilson, was unanimously adopted and ordered to be entered in the minutes :
" Resolved, That the Board of Trustees now assembled feel called upon by the decease of Mathew Gay, Esq., to express the high estimation in which he has long been held by this Board, over which he has presided for the last thirty years. We bear testimony to the many excellencies of character which have made hin for so long a time the Presiding Officer of this Board, and our companion and wise counsellor in the discharge of the duties devolving upon us."
In 1834, the Merchants and Mechanics' Bank of Wheel- ing at Morgantown-a branch of the Merchants and Me- chanics' Bank of Wheeling, at Wheeling, Virginia-was organized. Mr. Gay, who, up to 1841, was a Director of the bank, in that year, on the death of Thomas P. Ray, its first President, was chosen and was thereafter annually elected its President until his death, which occurred on the 17th of March, 1857, and was announced in the Virginia Star of the 21st of that month, as follows :
"Died, on Tuesday morning, the 17th inst., after about a week's illness of pneumonia, Mathew Gay, Esq., President of the M. & M. Branch Bank of this place, aged seventy-eight years. The de- ceased was one of our oldest citizens, having resided here during
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the last fifty years. He enjoyed the esteem of his fellow-citizens. His remains were followed to the grave on Thursday afternoon last, by a large concourse of friends."
The Wheeling Times of the 18th of March made the fol- lowing announcement :
"We regret to learn of the death of Mathew Gay, Esq., President of the M. & M. Bank at Morgantown. The news was received here yesterday, with unaffected regret, by a large number of our citizens, to most of whom he was well known, and among whom he was generally esteemed."
Having been a member of the Monongalia County bar for fifty years, and actively engaged in the practice of the law for more than forty years, at the first term of the Circuit Court of the county held after his death, the following record was made in its proceedings :
"At a Circuit Court held in and for Monongalia County, on the 8th day of April, 1857 : Present, the Hon. George W. Thompson, Judge of said Court : Edgar C. Wilson, Esq., arose and announced to the Court that since the last term, Guy R. C. Allen, Esq., and Mathew Gay, Esq., members of this bar, have departed this life ; . and that at a meeting of the surviving members of the profession practicing at this bar, held this day, the following resolutions had been unanimously adopted."
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Those of these resolutions relating to Mr. Gay are as follows :
"That although Mr. Gay had, for many years, retired from the bar, yet his long professional career, his rigid integrity, and his character as a citizen in all the relations of life, had commanded the public respect and veneration in no ordinary degree. He died full of years, honored and respected by all who knew him.
"That, as an enduring memorial of the deep feeling of sorrow and regret inspired in the bosom of every member of this bar, at his death, and of their high regard for his memory, the Court now in session be respectfully requested to direct these resolutions to be entered of record among the proceedings of the term.
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"Whereupon the Court said, that from his long acquaintance with the deceased, and high regard for his many virtues, he con- sidered it highly proper that the said proceedings be entered of record, and it is ordered accordingly ; and it is further ordered, that the Clerk of this Court furnish a copy thereof to the family of the deceased, and to the newspapers of this place for publication.
"On motion of Edgar C. Wilson, Esq., and as a further mark of respect for the memory of the deceased, it was ordered, that the Court do now adjorn till to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock."
Four sons of Mr. Gay-William M., Alexander S., John G. and Mathew, and a daughter, Sarah A., are deceased. Four daughters survive-Jane V., wife of Andrew McDonald, Esq., of Orlando, Florida; Jennette J., wife of Dr. M. W. Tate, of Lexington, Missouri ; Margaret P., wife of the Hon. William G. Brown, of Kingwood, W. Va., and Mary E., wife of John J. Brown, Esq., of Morgantown, W. Va.
GUY RICHARD CHAMPLAIN ALLEN was born in Wood County, August 18th, 1803; removed to Preston County, where he was appointed Prosecuting Attorney, about 1832, and served until 1852; was elected to the Legislature in 1828, and re- elected in 1829. He removed to Morgantown, where he practiced law for many years, and was known as a lawyer of ability throughout the State, and was a very prominent man in Monongalia County during his life. He died December 4, 1856. The Monongalia bar adopted resolutions testifying to his worth and ability as a man and a lawyer. 1
PHILIP HENRY KECK was born March 6, 1820, in Reading, Berks County, Penn. His father, John Keck, removed to Monongalia in 1822, and located about eighteen miles west of Morgantown, where he died in 1860. Philip Henry read law in Morgantown, in 1843-4, and was admitted to the bar October 28, 1844; was elected Prosecuting Attorney in
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1856, and has industriously practiced his profession at Mor- gantown from 1844 until this time without a single interrup- tion.
EDWARD C. BUNKER was born in New York City, October 9, 1830, and came to Kingwood, Preston County, when six or seven years of age to live with his uncle, the late Israel Baldwin, who was his guardian. He entered Washington College in 1844, but was compelled to quit the school on account of ill health. He studied law, in 1849, with Guy R. C. Allen, of Morgantown, and was admitted to the bar at Kingwood in 1850. He married Miss Delia, daughter of the late Harrison Hagans, of Preston County, and removed to Morgantown in 1857, and became associated with the Hon. Waitman T. Willey in the practice of law. He was Prose- cuting Attorney for Monongalia County from 1861 to 1863, when he was elected to the State Senate, and was a member of that body until appointed to the judgeship of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, in 1865, when he removed to Piedmont, where he died on the 24th of November, 1867. He was buried at Kingwood. A high tribute of respect was paid him by the bar in his district, "bearing testimony to his pure, uncorrupt sense of justice and right," as being " a citizen of tried public and private virtues," and "a faithful, upright and efficient judge." Judge Bunker was a Briga- dier-General of the Militia. At the age of seventeen he united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he remained an earnest member until his death. He was an official member of that church at Morgantown.
WILLIAM P. WILLEY is the eldest son of the Hon. Wait- man T. Willey, and was born at the old homestead, on "Chancery Hill," in the suburbs of Morgantown. After
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completing his primary education in the schools of the county, Mr. Willey entered the freshman class of Alleghany College in 1858, where he completed the freshman year, and then entered the sophomore class of Dickinson College, and was graduated from that institution June 26, 1862. Three years after, this college conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts, at which time he was chosen to deliver the Master's oration of his class. On leaving college, he began the study of law in his father's office, and was admitted to the bar at Morgantown on May 12, 1864. He became associated with his father in the practice of his profession, the firm name being Willey & Son. As his father was then in the United States Senate, and necessarily absent the greater part of the time, the most of the business of the firm devolved upon the junior member. It is an incident in his experience, that the first case he tried happened to be the first one ever tried in Monongalia in which negroes were admitted as witnesses. He defended a negro upon a charge of assault and battery made upon a negro, in which all the witnesses were negroes; and which, by reason of the pronounced color in the case, made it a conspicuous trial.
Two years after his admission to the bar, Mr. Willey was elected Prosecuting Attorney for a term of two years. In the spring of 1873, seeking larger opportunities, Mr. Willey removed to St. Louis; but just before leaving his native county, he married Miss Lida B. Allen, daughter of the late Guy R. C. Allen. The climate of St. Louis being unfavora- ble to Mr. Willey's health, after a residence of eight months there, he removed to Baltimore, to whose bar he was ad- . mitted in February, 1874. After he had some business on his own account, he formed a co-partnership with Isaac Mc- Curley, under the firm-name of McCurley & Willey. Here
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he practiced his profession with quite an average measure of success and with much relish, until the fall of 1878, when the proprietors of the Wheeling Register (a daily and weekly newspaper), offered him the editorship of that paper, which he accepted. Reluctant to quit the practice of the law, his decision was influenced by the fact that he would once again become a citizen of his native State. Mr. Willey continued to edit the Register until in August, 1883, when he resigned, having been elected in June, by the Board of Regents of the West Virginia University, to the chair of History in that institution.
In politics, Mr. Willey has been a Democrat from boy- hood. Although differing with his father, his family and most of his nearest friends, he has done so not captiously, but regretfully, frankly, honestly, and with the courage of his convictions. While pursuing his law studies, he con- ceived the idea of publishing a county paper, and securing a partner in his fellow law student, George C. Sturgiss, they together published The Morgantown Monitor for a year. It was a Democratic paper, and in the Republican county of Monongalia, during the year 1863, when the civil war was at its height, it is needless to say that it encountered very intense opposition. Though a Democrat in a county over- whelmingly Republican, Mr. Willey was accorded the merit, at least, of being honest in his political convictions; and the next year after he was admitted to the bar the people of his native county elected him to the office of Prosecuting Attorney. Mr. Willey made the first Democratic speech -addressed the first Democratic meeting-in Monon- galia County after the war. In 1868, he received the nomination for Attorney-General from the first State Con- vention held by the Democrats after the war. He was a
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delegate to the Baltimore Convention which nominated Horace Greeley, but refused to acquiesce in that action of his party ; was the one dissenting voice in the convention against making the nomination unanimous; denounced it throughout the campaign as the greatest political burlesque of the age; and raised an O'Connor flag of his own in front of the court-house, although there was but one other voter in the county who favored his candidate.
ALFRED GALLATIN STURGISS was born at Meadville, Penn., in 1844. He served in the Federal Army during the war; read law with Berkshire & Sturgiss, and was admitted to the bar at Morgantown, May 13, 1868. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney, and served the term of two years, 1868-70. He married Miss Emma A., youngest daughter of William Wagner, Esq .; removed to Oakland, Maryland, where he is engaged in the business of a druggist.
GEORGE COOKMAN STURGISS is the son of the Rev. A. G. Sturgiss, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was born at Poland, Mahoning County, Ohio, August 16, 1842. His father married Sabra L. Miner, and their children were Joseph W., George C. and Alfred G. George C. was named for the Rev. George Cookman, a distinguished minister of the Gospel who went down on the ill-fated President about 1841. His father dying in 1845, Mr. Sturgiss, at the age of eleven years, with a varnish brush in hand, went through parts of Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, an itinerant furniture varnisher. He came to Monongalia County to visit friends in 1859, and attended the Monongalia Academy, taught school, and studied law. He was admitted to the Monongalia bar on the 11th of May, 1864, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession. He
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was one of the editors of The Morgantown Monitor, referred to in the sketch of Prof. William P. Willey. On the 22d of September, 1863, he married Miss Sabra J., the second daughter of the late Colonel Ad- dison S. Vance. Mr. Sturgiss was paymaster's clerk in 1864-5. He served as the first County Superintendent of Free Schools of Monongalia, and was two terms in that office, during which he placed the free school system in that county on a firm basis. He was a member of the House of Delegates of the Legislature of West Virginia in 1870, 71 and 72. In the last-named year he was elected Prosecuting Attorney and served in that office from 1873 to 1880, both years inclusive. It was while he was in the discharge of the duties of that office that he was unanimously nominated for the office of Governor of the State, by the State Con- vention of the Republican party. Though defeated, he ran ahead of his ticket, and in the canvass made a reputation as a man of fine abilities and as a logical, convincing and impressive orator.
Mr. Sturgiss still resides at Morgantown, and with ex- Judge Berkshire, his law partner, practices in Monongalia and the adjoining counties. No man in Monongalia County has ever taken a deeper interest or been more active in the work of developing the resources of the county. In the last few years Mr. Sturgiss has spent much time in efforts to perfect arrangements for the building of the proposed Iron Valley and Morgantown Railroad.
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and an active worker in the Sunday-school.
WAITMAN WILLEY HOUSTON was born in Union District, Monongalia County, May 9, 1858. His father, William H.
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Houston, was a son of William Houston who married Abbie Baker, and came from New Jersey to this county. William H. Houston married Permelia, daughter of John Costolo, and Waitman W. is the eldest of their two living children. The manner in which he came by his Christian name is peculiar. When a boy, between four and five years of age, no permanent name having yet been given him, he was with his father at a meeting which was addressed by the Hon. Waitman T. Willey. He asked the name of the man who was speaking. Being answered that it was Waitman Willey, he replied that that was his name, and went by it from that time.
Mr. Houston attended the West Virginia University, read law with Mr. Willey, then completed the University law course, and was admitted to the bar April 16, 1880. He was appointed Assistant Prosecuting Attorney the same day, and at the election in the fall he was elected to the office of Prosecuting Attorney for the term of four years.
He married, December 15, 1881, Saida M., daughter of John Long, of Orville, Wayne County, Ohio. Mr. Houston when a boy was fond of public speaking and of participa- ting in debates. In his close application to the principles and practice of the law, he has shown himself to be of that class who are lawyers from choice and love of their profes- sion, devoting themselves to its intricacies, and enjoying with a keen relish intellectual contact in the courts, and who aspire, by close application to business, attention and earnestness, to mark out a course of life in the profession, useful to the public and honorable to themselves.
THOMAS P. RAY .- One of the most prominent citizens of Monongalia County, in his day and generation, was Thomas
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P. Ray. No history of the county would be complete, without a sketch of his life. Indeed, for many of the latter years of his life, his history would be, essentially, the history of the county, so far as material development, and public improvements are related to it. The nature and limitation of this work, however, will only allow a meager outline.
Mr. Ray was born May 14, 1796, in the Isle of Wight. Six weeks after his birth, his parents, Patrick and Mary Ray, sailed from England, and, after a tedious voyage, arrived at Philadelphia. Thence they came to the vicinity of Wells- burg, Brooke County, where they remained about nine years, and then removed down to the town of Wheeling. Here young Thomas lived with his parents until he was about fifteen years old, when he came to Morgantown, Monongalia County, to write in the clerk's office in the employ of Nimrod Evans, Clerk of the Court of said county. He soon commanded the confidence not only of his employer, but also the esteem of the bench and the bar, and the people ; and by his diligence, industry and capacity, in a few years became one of the most expert and best quali- fied clerks in the State.
On the death of Mr. Evans, Mr. Ray succeeded to the place of his principal; and after the adoption of the amended constitution of 1831-2, erecting Circuit Superior Courts of Law and Chancery in each county, Mr. Ray was appointed clerk of that court also ; and continued to hold the office in both the inferior and superior courts of the county until his death.
Mr. Ray was married on the 22d of June, 1819, to Miss Jennett Smith, of Alleghany County, Maryland. Three children were the fruit of this marriage-Col. George S. Ray, who died many years ago; Volender Ray, who is also
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dead, and Delia Ray, the only surviving child, and who is the wife of Col. James Evans. His home in Morgantown, soon became the very seat of hospitality-a hospitality most cordial and generous. His house was always open to his friends, and persons from abroad ever received from him those courtesies and kind offices which are so grateful to the stranger.
But his distinguishing trait of character was his public spirit; and the distinguishing feature of his history was his assiduous, persistent and unselfish efforts to promote the public welfare by all available and proper instrumen- talities. The organization and endowment of the "Monon- galia Academy" are noted in the proper place in these pages. This institution owed its existence to the personal exertions of Mr. Ray; and inasmuch as its property and endowments, by their transfer, became one of the controll- ing inducements for the erection of the University of West Virginia at Morgantown, the people of Monongalia are thus indirectly indebted to Mr. Ray for this institution. It was, also, through his instrumentality that a branch of the old Merchants and Mechanics' Bank of Wheeling was secured at Morgantown-of which he was president for many years.
Mr. Ray devoted much of his time in the earlier part of his life, in unavailing efforts to secure the improvement of the Monongahela River by slackwater navigation, from the Pennsylvania line to the junction of the West Fork and Tygart's Valley rivers. He secured a survey, but nothing further in that direction.
He was more successful in securing the charter and con- struction of turnpike roads. It was principally through his personal and persistent efforts, that legislative aid was secured to build what was known as the Brandonville and
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Fishing Creek Turnpike, and the Beverly and Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the Ice's Ferry Road. Nor was he satisfied with obtaining the means to prosecute these works; but gave much of his time and attention to surveying and loca- ting them, and still further superintending their construction. There were no improvements of general interest to the county, during the mature years of his life, of which he was not the principal factor; and to no other citizen, during these years, was the County of Monongalia so largely indebted for its material prosperity and development.
It was supposed that his indefatigable labors in such efforts, added to the discharge of his official duties, super- induced the malady which terminated his active and useful life at Baltimore, whither he had gone for medical treat- ment, in the forty-sixth year of his age, on the 14th of October, 1841. The following extract from The Democratic Republican, noticing his death, although it was written, doubtless, by the hand of warm personal friendship, in a moment of recent bereavement, contains no statement not fully warranted by the whole tenor of his life :
"Mr. Ray has been long and favorably known as a citizen of our town. He was a man of strong mind-of great business habits, and of unquestioned integrity. As clerk of our County and Supe- rior Court, it is believed that there was no officer of the kind in the State his superior, and few that were his equals. He attended to more business of a public nature, and without compensation, than we have ever known attended to by one of our citizens. As the active and managing head of several road companies and incorpo- rations-as Trustee of the Borough-as Treasurer and Trustee of the Monongalia Academy-as President of the Bank in Morgan- town ; and in the various offices and appointments with which he was entrusted, he displayed the most untiring industry, judgment, and ability. Mr. Ray was truly the friend and assistant of the poor ; his heart and purse were ever open to their wants. He con-
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tributed liberally to the support of the Gospel, to all charitable and benevolent associations, and to the internal improvement of the county. Few men have departed this life more generally and more sincerely lamented within the circle of his acquaintance."
GEORGE S. RAY, son of Thomas P. Ray, was born Sep- tember 27th, 1823; was graduated from Jefferson College, and read law with Edgar C. Wilson, and was admitted to the bar September 8, 1845. He was the editor of the Western Virginia Standard and of The Monongalian, in 1847 and 1849. He was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court in 1852, and died on the 17th of August, 1856-cut down in the very prime of his life.
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