History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 3

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George C. Sturgiss after the death of his father lived with his mother in Ashtabula County, Ohio. He began earning his living at fourteen, and from the spring of 1856 to the fall of 1859 he worked as a furniture varnisher at points in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and Novem- her of the latter year found him in the City of New York, possessed of $300 in gold that he had managed to save from his earnings. With this gold concealed in a belt around his body he made his way to Fayette County, Penn- Sylvania, to the home of his older brother, and after reach- ing there the brothers decided to pay .a visit to their uncle, C'ol. Addison S. Vance, who had married their father's sister and resided near Morgantown Virginia. They reached Morgantown, November 11, 1859, and that date Judge Sturgiss elaims as the beginning of his permanent residence in the city, whose population was then only 500. The Monongahela River was spanned by a wire suspension bridge. Through the intluenee of Rev. J. R. Moore, then principal of the Monongalia Academy. George C. Sturgiss remained and entered the academy, paying his way through school by teaching and tutoring, assisted by his gold sav- ings fund. He studied law with Hon. W. T. Willey, a col- lege classmate of his father, and in 1863 was admitted to the bar. Judge Sturgiss never graduated from any college or university except the "school of hard knocks."

The war between the states was still in progress and the young lawyer saw no immediate opportunity to secure prae. tive. In 1564 he was appointed paymaster's elerk in the Union Army, and served as such to the end of the war. In the meantime he had become widely acquainted in Monongalia County, and under the new law providing a publie school system was chosen the first county superin- tendent of schools of that county and served two terms of two years each.

Judge Sturgiss was three times eleeted a member of the House of Delegates, serving from 1870. The sole pur. pose of his election to the Legislature was to seeure the Federal Land Grant for the benefit of the future State University at Morgantown. When recently asked what he regarded as the greatest service he had rendered Morgan- town Judge Sturgiss promptly replied: "Securing from the Legislature the United States Land Grant for the fu- ture university." He voted for locating the penitentiary at Moundsville, the insane asylum at Weston and the eap- itol at Charleston, upon condition that the representatives of all these interests vote for the land grant for the in- cipient university at Morgantown, believing that the lat- ter would be worth more than all the others combined, and time has vindicated his judgment.

In 1872 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Monon- galia County and re-elected in 1876, holding office until 1880. In 1880 he was the republican party's candidate for governor, but met defeat with the entire state tieket that year. In 1-89 President Harrison appointed him United States attorney for the district of West Virginia, an office he held until the incoming Cleveland administration.

All the important questions of the day and problems of state government claimed his close attention and study, but especially was he interested in the Tax Reform move- ment. In order to gain a wide audience for views he deemed of paramount importance he purchased and edited the Morgantown Daily Post, through the medium of which he explained his tax reform plans with telling argument After this question was settled he sold the newspaper. ju 1906 Judge Sturgiss was elected to represent the Second West Virginia District in the Sixtieth Congress and was re-elected in 1908, serving from 1907 to 1911. lle was re- nominated in 1910, but shared in the general defeat of his party that year. In 1912 he was elected judge of the Cir enit Court of Monongalia County for the Twenty third Judicial Circuit, serving eight years, until December 31, 1920. He was not a candidate for re-election.

In 1867 Judge Sturgiss became the secretary to the first Board of Trustees of the newly organized University of West Virginia, and served until 1897, when he was ap- pointed a member of the Board of Regents and, by the board was unanimously chosen president and served four years.

Judge Sturgiss has been associated with many enter prises for the upbuilling of Morgantown and vicinity. lle was largely instrumental in bringing to the city its first telegraph line and its first railroad. He made possible the establishment of Morgantown's first electric light plant an 1 its first street car line. He was builder of the first cig teen miles of the Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad. While in Congress he secured the appropriation for the United States Post Office building at Morgantown, com- pleted soon afterward but already too small for the rapid growth in population and business of the city.

HIe located in the Valley of Decker's Creek the Sabrato i Works of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, the Woven Wire Glass Plant, the Pressed P'rism Plate Glass Works and other factories that in 1919 paid out for lal or $250,000 a month or $3.000,000 a year. These works are all in Sturgiss City, a municipality adjoining Morgantown. reated and named by the affirmative vote of ninety-five to six voters, without the solicitation of Judge Sturgiss.

Judge Sturgiss served as a lay delegate in 1896 to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a member. He is a trustee of the American ('niversity at Washington and the West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buchanan. He was first president of the West Virginia State Board of Trade and has been president of the Morgantown Board of Trade. Judge Sturgiss is the oldest member at Morgantown of the Delta Tau Delta fra- ternity both in length of membership and in age. Hle is the oldest in length of membership and in age of Monon- zalia Lodge No. 10, Independent. Order of Odd Fellows, which now has a membership of 450. He has been a dele. gate twice to the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the United States and is the holder of the Past Grand Master's Jewel. voted to him by the State Grand Lodge November 20, 1906

September 22, 1863, Judge Sturgiss married Sabra J. Vanee, of Morgantown. She died May 22, 1903. lle mar- ried Charlotte Cecilia Kent, of Alameda, California, on the 25th day of November, 1908. Judge and Mrs. Sturgiss have four children: Katherine Kent, Helen Marie, Roberta Cecilia and Elizabeth Arahella.

A man of strong convietion and great will power like Judge Sturgiss inevitably makes enemies, but time softens such asperities, and the principle of forgive and forget has all but effaced these enmities from the consciousness of Judge Sturgiss.

MATHEWS FAMILY OF GREENBRIER. From the early years of colonial adventure along the James River men of the Mathews name have had a distinguished part in the af- fairs of Virginia. The scope of their action was extended beyond the Alleghanies before the Revolution, and from about that time they have constituted one of the most notable families of old Greenbrier County, and from here have gone into the larger life of the state and even that of the nation. In the following paragraphs several individuals of the Greenbrier County lineage are selected for special

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

mention with incidental reference to some others whe have made "history."

The first American of the family was Capt. Samuel Mathews, who came to Virginia in 1622, was a leader in an Indian campaign the following year and in 1624 was ene of the commissioners appointed by the king to investigate the condition of the colony. In succeeding years he figured prominently in Colonial affairs, and on March 13, 1658, be- came governor of the colony, was disposed by the House of Burgesses, but immediately reelected, and he died while still in office, in January, 1660.

Another member of this family was Thomas Mathews, who was created an admiral in the British Navy in 1718, and died in 1751. His son, John Mathews, came from Eng- land and settled in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1730, and later permanently located in Rockbridge County, on Mill Creek, a tributary of Buffalo Creek, which empties into North River. Here he operated a large plantation of over 1,600 acres granted him by George the Second, under patent from Governor Dinwiddie. This patent is carefully preserved in the possession of his descendant Charles Gardner Mathews, of Lewisburg, Greenbrier County. John Mathews married Ann Archer, and they were the parents of seven sons and four daughters. Five of the sons, it is recorded, followed Braddock, on his ill fated campaign in 1754. One of the sons, George Mathews, was particularly active and efficient in protecting the early settlers from Indian depredations, and at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, commanded a company under Gen. Andrew Lewis. It was his company that by a forced march up Crooked Creek turned the enemy's flank and saved the day for the Virginians. George Mathews likewise had a conspicuous part in the Revolutionary strug- gle, and received special mention for his service in the hat- tles of Monmouth and Brandywine. At the close of the war he held the rank of brigadier general, and, removing to Georgia, was twice elected governor of that state, in 1786 and in 1794, he was also a member of Congress from Georgia.

However, the branch of the family in which this article is more particularly interested is through another son of John Mathews, Joseph Mathews. Joseph Mathews married Mary Edgar, daughter of James and Mary (Mason) Edgar. They were married April 17, 1794. Of their six children the fifth was Mason Mathews, one of the most notable citizens of Greenbrier County in the last century.

Mason Mathews was born at Lewisburg, December 15, 1803, and died September 16, 1878. His early career was one of hardship and self denial. He was a boy when his father died, and other misfortunes befalling the family at that time he loyally accepted obligations that left him no time for personal leisure or selfish plans. He worked in a store at Lewisburg, and for a number of years turned ever his earnings to the rehabilitation of the family fortuncs. He was deputy to the high sheriff of the county, and in 1828 was elected commissioner of revenue, a position he held many years by reelection. In 1827 he married Miss Eliza S. Reynolds, member of one of the best known families of Lewisburg. Soon afterward he removed to Frankfort, Greenbrier County, and became a merchant, and in the course of years laid the solid foundation of his personal fortune. Subsequently he returned to Lewisburg, and was justice of the peace until the entire judicial system of the state was changed by the convention of 1849-50. For years he was treasurer of the Board of Commissioners of Free Schools. Because of his judicial temperament he was often called upon to arbitrate differences arising among his neighbors. He was a veritable father to his people. He opposed secession, favoring the Union, but when the state passed the ordinance of secession he cast in his lot with the Confederacy, for which he made many sacrifices. From 1859 to 1864 he was a member of the Virginia Legislature. Mason Mathews was a gentlemen of the old school, un- failing in his courtesy, which was given to those of high as well as low estate. He was honest and upright, devoted to his family, and few men enjoyed the love and esteem ac- corded him.

Mason Mathews was the father of eight children, and lived to see seven of them grown, married and successfully

established in life. The most neted perhaps of them as Henry Mason Mathews, who became one of the gut lawyers of West Virginia, served as attorney-general, id also as geverner of the state.

Another son of Mason Mathews was Capt. Alexarer F. Mathews, who added to the prestige of the family nale in Greenbrier County. He was born at Lewisburg in 1:8 and died December 17, 1906. At the age of fifteen he n- tered the University of Virginia, and graduated twe yers later with high honors and the degree Master of As. For a time he taught school, and at the beginning of ie Civil war he espoused the Confederacy and was comrs- sioned captain, and served as aide-de-camp on the staffif General Wise and afterward was in service in North Ca- lina. When the war was over he returned to Lewisbig, with physical energies unimpaired, but impoverished in jr- tune. He married in 1865 Laura Gardner, of Christiag- burg, Virginia. He taught school, and though he ld studied law in the University of Virginia he was debar d from practicing that profession because of having taken p arms against the United States. Later he formed a pat- nership with his famous brother, Governor Henry [. Mathews, and was also a partner for a time of Jure Adam C. Snyder. Capt. Alexander Mathews steadfasy refused to hold office. Along with the legal profession e was a banker for many years, being president of the Bak of Lewisburg. This was the oldest bank between Charlest 1, West Virginia, and Staunton, Virginia. He was a In possessed of high ideals, and made those ideals effective n his every day life. Intellectually he was one of the b.t equipped lawyers of his time.

Capt. Alexander Mathews and wife had seven childre: Mason; Charles Gardner; Mary M., deceased wife of D. 1. T. Davis; Eliza P., the only surviving daughter; Maude D; Florence V .; and Henry A.

Mason Mathews, son of Capt. Alexander F. Mathews, 8 one of West Virginia's ablest bankers and financiers. e was born at Christiansburg, June 29, 1867. He was reail in Lewisburg, and that city has always been his home. e hrad a public school education, attended a military academy at Bethel, Virginia, and studied law until failing eyesigt compelled him to relinquish professional ambition. de soon afterward entered the Bank of Lewisburg as a tell, and has been with that institution thirty years or mo. Since 1906 he has been its president.

His financial ability has brought him a wide field f service. He helped organize the Richwood Bank and Trit Company. He was a director for ten years and later elect! president of the First National Bank of Ronceverti, and 3 still its president. He is now vice president and was te first president of the Virginia Joint Stock Land Bank t Charleston, which succeeded the Virginia Rural Credit As :- ciation, of which Mr. Mathews was also president. He ist director of the West Virginia Mortgage and Discount Ce- poration of Charleston, which was organized in 1921. ]; has also been extensively interested in land and oil €- velopments.

Masen Mathews married Jane C. Montgomery, of Lew - burg. Their children are: Florence M., wife of Bufol Hendrick, Jr .; Alexander F .; and Elizabeth M.

A soldier of the great war, an air pilot, who lost his li in France, was Alexander F. Mathews, only son of t; Lewisburg banker. He was born August 23, 1895, and w educated in the Greenbrier Presbyterian Military School al. graduated in 1914 from Culver Military Academy of I. diana, with the rank of first lieutenant. He also spent year in Purdue University, and in 1915 entered Corn University. He was one of the young men of universi training and technically equipped whe volunteered at t. very beginning of the war when America entered tl struggle. He volunteered for the aviation service in Marc 1917, was in training at Miami, Florida, and in July, 191 ordered to France. He was commissioned first lieutenant . the American Air Force on September 29, 1917, and w: then sent to England for special training with the Roy Flying Corps. April 1, 1918, he returned to France, ar though an American aviator was assigned to duty with t] Eighty.fourth Squadron Royal Flying Corps. Havir

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HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

dowaed 313 enemy machines, he lacked only a fraction of the work required of an "Aee." On the night of August 24, the day after his twenty.third birthday, he was killed hy a German bomb dropped during a raid over the section which he was engaged. Ilis death was instant. ITis aptain wrote as follows:

"'] have known Alex. ever since he joined the squadron and have done a great deal of work with him over the lines, and there was nobody I would sooner go into a serap with. He was an excellent pilot and was very keen, and had he- come one of the tried and trustworthy pilots who are the backbone of a fighting squadron. A chap like Alex. is awfully ha ?? to replace, for although only with us for five months he Jas been in dozens of fights and was a very experienced ind scientifie Hun fighter."

The body of Lieutenant Mathews was subsequently re- turned to America, and was laid to rest in the National Cemetery at Arlington.

Charles Gardner Mathews, a brother of Mason Mathews, the Lewisburg banker, was born at Lewisburg Feburary 14, 1469. He was educated in private schools in Virginia and che University of Virginia, where he studied law. Though admitted to the bar, his active years have been devoted to private business affairs. In 1907 he married Miss Ilar- riet B. Tompkins. Their two children are: Jane Graves and Charles G., Jr.

JOHN WILLIAM MASON, who is engaged in the active prae- tice of his profession in the City of Fairmont, Marion County, is consistently to be designated as one of the able and representative younger members of the bar of his native state. He was born at Grafton Taylor County, April 9, 1885, and is a son of Judge John William and Rebecca Elizabeth ( Wallace) Mason. Judge Mason was one of the most distinguished and influential members of the bar of West Virginia, served as commissioner of internal revenue in the City of Washington, as judge of the Circuit Court, and later as judge of the Supreme Court of West Virginia. .Judge Mason was born on a farm in Monongalia County, this state, January 13, 1842, a son of John Mason, the maiden name of whose mother was Casey. She was a descendant of Nieholas Casey, who was a patriot soldier in the War of the Revolution. Judge Mason read law under the preceptor- ship of the late Judge Hagans of Morgantown, and after achinission to the bar he established himself in practice at Grafton. 1n 1889 President. Harrison appointed him United State commissioner of internal revenue, and he continued the incumbent of that office until 1893. Returning from the not.ional capital to West Virginia, Judge Mason was en- zaged in the practice of law at Fairmont until 1900, when he was elected to the bench of the Circuit Court of the eireuit then comprising Marion, Harrison and Monongalia counties. His service on the Cireuit beneh continued until January 1, 1913, and thereafter he was engaged in private practice at Fairmont until November, 1915, when Governor Hatfield appointed him a judge of the Supreme Court of the state. He continued his service as a member of this tribunal until January 1, 1917, and thereafter he was en- gaged in the practice of his profession, in a restricted way, until the time of his death, which occurred at Fairmont on the 23d of April of the same year. Judge Mason by his character and ability honored both the beneh and the bar of his native state and was a man who ever commanded un- qualified popular confidence and good will. His high place in the esteem of his professional coofreres was shown in his election to the presidency of the West Virginia Bar Associa- tion. The wife of Judge Mason was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, December 21, 1842, a daughter of John and Mary (Manser) Wallace, both of Scoteh lineage. Mrs. Mason did not long survive her husband, as she died on the 10th of April, 1919, her memory being revered by all who came within the sphere of her gentle and gracious influence.

John William Mason, who bears the full name of his dis- tinguished father, supplemented the training of the Fair- mont schools by attending the State Normal School, and afterward continued his studies in the University of West Virginia. Later he entered the law school of Yale Univer- sity. He received from the State University the degree of Vol. 11-2

Bachelor of Arts in 1908, and from Yale the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1910, the same degree having been con- ferred upon him in the preceding year by the University of West Virginia. While at Vale he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Yale Law Journal. lle was ad- mitted to the bar at Fairmont, February 22, 1909, before he had received his law degree, and in 1910 he engaged in the practice of his profession at Fairmont, in partnership with A. C. Merrill, the firm of Merrill & Mason continuing until the following year, and for somewhat more than a year thereafter Mr. Mason was associated with his father in practice.

December 20, 1914, Mr. Mason was commissioned captain in the Quartermaster Department of the West Virginia Na- tional Guard, and June 18, 1916, he was called into active service in connection with troubles on the Mexican border. He was on active duty as assistant eamp quartermaster under Maj. Charles R. Morgan in the City of Charleston until the following November, and thereafter continued his law prae- tice at Fairmont until August 1, 1917, when he was mustered into the United States Army, with the rank of captain, and was assigned to service as assistant to the constructing quartermaster at Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, Ala- bama. On the 14th of the following December he became assistant to the camp quartermaster, and on the 19th of January, 1918, he was assigned to duty as salvage officer at that Camp. On the 12th of the following October, Captain Mason was transferred to Camp Fremont, California, where he served as eamp salvage officer until the Ist of the follow- ing February, when he was assigned to duty as assistant salvage zone officer at Fort Mason, in the City of San Fran- eiseo. On the 19th of the following June he was made zone salvage officer, and in this capacity he served until October 16, 1919, when he received his honorable discharge. There- after he continued in the private practice of his profession at Fairmont until January 1, 1921, when he was appointed assistant prosecuting attorney of Marion County. In his profession and as a loyal and publie-spirited eitizen he is well upholding the prestige of the honored family name.

Captain Mason is a member of Fairmont Lodge No. 9. A. F. and A. M., is a Knight Templar and an eighteenth degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of Osiris Temple of the Mystie Shrine in the City of Wheeling. He is also a member of the American Legion, Elks and Odd Fellows and is a member of the Country and Automobile elubs of his home city.

Captain Mason married Miss Josephine Colbert, daughter of Henry Clay Colbert, of Martinsburg, this state, and their one child is a son, John William (III), born May 25, 1914.

ADAM B. LITTLEPAGE, who for three terms was a member of Congress from West Virginia, his last term coineiding with the period of the war, with Germany, earned a dis- tinetively high place as a lawyer as well as a statesman, and he was still enjoying an undiminished prestige in his pro- fession when overtaken by death June 29, 1921.

Adam Brown Littlepage was born in Kanawha County April 14, 1859, son of Adam and Rebecca T. (Wood) Littlepage. His father was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia, where his French-Scotch ancestors had settled. In 1840 he built salt works near Kanawha Saline, where he engaged in salt manufacturing and contracting, re- moving from there in 1845 to a farm near Kanawha Two- Mile. He possessed business qualifications of a high order and became a man of large estate. During the unhappy Civil war he suffered great losses, many of which he claimed to be unjust, and he subsequently gave up his life in a duel at Dublin, Virginia, in an effort to sub- stantiate his right to a valuable property. Although the larger part of the fortune which he had acquired was not preserved to bis family, they were able to retain 900 aeres of land, little of which, however, was contributive to the comfort or maintenance of his immediate family. Adam Littlepage married Rebecca T. Wood. She was born i Kanawha County, Virginia, and died at Charleston, West Virginia, in 1898, aged seventy-one years. Seven children were born to this marriage, several of whom died in infancy. One son, Alexander, became a noted physician,

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

while Adam B. and Samuel D. both became lawyers and both gained prominence as members of the Charleston bar.

Adam B. Littlepage attended the public schools in Kanawha County. The death of his father in 1862 had brought about domestic changes, and the advantages that might have been accorded the children of the family were measurably limited. When the youth decided to study law he went to his uncle, who was a resident of Lodi, Indiana, and remained with him until the latter's death, after which for a time he was employed in settling up his uncle's large estate. In his early endeavors to secure an educa- tion in law that would admit him to practice Mr. Little- page met with many discouragements which to a man of less determination would have caused his turning to some other means to gain a livelihood. Fortunately he had faith in himself, an important factor in the pursuit of any ambition, and struggled on until he attained his de- sire. In painful measure in his early years of law practice at Newport, Indiana, in which state he had been admitted to the bar, he was hampered by laek of means, increased somewhat by the desire as well as necessity of contribut- ing to the support of those dear to him. In this connection it may be mentioned that when his income was $50.00 a month he sent thirty-five dollars of this amount to his mother. Also, in Indiana he found himself not altogether in touch with the people and conditions which surrounded him, and after two years of trial a natural feeling of homesickness perhaps had its influence and he returned to Kanawha County, opening an office at Charleston.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 3

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