USA > West Virginia > Prominent men of West Virginia: biographical sketches, the growth and advancement of the state, a compendium of returns of every election, a record of every state officer; > Part 14
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His speech on agriculture, in the Senate, delivered January 4, 1879, was perhaps the most interesting of all his efforts. Reared at the plow, and diverted from farm labor to railroading while yet a lad, he seems ever to have turned to the powers and possibilities of the soil and the treasures hidden beneath with more pleasure than to anything else. Almost his first move after obtaining a foothold in the world was to purchase a farm, and for fifteen years his agricultural operations have grown gradu- ally, until he is to-day, no doubt, the most extensive land owner and tiller in the State. His speech of May 3, 1881, on the debt question between the two Virginias, was also a very strong
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and equitable presentation of the issue in which the two Com- monwealths have such vital interests at stake. The attack upon the book-keeping of the United States Treasury was one of the most significant acts of his public career. He charged that changes and alterations had been made in the books of the department to such an extent that they did not present a a correct view of the public accounts, and especially that changes in the total of the public debt had been made after the books had been balanced for many years. His first speech in making the charge provoked very general comment through- out the nation, and as an effort showing a careful study of the subject, resulting in a comprehensive and luminous statement, was remarkable. He made no charge of defalcation or criminal wrong-doing of any kind on the part of the Treasury officials, but asserted that the balances had been altered to suit the idiosyneracy of some officer, after having stood unques- tioned for a number of years. He was made chairman of a special committee to investigate the subject, and the finding of the committee not only sustained his assertions in relation to the changes in the Treasury balances, but made valuable recommendations to the conduct of the work of that depart- ment, some of which have become laws. His service as chair- man of the Senate Committee on Appropriations during the entire time his party was in control of the body is familiar history. The great importance of the work done by this com- mittee make it virtually the leading one oi the Senate, and Mr. Davis presided over it for two years with such conspicuous ability and firmness, that when the Republicans again obtained control they created a special committee, that he might retain the prestige and privileges of a chairmanship. They also named him as the first Democrat on the Appropriation Con- mittee, which position he continued to hold to the end of his term.
The political position of ex-Senator Davis has been as eminent as his success in business and social life. He always held a leading place in the councils of his party. He declined to allow the use of his name as a candidate for a third term in the Senate, as the following letter shows :
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PIEDMONT, W. VA., November 18, 1882.
I have recently received a number of letters and personal in- quiries from members of the Legislature-elect, candidates for the United States Senate, and other friends, asking me if I would be a candidate for re-election, and expressing their preference for me, if such was my intention. To all such inquiries my general answer has been that for the past two or three years I have often said, in public and private, that I would not be a candidate for re-election. Business is more agreeable to me than politics, and I am now engaged in lumbering, mining, banking and farming, and in connection with some friends who are capitalists, living both in and out of the State, am construct- ing a railroad, running north and south through an undeveloped region, rich in mineral, timber and agricultural wealth, and in- tended, when completed, to connect the Baltimore and Ohio and Chesapeake and Ohio railroads. My ambition is to make a success of these enterprises, especially the building of the railroad. These and other private matters are reasons which forbid my being a candidate for re-election.
In the many trusts heretofore confided to my keeping, I have always endeavored to do my full duty ; and I thank the people of the State, and especially my friends, for the political honors that have been conferred upon me.
Very Respectfully, H. G. DAVIS.
To Mr. Davis, perhaps, more than to any other man, West Virginia owes her progressive material development. He has for more than thirty years been a leader in every movement that had for its object the opening up of her vast forests and mines. His greatest enterprise is the West Virginia Central Railway, of which he is the projector and President. It is a colossal work, and is being rapidly pushed. The road begins at Cumberland, Md., where it connects with the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio systems, and is now completed and in operation to the new town of Elkins, on the Tygart's Valley river, in Randolph county, one hundred and fifteen miles south- west of Cumberland. It will be a north and south line through the central part of the State, developing immense coal, timber and iron ore districts, and is intended to connect with the Chesapeake and Ohio road somewhere in the Kanawha Valley. It is claimed that the section of country being opened by the West Virginia Central Railway is the richest in timber and mineral resources to be found on the continent. Mr. Davis has
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thus far proved himself master of this great improvement. Many of his old political and business associates, including Blaine, Windom, Gorman, Bayard, Whyte, Camden, Bar- num, Chaffee and Schell, (the last three now deceased), have taken stock and bonds of this railroad, which may be con- sidered an earnest of their confidence in both his honesty and business sagacity.
Senator Davis' large business interests in the vicinity of Piedmont have aided greatly to develope the town where he still votes and has his residence. He is now engaged in the erection of the "Davis Free School" there, at a cost of twelve or fifteen thousand dollars, which is nearing completion, and will be a gift to the town.
Keyser, five miles east of Piedmont, was mainly born of Mr. Davis' energy. In 1865 he bought the farm of Col. E. M. Armstrong, at what was then called New Creek, and laid out a town, which was made the county-seat of Mineral, when Hamp- shire county was divided, and now has a population of two or three thousand. It is an important point on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
The next enterprise in " town-building " was Deer Park. In 1867, as before stated, he bought several thousand acres of timber land at this now widely celebrated mountain resort, which was then but a forest, and began lumbering on a large scale, transporting his product to the railroad by means of a tram-road several miles in length. This employed a large num- ber of men, who, of course, required homes. A town was laid out and houses built for them. The village now has about three hundred people. When the land next the railroad had been sufficiently improved and cleared to reveal its natural beauty, the late John W. Garrett, then President of the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad, and one of Mr. Davis' intimate friends, paid him a visit here, the result of which was the erection of the Deer Park Hotel in 1873.
Senator Davis is still building towns. When the West Vir- ginia Central Railway opened the Elk Garden coal field, lying south from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, at Piedmont, and from which about 1,500 tons of coal are shipped daily, the pre- liminary measures were repeated and Elk Garden is now a thrifty and growing mining town of about one thousand inhabitants.
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Then following the line of the railroad, a large tract of land was purchased at the junction of the Beaver and Blackwater rivers, in Tucker county, some ten miles southwest of "Fairfax Stone," and there, in the midst of an immense hemlock forest, " Davis" was born. A very large tannery and steam saw mill give impetus to its growth, and the population is now about one thousand.
But he did not stop here. Within the last year or two the road has been extended from Thomas, near the Cheat-Potomac divide, some thirty miles in a southwesterly direction, tapping the rich and beautiful Tygart's Valley. Mr. Davis and Mr. Elkins, anticipating the construction of the road, found on the Tygart's Valley river, six miles east of Beverly, an excellent town site, which nature has seemingly prepared for the purpose. This is called " Elkins," in honor of his son-in-law. Hon. Ste- phen B. Elkins, who married his eldest daughter, is vice-presi- dent of the railroad and has a large business interest with him and his brother. Mr. Elkins is now building a handsome and costly residence on a hill overlooking the prospective city which bears his name, where he expects to make his home, and the present town bids fair to become a thriving railroad centre.
Senator Davis is public-spirited and finds tinie to keep pace with the affairs of his State and the Nation. He has represented West Virginia in every Democratic National Convention since 1868, and is generally made a member of the Committee on Resolutions. He served about a year on the National Executive Committee, to fill the vacancy caused by the removal from the State of Hon. Lewis Baker, and upon his declining re-election, was succeeded by Hon. W. M. Clements in 1888. With this exception, he has declined all political honors since his retire- ment from public life in 1883. It is generally known that when Mr. Cleveland was nominated in 1884, his friends had two names under consideration for the second place, namely : Thomas A. Hendricks and Henry G. Davis. It was thought Mr. Hen- dricks would not accept, and when Mr. Davis was approached he refused to be considered, and urged the selection of Mr. Hendricks. On the strength of this, the latter was nominated. Both before the appointment of Daniel Manning and after his resignation as Mr. Cleveland's Secretary of the Treasury, Sen- ator Davis was strongly talked of, for this portfolio, and had it
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gone to his section of the country he would probably have been the recipient. He visited President Cleveland at Albany before the formation of the Cabinet.
Pending the approach of the gubernatorial contest of 1888 publie sentiment seemed to centre on Senator Davis as a suita- ble man to head the Democratic ticket, and but for the follow- ing letter, it is generally conceded he would have been the nominee :
" PIEDMONT, W. VA., Aug. 1, 1888. " Mr. J. B. Tancy, Manager Wheeling Register :
" MY DEAR SIR :- I have had many personal requests and a large number of letters, asking me to allow my name to be used in connection with the gubernatorial nomination, at the ap- proaching State Democratic Convention, to be held August 16th.
"To all such inquiries my general reply has been and is that my business affairs are in such condition that they demand all of my time and attention, and without neglecting them and without great personal inconvenience and loss, I could not con- sent to be a candidate.
" The people of West Virginia have been kind to me, and I owe them a debt of gratitude. They have always nominated and elected me whenever I have been a candidate. I would like to serve them in any way I consistently can, but cannot at the coming election be a candidate for Governor.
" I deem it fair to my friends and party associates that I should make this public expression, so that they may be advised of my decision in the premises.
" It is known that among other things I am engaged with others in building a north and south line of railroad through the State, which is regarded, in a measure, as a publie advan- tage, as it will largely develop the resources of the State, and add to its wealth and prosperity. It is feared by my associates and myself that my candidacy would interfere with the proper care and prosecution of this enterprise.
" I hope and believe that the convention will select and elect a worthy, sound and progressive man, identified with West Vir- ginia and its development, who will work for the advancement of the people and the progress of the State.
" Very Respectfully, "H. G. DAVIS."
On October 9, 1886, by invitation of the Young Men's Dem- ocratie Club of Wheeling, he made the opening speech of the campaign there, and subsequently spoke at several other points in the State. He "produced the figures," which seemed to form a sort of text for the democracy during the campaign.
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In February, 1885, he was interviewed at Wheeling on "The Resources and Development of West Virginia;" and on Feb- ruary 29, 1888, he spoke there with Mr. Elkins and others on the same subject, before a convention of the business men of the State, which resulted in the formation of a permanent Board of Immigration and Development. Senator Davis was chairman of the Committee on Organization.
Grant, Blaine, Cleveland and Harrison are among the Nation's distinguished men who have been guests at the Davis home. President Harrison, who served with Mr. Davis in the Senate for twelve years, and has been his regular annual guest at Deer Park for some years, is occupying a neighboring cottage with his family, this summer. Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Harrison are very warm friends.
Five children were the result of Mr. Davis' marriage union : Hallie, who married Mr. Elkins, and is now the mother of four boys and a girl, ranging in age from sixteen to three; Kate, the second daughter, who in January, 1886, was led to the altar by Lt. R. M. G. Brown, of the United States Navy (the latter is now being honored by the people and press of the country for his heroic conduct in saving the lives of some 400 seamen in the disastrous hurricane at Samoa, from whence he has recently returned) ; Grace, the third daughter, an intelligent and fine- looking girl of twenty summers, has lately returned from a year's tour through Europe and the Holy Land and made her debut in society. The two youngest are boys, Harry and John, aged eighteen and fifteen respectively.
Mrs. Davis is a loving wife, a devoted mother and a model house-keeper. She is intelligent and agreeable in conversation, possessing marked simplicity of manners. The Davis home bears throughout the impress of her nature.
Thomas B. Davis remains a bachelor, and now resides with the only sister, Mrs. Eliza A. Buxton, at Keyser. The death of William R., the youngest of the family, has been mentioned. John B. Davis, the eldest of the five children, was an extensive farmer and banker, of Richmond, Va., and died February 11, 1889.
As we close this sketch, it is announced that Senator Davis has accepted from the President a commission as one of the ten delegates on the part of the United States to the Interna-
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tional American Congress, consisting of representatives as well from the nations of Central and South America, Hayti and San Domingo, to assemble at Washington in October, 1889, and consider measures looking to the mutual improvement of com- mercial and political relations.
Mr. Davis is solidly built, but with an angular and sinewy rather than rotund figure, a little above medium height, with a slight stoop in heavy shoulders that suggests days and nights of hard work; a long and narrow head, well covered with hair originally dark, but now beginning to show the frosts of age, and a resolute face generally illuminated with a smile. His gray eyes have a kindly but shrewd twinkle that speak of abundant good humor and confidence in his own ability, and the nose is prominent enough to have entitled its owner to a Marshalate under the first Napoleon. The capacious mouth, although curving upward at the corners, closes squarely in re- pose, and the lower part of the face, half concealed by a trim, gray beard, slopes off into well-defined jaws that indicate tenacity and determination. Any physiologist would set the owner of these features down as a man who combined good social qualities with business push and enterprise, who might well own the millions with which Mr. Davis is credited, and who might reasonably expect the success to which he has attained in everything which has engaged his attention.
He is a man of vast resources and enjoys, next to an unerring judgment, great business foresight, iron nerve, and a never ceas- ing industry. He is often stubborn as well as exacting, but he is always just, and he means more than he says. Socially a pleasant companion, in every other relation of life he adheres to inflexible business rules. His hand is ever ready to help a deserving man, and his purse open to aid charities.
WEST VIRGINIA.
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HON. J. N. CAMDEN.
17
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JOHNSON NEWLON CAMDEN.
O NE of the most successful men our State has ever produced is the subject of this sketch. He was born at Collins Set- tlement, Lewis county, Virginia, March 6, 1828. His grand- father emigrated from Maryland to that county about the be- ginning of the present century, and there reared his family, which included four sons, all of whom have made their mark upon the history of the State. One of them, John S. Camden, the father of Johnson N. Camden, inter-married with the New- lon family of Lewis county, and moved to Sutton, the seat of justice of Braxton county, in the spring of 1838.
Young Johnson N. Camden, one of the children of this mar- riage, spent his early boyhood in Braxton county. He had the benefit of the limited schooling which that section then afforded. There were no railroad facilities then available. The people who lived along the Elk river depended upon canoe transporta- tion for many of the necessities as well as luxuries of life, and many of them relied upon the rifle and fishing rod to help out their larders. In these employments unusual skill was devel- oped. The canoemen frequently propelled their trim crafts up the stream at the rate of thirty miles a day, and handled the rifle and rod with equal dexterity. Contests of skill in these directions were frequent, and as a boy young Camden excelled in all of them. As a marksman he had more than local repu- tation, his canoe was among the swiftest and his rod among the most expert. In all the sports of field and river he found never ending delight and his fondness for the scenes where he laid the foundations of a rugged manhood continues in his maturer years. His recollections of them now are among his most pleas- ant memories, and referring to them long after the cares of business and public life had removed him from their neighbor- hood he remarked to a friend, "The Elk is the most beautiful river I ever saw; its waters are the clearest and its wood-skirted banks the loveliest in the world."
In 1842, at the age of fourteen, he went to Weston and en- tered the office of the county clerk of Lewis county as an assist- ant, remaining there a year or two. Returning to school, he spent two years at the North Western Academy at Clarksburg and returned to Braxton, serving a year as deputy clerk of the Circuit Court of that county under his uncle, Col. William
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Newlon. At the age of eighteen he received an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point, and after two years' study there resigned his cadetship and taking up a course of legal study was admitted to the bar in 1851. He served as Commonwealth Attorney of Braxton, and subsequently for Nicholas county, became interested in surveying and secured possession of several tracts of wild lands in these counties, and in 1853 went to Weston, in Lewis county, and accepted a posi- tion in the bank there, holding it for the next four years. A feeling that he needed more active employment and a wider field induced him to quit the bank in 1857, and soon after be- coming convinced that his abilities lay in the direction of pro- moting new enterprises and industries rather than in the prac- tice of law he gave up that profession as a means of a livelihood.
Up to this time his change of employment had doubtless been regarded as a misfortune by his friends, but his varied experi- ence in a limited field fitted him admirably for the wider sphere that awaited him.
In 1859 he turned his attention to the West Virginia oil field, which was just beginning to attract notice at Burning Springs, on the Little Kanawha river. Petroleum had long disturbed the working of the salt wells at that point and those who oper- ated them, referring to its injurious effect upon the salt, called it "devil's grease." There was but one oil well at the point which has since become famous in the history of West Virginia petroleum interests, when Mr. Camden organized a working company, leased a piece of land and began boring for oil with the rude appliances then in vogue. The oil lay near the surface. Within a few weeks a stream of crude petroleum poured out so rapidly that no provision could be made to control or store it, and as a temporary measure it was run through troughs into an old flat-boat in the Little Kanawha, a few rods distant. For- tunately two thousand oil barrels had been forwarded a few days previously from New York to Gen. Karnes, the owner of the only other well in that section. His well was not then pro- ducing. The barrels were turned over to Mr. Camden, filled by hand from the flat-boat and shipped to Parkersburg, and the result of this first week's work to the company which he con- trolled was about $23,000. This success induced a speculative fever, of which Mr. Camden was quick to take advantage. The
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property was rapidly being taken up or leased when he effected an arrangement to purchase one-half of the Rathbone tract from its owner, Mr. Rathbone, for $100,000 and to work it thenceforth in connection with that gentleman.
The would-be purchaser had scarcely a tenth of the sum re- quired, but investors having faith in his sagacity came forward with offers for an interest with him, and he was able to sell three-fourths of his contract for $100,000 and secure a fourth as his profit on the transaction. What the result of this enter- prise would have been, if the proposed arrangement for devel- oping the tract had been carried out, cannot be told. The civil war came on soon after the transfer of the property was made, the absence of many of the parties interested and who went South with the Confederacy, interfered with the payment of the consideration agreed upon and the contract was finally can- celled by mutual consent. The West Virginia oil field being part of the debatable ground of the two armies and subject to hostile raids, soon became comparatively deserted. Nevertheless Mr. Camden did a profitable business there during the next three years. He arranged a partnership with John and J. C. Rathbone, the original owners of a most profitable oil tract, and developed that and other property in the West Virginia oil belt. Their business increased so that banking facilities were needed, and in the early part of 1862 the First National Bank of Parkersburg, one of the most successful banking institutions of the State, was organized with Mr. Camden as its President. During these years it is safe to say that he owned an interest, with one exception, in every oil-producing territory in the State of West Virginia, and the history of its oil producing interests would be lacking its central figure if the part he took in its development were left unwritten.
In 1864 Mr. Camden made another change in his business, and perhaps no single act of his life better proved his keen foresight and accurate judgment in business matters at that time. During the early years of the war the Pennsylvania oil region began to take the lead in petroleum interests. The Pennsyl- vania oil tract was larger than that of West Virginia, and its wells were more enduring and reliable. The capital necessary for development was more readily concentrated there than in the new State, and Mr. Camden rightly judged that it was des-
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tined to take precedence as the oil-producing territory of the country. With these points settled he only waited an oppor- tunity to transfer his capital and energy to another branch of the business. This opportunity came in 1866. In that year he and his partners sold their property on the Little Kanawha to parties in New York for $410,000, and abandoning almost en- tirely the business of producing petroleum, began the work of refining the oil products of West Virginia and neighboring ter- ritory. He and his associates built ample storage tanks at Par- kersburg and erected an extensive refinery at that point, which soon built up an extensive and profitable business. The dimin- ution of the West Virginia oil field which had been anticipated, followed later, and the refinery at Parkersburg was frequently embarrassed for want of crude oil sufficient to run its stills, and while considering ways and means of obviating this difficulty, Mr. Camden came in contact with the Standard Oil Company, which was then just beginning its commercial career, and recog- nizing the futility of continuing independent action in the lim- ited field which he had hitherto occupied, he formed the alli- ance with the Standard, known as the Camden Consolidated Oil Company, which was intended to embrace a friendly union of all refining interests in West Virginia. With this combination began Mr. Camden's wonderful financial career, which thence- forth and until this time has been one of unbroken prosperity. The Standard Oil Company, quick to recognize his executive ability, made him one of its directors, and gave him personal control of its West Virginia and Maryland combinations. The Parkersburg refinery became one of the great sources of supply for the South and West, and so continued until the necessities of trade and commerce required the transfer of a portion of its bus- iness to the seacoast. During its best years more than 300,000 barrels of refined oil were turned out annually, and upwards of 15,000,000 of staves were used each year in the manufacture of the barrels in which the oil was transported to market. When the export business of the combination necessitated the removal of the refining interest to the seaboard, Mr. Camden brought about the union of the oil refineries of Baltimore under the single management of the Baltimore United Oil Company, an organization with $1,000,000 capital, of which he was elected President.
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