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 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
In June, 1855, he married Maria, daughter of Benjamin Wil-
234
PROMINENT MEN OF
lard, of Pleasants county, an accomplished and amiable lady. Their only son, William Wirt, was, during his father's Execu- tive term, his private secretary, and is now his law partner in Parkersburg, and bids fair to make an able and successful attorney.
In 1864 he removed to Wood county and opened his law office, securing a large and remunerative clientage. In 1870 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney, holding the office six years. Near the close of this term he was elected to the House of Delegates, session of 1875, from the county of Wood, and was chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. In 1879 he was elected Mayor of the city of Parkersburg. As a legislator of comprehensive views and approachability, he formed a more extensive personal acquaintance with leaders of public opinion over the State, and in 1880 he was enthusiastically nominated as the standard bearer of the Democratic party, and elected Governor by a plurality of 16,136 votes, over Honorables George C. Stur- giss, Republican, with 44,838 votes, and Napoleon B. French, Greenbacker, with 13,027 votes. In this campaign, with a trian- gular candidacy, Mr. Jackson personally addressed the people in nearly every county, with telling effect, with inspiring enthu- siasm, and with the disadvantage of having as competitor in the Republican nominee one of the most accomplished, logical and persuasive speakers ever upon the arena of discussion. His discharge of the important trust committed to him by the will of the people was efficient, positive and eminently satisfactory to his political friends. One of the most important questions which re- quired his consideration during his incumbency of the Executive Chair, was the assessment of personal property for taxation, and what property, under the Constitution, should be exempt from the burden of taxation. His celebrated Assessment Order provoked a wide discussion in the State, and a great diversity of opinion, but it is believed by many persons, in the light of subsequent events, and after the excitements of political debate are over, that it was a wise and proper order, and was entirely in consonance with the Constitution of the State. His action as Governor upon this question received the judicial sanction of the Supreme Court of the State, as fully appears by reference to the case of The State, &c., vs. Buchanon; 24 West Virginia Reports, page 362.
235
WEST VIRGINIA.
At the expiration of his Executive term, he again resumed law practice in Parkersburg, the home of Senators and Govern- ors and Judges. He is one of the best and most reliable legal counsellors in either of the Virginias, and has been and is still employed in important cases in the State, Supreme and Federal Courts. His administration of the office of Governor, from 1881 to 1885, was forceful, clean and impressive, indicating that the honors were worthily bestowed in his nomination and election. He has added, by his official career, to the prestige of an already renowned and nationally historic name.
WILLIAM GUY BROWN.
T HE ancestry of this branch of the Brown family were Scotch, from near Edinburg. James Brown, in 1790, came to Northwestern Virginia, and settled in Monongalia county. William Guy Brown, his fourth son, was born Sep- tember 25, 1800. He studied law in 1822 with Oliver Phelps and Joseph H. Samuels, of Parkersburg; was admitted to the bar of Preston in 1823, and served as Prosecuting Attorney till 1832; supported Andrew Jackson for President three times ; was elected to the General Assembly of Virginia, and served in 1832, 1840-1-2-3; was elected to Congress in 1845, and advo- cated the war with Mexico; re-elected in 1847; in 1850 was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention; was a delegate to the convention of 1861 at Richmond, and opposed secession ; was Representative in the Thirty-seventh Congress from re-or- ganized Virginia, and the first member of Congress from the Second West Virginia district in 1863. He was a member of the Convention to revise the Constitution in 1872, and served in the Legislature of 1872-3. He died at Kingwood, leaving a widow and one son, William G., who practices law in his native town, and has held important public trusts.
236
PROMINENT MEN OF
PHILIP DODDRIDGE.
THIS great man was a native of Bedford county, Pennsylva- nia, where he was born May 17, 1772. When seventeen years of age he was placed in school at Wellsburg, Virginia, under the tuition of an educator by the name of Johnson. Here he remained for several years, devoting himself principally to the study of the Latin language. In those days educational facili- ties were very meager; but the determination of young Dodd- ridge to become a scholar made up in a large degree for the lack of college advantages. It was said he was so apt that his vigorous mind drank in knowledge with the rapidity of thought, as a dry sponge absorbs water. It was a habit with him, while in school, as a memory exercise, to change the conversation around him into the idiom of his studies; and following his father in his morning and evening devotions, he soon learned to render his prayers into very good Latin, and to converse flu- ently with his teacher in that dead language. He never attended college, but he was nevertheless an educated man. The lack of a regular college training in early life made it all the more difficult in after years to reach a fair rank in scholarship; but close application all through life enabled him to sustain him- self upon all occasions as a man of vast erudition. It is not claiming too much to say that he possessed great acquirements.
In the study of the law, he was his own teacher; and May 23, 1797, he was admitted to the bar at Wellsburg. He pursued practice with but little intermission until 1815; and by this time he was the acknowledged best lawyer in Northwestern Virginia. Those who knew him well say he probably was never excelled by any Virginia lawyer, if he has been equalled, in his discrimination in fathoming the depths of an intricate case, or in his powerful and logical reasoning in unfolding it.
The first important official position filled by Mr. Doddridge was that of a member of the Legislature of Virginia for the years 1815-16. It was at this session that he commenced his opposition to the arbitrary principles of the then existing Con- stitution of Virginia, which he never relaxed until the Conven- tion of 1829-30 crowned his efforts in behalf of popular rights with partial success. He was again a member of the Legisla- ture of 1822-3. During this session he manifested a lively in- terest in the promotion of education, both in the University of
237
WEST VIRGINIA.
Virginia and in the private schools. All through life he was the earnest. friend of education. He was a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1829-30 ; and was perhaps the ablest debater in it. The great men of the Eastern part of the State found in him an adversary worthy of their steel. He was a candidate for Congress, from the Wheeling district, in 1823, and was defeated by the Hon. Joseph Johnson, of Harrison county, the Democratic candidate. Again, in 1825, Mr. Johnson defeated him for the same position. In 1829, they were again competitors, and this time Mr. Doddridge was successful. His reputation had preceded him to Washington; and he at once occupied an intellectual rank equal to that of his eminent col- leagues, and hardly second to any member of the House. Es- pecially was this true, upon all matters involving the discussion of legal and constitutional questions. His faculty as a draughts- man was remarkable. He had a wonderful power of condensation. The appropriate words, like well drilled battalions, fell harmo- niously into their proper places: and there were neither too many nor too few of them. Daniel Webster once said of Mr. Doddridge, that he would give all he possessed if it would secure him this talent in the same degree of perfection. He also sta- ted on a public occasion that Philip Doddridge was the only man he really feared in debate.
Mr. Doddridge continued a member of Congress up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1832, in the maturity and full vigor of his wonderful intellect, just at the time when his eminent abilities and distinction in the chief council chamber of the Nation had so attracted and commanded the public atten- tion as to presage for him a higher and still more illustrious career. He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Wash- ington, D. C. Only one of his sons is now living-Major John Doddridge, of Wheeling, who is past 85 years of age.
238
PROMINENT MEN OF
A.LITTLE.
HON. CHARLES J. FAULKNER.
239
WEST VIRGINIA.
CHARLES JAMES FAULKNER.
T HE misconceptions and perversions of the late civil conflict have given to certain events in the life of this eminent man an intense conspicuity which does injustice to his general, personal and political character.
. Returning to his country, after indefatigable and successful services as its Minister to France, he encountered that period in the contest when the right of a citizen to be heard in his defense was denied by the Directory and abandoned by the people. He was immediately arrested, and not for any want of fidelity to his trust-not by the State Department, which takes cognizance of a Minister's misconduct-but by the war power, and as a hostage-a Virginian to equalize an imprisoned Penn- sylvanian.
This is probably a new and interesting fact to many readers, but it is an old fact, nevertheless; and will yet, in good time, take its place in history.
A man believing himself wronged by governmental oppres- sion must bide his time, and await his chance, and often main- tain silence, lest he reduce his own stature by an undignified anxiety for his vindication. A public expression cannot be cudgeled out, and a high-minded man will not coax it. His friends can state the points of vindication, and leave them on record, as we do briefly in this sketch, which will not admit of a biography of Mr. Faulkner.
He was born in Berkeley county, Virginia, where he main- tained his residence and influence for nearly half a century, having entered the House of Delegates in the year 1831, at the age of twenty-five. The war has changed neither his social, professional, pecuniary, nor public rank. As in 1832, he advo- cated gradual emancipation in the Virginia Legislature ; so forty years later he was a leader in the Constitutional Convention of West Virginia, and vindicated there the prescience and princi- ples of his youth.
Up to 1852, Mr. Faulkner was a Whig, but during the candi- dacy of General Winfield Scott, in that year, he declined longer to give his support to a party that in his judgment had aban- doned its principles, and accordingly joined his destinies with the Democratic organization, and gave his earnest efforts to the election of Franklin Pierce to the Presidency. For eight years
240
PROMINENT MEN OF
prior to the war he represented what is now the " Eastern Pan- handle" in the Congress of the United States. It was perhaps the most exposed constituency in the South, occupying the sal- ient angle at the outlet of the great Valley of Virginia, where the ebb and flow of fugitives and emissaries poured across the narrow skirt of Maryland soil, and constantly agitated those animosities which finally culminated in the John Brown rebel- lion at Harper's Ferry, and a little later in the Confederate States Government of America. He believed in the integrity of the Union, and in the full confidence of the country's repose under the stars and stripes; and prior to any outbreak on the part of the people of the South, he accepted the mission of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the court of St. Cloud, where he remained until the change of adminis- tration, when in August, 1861, he returned to his native land and surrendered his trust.
Mr. Faulkner arrived in Paris, February 18th, and was pre- sented to the Emperor, March 4, 1860. He at once entered upon the duties of his exalted station, and the work that he faithfully accumulated the first year of his stay in France is a monument of industry, zeal and efficiency. His dispatches to the State Department numbered about one hundred and twenty, or an average of one dispatch every third day. Some of them are of great length and involve such research as to evoke renewed ad- miration for their vigorous thought and pure diction. These dispatches make four huge folio volumes, and are now in the custody of the State Department at Washington. These records show Mr. Faulkner's sympathy to have been with the Union, for in one of them he stated that he had requested Napoleon to make no recognition of the Confederacy. I excerpt one para- graph from a letter written by Mr. Faulkner to the Secretary of State, after his return to the United States, which shows his views to have been the same as those of the Administration :
" I refer to my official correspondence as a proof of my fidelity to my trust. Not an act nor an opinion of mine was disap- proved by any of your predecessors; but wherever they were alluded to at all, they were approved. No act, and but one opinion that I expressed, was disapproved by you. That was the private and unofficial opinion which I expressed to M. Thou- venel in reply to an inquiry addressed by him to me, to-wit :
241
WEST VIRGINIA.
That the United States Government did not contemplate resort- ing to coercion. This opinion was expressed on the 15th of April, 1861. In noticing that opinion on the 4th of May fol- lowing, you say : 'The time when such questions had any plausibility has passed away.' Again, you say : 'The case is now altogether changed.' These qualifications in your disap- proval of that opinion of mine were just both to me and to yourself as the exponent of the policy of the Administration. For in your own dispatches, up to the 15th of April, 1861, there is a clear enunciation of the policy of the Administration not to resort to coercion."
The writer is impressed with the belief that Mr. Faulkner has been unjustly censured by many of his fellow citizens both prior and subsequent to his return to the Government that he had ably and faithfully served during one of the most critical periods of its existence. He was not guilty of treason. That charge has never been proven. His education, candor and dig- nity placed him within the sphere of Napoleon's special consid- eration, and the records show that in all of his interviews with that master of diplomacy he always was loyal to the flag of the country he was sent abroad to represent.
Our diplomatic relations with France, from the beginning of the Republic, have been the most romantic and intimate of our history, and we have been served at that Court and Capital by a series of the most illustrious statesmen we have produced. The year of Mr. Faulkner's residence there was not prolific in great occurrences immediately affecting our own history; but it was a year requiring the more application, because France was then mature, formative, and well gathered up under a ruler fond of surprises, rather covetous of achievement and posses- sions in America, and able to do as he chose. The Palmerston alliance and the control of France over Spain led to a rumor of a tripartite attempt on Mexico, which Mr. Faulkner promptly protested against, and received the thanks of his Government for his prompt interference.
The social life at his residence, in the Avenue Montaigne, near the Champs Elysee, was meantime hospitable and graceful, and the Minister popular with all. When Mr. Faulkner was subsequently a prisoner at Fort Warren, he received marked attention from the most distinguished men of Boston, New York,
20
242
PROMINENT MEN OF
and Philadelphia, who had remembered his invariable courtesy, generous hospitality, and faithful devotion to his duties as Minister.
The crisis, however, was impending at home, and there were doubtless travelers of the McCracken character abroad in those days ready to distort, pervert, and write anonymous letters. Some of these may have desired the consideration of the new administration ; others, with malice aforethought, already classed every Southerner as an enemy, and made a distinction in favor of none. Mr. Faulkner accordingly resolved to conclude his mission, so as to preserve at least his own self-respect-whatever might be the influence of misrepresentation.
Shortly after his return to this country, Mr. Faulkner was arrested by order of the Secretary of War as a hostage for Henry S. McGraw, State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, who had been captured by the Confederates and taken to Richmond. Mr. Faulkner was detained a prisoner about one month at Washington, six weeks in Fort Lafayette, New York Harbor, and six weeks at Fort Warren, near Boston. He was released on the 9th of December, 1861, when he returned to his home at Martinsburg, Virginia. While in prison he had an opportunity of learning the impression which his conduct as Minister had produced on the many able, patriotic individuals of this coun- try who had visited Paris during his residence there as Minister. With not a single exception, their letters to him assured him of their unabated confidence in the honor of his character, and his fidelity to the Government whose commission he had held.
His arrest and incarceration had no bearing whatever upon his relations to the Government as its Minister to St. Cloud. He was held simply as a prominent Virginian as a hostage for a Pennsylvanian who was a prisoner in the South. President Lincoln did not approve of his arrest, but he did not like to interfere as the times were critical, and no one at that time knew what the result was going to be. Mr. Lincoln had a high personal regard for Mr. Faulkner, and considered his (Faulk- ner's) ante bellum speech on slavery a masterful effort, and from which he often quoted in his Illinois campaign speeches.
After his release from imprisonment as a hostage, Mr. Faulk- ner went South, within the lines of the Confederacy. He had not been there long before his shrewd observation and judgment
243
WEST VIRGINIA.
detected in his surroundings the seeds of disorganization and failure. He spent the greater part of three years and a half there in scholastic retirement at the abode of his daughter, Mrs. Bocock, in Appomattox county. The official battle reports of " Stonewall" Jackson, which have been admired on both sides of the Potomac, were the compositions of Mr. Faulkner, written out from the rough notes of that celebrated commander. Of these he wrote twenty-two, and all but the last were revised and signed by General Jackson. With this literary labor, which shows his grasp of great movements and faithfulness of detail, his active life in the Confederacy began and terminated.
After the war, Mr. Faulkner returned to his home in Berke- ley county and resumed the practice of law, in which profession he had been eminent for years. Like his abilities and culture, his means were large and his influence great. He was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1872, that framed a second Constitution for the State, and was its tem- porary president. He was elected a delegate to Congress from March 4, 1875, to March 4, 1877, and declined a re-election. This was his last public office.
It has been said that the Southern revolt produced many he- roes, but few who survived it with heroism. Amongst these latter the subject of this sketch may be classed as probably the most notable example in the South. Reflective, studious, with a cheerful temperament and flexible faculties, yet blessed with a remarkable tenacity of purpose, he emerged from the war without self-accusation, and proceeded to redeem his affairs, resume the practice of his profession, and give aid and confi- dence to his neighborhood. He brought his large estate into excellent condition, and was President of the Berkeley County Agricultural and Mechanical Association, and President of the Martinsburg and Potomac Railroad Company up to the time of his death. His practice was one of the largest in the South, and was pursued chiefly in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Appeals of West Virginia, and the Courts of the Judicial Circuit where he resided.
Mr. Faulkner was upwards of seventy years of age at the time of his death, and was of an agreeable and courteous address and refined appearance. He had blue eyes, which were of clear and quiet expression, and features expressive of decision and
2-44
PROMINENT MEN OF
sensibility. His hair, formerly of a rich brown color, became quite grey, but it retained the luxuriance of uniform health. He had a large family of children, who have become connected by marriage with some of the most excellent households in the North and South. His death occurred at Martinsburg, Novem- ber 1st, 1884.
ALPHEUS F. HAYMOND.
A LPHEUS F. HAYMOND, one of the ablest jurists of the State, was born December 15, 1823, on a farm near Fair- mont. He is a son of Colonel Thomas S. and Harriet A. Hay- mond. Until the age of thirteen, he attended school near home, then went to Morgantown Academy for two years, then to William and Mary College, Virginia. He studied law with Edgar E. Wilson, of Morgantown, and was admitted to the Bar in 1842, when only nineteen years of age. In 1853 and 1857 he was a member of the Virginia Assembly from Marion coun- ty; was a delegate in the Richmond Convention of 1861, and opposed secession ; but, after hostilities began, acquiesced, and entered the army of the South, in January, 1862. Upon the surrender of General Lee, at Appomattox, in April, 1865, he was paroled. Returning to Fairmont, he resumed law practice. By an act of Congress, he was relieved from restraining disa- bilities. He was, in 1872, a member of the Convention to revise the Constitution of West Virginia. At the election under that Constitution, he was placed upon the Supreme Court Bench, and in October, 1876, re-elected for a twelve years term. . He re- signed the position, so ably filled, and, January 1, 1883, retired from public duties, the Court, by entry upon its records, and in the West Virginia Reports of that year, acknowledging his ju- dicial ability, his impartiality, and his high social qualities.
245
WEST VIRGINIA.
FOLGEN CIN.
GENERAL JOHN JAY JACKSON.
246
PROMINENT MEN OF
JOHN JAY JACKSON.
W I HEN from the biographies of our most valuable citizens shall, in the future, be written the history of the Virginia counties west of the Alleghenies, whether under the dominion of the old or new State, no more forceful character will be found impressing itself upon the laws, prosperity and political destiny of the masses of people than that of the late eminent citizen, patriot and statesman above named.
When boundless contiguity oi wilderness shade covered the limits of our present prosperous and populated State, when the confederated tribes of Indians held undisturbed possession of our mountains, and Aaron Burr, upon Blennerhassett's willow- fringed island, was maturing schemes of Mexican conquest, in defiance of national peace and international comity, was born, February 13, 1800, in Wood county near these scenes, John Jay Jackson, known widely and honorably in after years as " the General."
His early years were spent chiefly in Parkersburg, with whose village growth and municipal prosperity in later times he was thoroughly identified, and in which identification in advanced age, he took especial delight and pride. There he began his primary education, under the tuition of the venerable Dr. David Creel, who subsequently resided in Chillicothe, Ohio.
To adopt, with needed variations, the precise language of a friend who knew him most intimately and admired his manly and superb qualities of head and heart : "Possessing quick perceptive faculties, and manifesting, even when very young, an aptitude for study and fondness for books, he was soon removed to Clarksburg, in the county of Harrison, and placed in a school of higher grade than any other institution of learning in this section of Virginia. This school was taught by Dr. Tower, a gentleman of culture, and one well qualified to train and de- velop the young mind under his guidance and control. Here, the subject of this notice so improved his advantages, and made such rapid progress, that at the early age of thirteen he entered Washington College, Pennsylvania, with bright prospects of a successful career in that well-known school of letters. But his sojourn there was destined to be brief; for, after a year's course in that institution, he received from President James Monroe an appointment as a cadet to West Point, which school he en-
247
WEST VIRGINIA.
tered on the 8th of March, 1815. In less than four years, having successfully completed the course of study in that deservedly- renowned institution, he graduated on the 24th of July, 1818, being then only in the nineteenth year of his age. He was commissioned at once, as a second lieutenant in the Regular Army of the United States, and attached to the corps of artil- lery. Ordered to Norfolk, Virginia, he performed garrison service there until the latter part of the year 1819. About the 1st of December, 1819, he was detached from his old command, and transferred to the Fourth Infantry. During the year 1820, and part of 1821, he performed active service in Florida, in the Seminole war. While thus engaged, he was commissioned, in May, 1821, as adjutant of the Fourth Infantry, and transferred to regimental headquarters at Montpelier, Alabama. At this place, and at Pensacola, during the years 1821 and 1822, he per- formed staff duties, as a member of General Andrew Jackson's military family. In October, 1822, he visited Parkersburg on a furlough of six months; and resigned his commission in the army of the United States about the 1st of January, 1823. He now chose the Law as his profession, and with his accustomed zeal and energy, he at once set himself to master the principles of legal science, as a necessary prerequisite to success and emi- nence at the Bar. By the courtesy of the County Court, he was permitted to appear in cases pending before it almost as soon as he began to study. He found this privilege of such ad- vantage to himself, that he was often heard to speak of this court with approbation as being an admirable school for the training and development of the young practitioner. He would never engage in the tirade against this part of our State judi- ciary, although the system in these latter days cannot be regard- ed as at all comparable with the County Courts in the earlier days of the Commonwealth. He looked upon it as an old friend, and, true to one of the loveliest traits of his character,-that of adhering to his friends in storm as well as in sunshine,-he con- tinued a warm advocate of this court even to the end.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.