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 22
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cratic candidate for Governor in 1866, and was defeated. In 1870, he was one of Kanawha county's delegates in the Legis- lature. He died at his home in Charleston, December 10, 1887. Up to within a short time of his death he was remarkably hale and vigorous for one of his advanced age.
Col. Smith was one of the finest specimens of physical man- hood ever in his section of the State, and of mental clearness and forcible impress contemporary only with George W. Summers, the orator of Western Virginia. He was one of the greatest lawyers Virginia ever produced ; not eloquent, attract- ive or polished, but able, massive, powerful, irresistible. On account of his great legal learning, he will not soon be forgotten.
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JAMES LINN MCLEAN.
N the development and substantial prosperity of the South- west section of our State, and in the immigration to it of cap- ital and population, Colonel McLean has been, and is, and expects to continue, a large contributor. He was born in Eng- lishtown, Monmouth county, New Jersey, July 16th, 1834. His ancestry were Scotch-Irish, robust, incorruptible, persevering and intelligent. To a fair basis of primary education in the common schools he added the superstructure of a classical course in the College of New Jersey at Princeton, graduating there- from with the class of 1851. Afterwards he studied law under Hon. A. E. Brown, in Easton, Pa., and practiced at the Bar of Northampton county, Pennsylvania. In 1867 he removed from the Atlantic to the banks of the Great Kanawha, at Winfield, Putnam county, West Virginia, where he still resides and de- votes his energies and time to extensive land, timber and coal interests.
In political sentiment he is a Republican ; is in sympathy and acts with the working element, and has done much to produce right relation and community of interest and thought between capital and labor. He has many firm and influential friends in every county of the State, and has been urged by them for a candidate for Congress from his district, and Governor of the State, and frequently voted for election to the United States Senate. In either position he would do honor to the office and be faithful.
From the county of Putnam he was sent to the Legislature of 1871, as a member of the House of Delegates. In that ses- sion he was a useful representative, although in the minority party upon the floor. Upon the Republican Presidential ticket in 1880 he was an elector for West Virginia. He is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church of Winfield.
In 1857 he wedded Amanda, daughter of Hon. E. B. Hixsell, of Easton, Pennsylvania. She died January 28th, 1859. In 1868 he married Josephine, second daughter of Judge Matthew Dunbar, of Kanawha, an estimable, amiable, and accomplished lady.
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HON. J. F. PATTON.
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JAMES FRENCH PATTON.
ACING this sketch is the portrait of one of the judges of the Supreme Court, who in the brief time of his public service, displayed rare ability, and gave promise of a long career of usefulness to the State.
He was born at Richmond, Virginia, September 19, 1843, and died suddenly but calmly March 30, 1882, in the city of Wheel- ing, West Virginia.
His father, Hon. John M. Patton, was for years recognized as the leader of the Virginia Bar. His mother, whose maiden name was Peggy French Williams, was a lady of rare beauty, amiability, education and refinement.
On his father's side he was a great grandson of General Hugh Mercer, of Revolutionary fame, and on the maternal side, of Major John Williams, and of Captain Philip Slaughter, officers in the war of our Independence, who fought at Germantown and Brandywine. Thus he was descended from Revolutionary stock. It might also be said that he inherited legal talent, and sprang from a race of lawyers.
As a youth he was vivacious, precocious, humorous. He received a liberal education in the classical and mathematical schools of Richmond, until fourteen years of age, when he entered Hanover Academy, under the accomplished scholar, Colonel Lewis Coleman.
On the 29th of October, 1858, his father died and the widow and children moved to their country seat in Culpeper county, an ancestral home. At the age of eighteen, when the civil war cast its storms over our fair land, young Patton entered the Confederate army as a private, and won his way to meritorious promotion. Always at the front in battle, braving every dan- ger, he became an officer and commander, cheerful, inspiring, and loved. When the end came, and General Lee surrendered, he returned to his Virginia home, moneyless, but with courage- ous heart, to take up the duties of a peaceful avocation. He began the study of law under his brother-in-law, John Gilmer, in Pittsylvania, and was, in comparatively brief time, admitted to the Bar, and within two years thereafter obtained a profita- ble practice, and a place in the front rank of an able Bar.
In April, 1869, he wedded Melinda, the accomplished daugh- ter of Allen T., afterwards U. S. Senator, Caperton. In the 23
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fall of 1870, he accepted the invitation of her honored father to become his law partner, and leaving the bright prospects and clientage in the east, removed to Union, Monroe county, West Virginia. In his new professional field he came rapidly into prominence and influence, and in 1872, was elected upon the Democratic ticket, Prosecuting Attorney ; served four years and then declined re-nomination, in order to attend to his more lucrative practice.
On the first of June, 1881, Governor Jackson appointed him to the vacancy on the State Supreme Bench, in place of Judge Moore, resigned. On the next day, at the early age of thirty- seven, he took his seat in the Court, then in session at Wheeling, and entered promptly and actively on official duty, devoting his energies to his part of an accumulated docket with the ardor of youth and the skill of a veteran. He was an incessant and rapid worker. As is said by the distinguished Attorney General Watts, who delivered to the Court an eloquent tribute to his memory: "He delivered, before the end of the year 1881, twenty-two carefully prepared-some of them elaborately written-opinions, in cases decided by this court, under a Constitution which requires every point fairly arising upon the record of the case to. be considered and decided. At the spring term of the court he had delivered four opinions, when his life and labors were at once ended by a sudden and unexpected death.
"In his brief career as a member of this court, Judge Patton had won for himself the unqualified respect and esteem of his brethren of the Bench, as also the admiration and affection of the Bar throughout the State. Lawyers, who had grown old in the practice of their profession, respected him for his large legal mind and learning, and esteemed him for his frank and manly qualities. Not infrequent were the predictions made by these old and gray-headed members of the Bar, that Judge Patton had before him a career full of promise for usefulness to the State and honor to himself. Bright and promising, how- ever, as was his future-esteemed, beloved by acquaintances and friends; idolized by a gentle, trusting and devoted wife, as well as by a bright, sweet daughter, and a noble, manly boy, both of tender years. Yet 'Death loves a shining mark,' and on the 30th day of March, 1882, about the hour of 11 at night,
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the life of James French Patton went out. He had retired at his regular bed-time for the night. An hour later two friends called at his room, and walking up to his bedside, saw him in the stillness of his slumber-as sudden and unexpectedly, breathe his life away, while in the quiet of the night passed from earth, the soul of the Christian gentleman, the brave soldier, the finished lawyer and the just judge."
His remains now sleep, near Union, in a beautiful spot, upon a commanding hill, overlooking the scenes of his former daily walks.
KELLIAN V. WHALEY.
K ELLIAN V. WHALEY was the first member of Congress under the new State, from the southernmost counties-the then Third District. He was born in Onondaga county, New York, May 6, 1821. His opportunities for even a common school education were limited. He removed with his father to Ohio, then to Virginia in 1842, and engaged in the lumber and timber trade. He was sociable, frank and energetic, and was, in consequence, soon drawn into public view, and was elected Representative from Restored Virginia to the eventful Thirty- seventh Congress, as a Unionist, serving from July 4, 1861, to March 3, 1863. He was in the Union army, and Colonel in command at the battle of Guyandotte, in November, 1861, and was captured, but made his escape. As a Union Republican he was elected to the Thirty-eighth Congress, receiving 2,748 votes, against 2,184 for Daniel Frost. To the succeeding, the Thirty-ninth, Congress, he was elected almost without opposi- tion, thus serving from West Virginia from December 7, 1863, to March 3, 1867. He was a delegate to the National Repub- lican Convention, which met in Baltimore in 1864, and nomin- ated the now immortal Lincoln for a second term. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the tall President from Illinois, and ore of the most persistent attenders upon the departments in the interests of his constituents. He always made applications as if he had faith in the success of his petition. He was ap- pointed Collector of Customs at Brazos de Santiago, Texas, in 1868, and departed this life several years ago.
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NOAH LINSLY.
IN Mount Wood Cemetery, Wheeling, West Virginia, stands I a plain marble shaft, bearing the inscription :
NOAH LINSLY, A NATIVE OF CONNECTICUT. The Founder of the Lancasterian Academy. The friend of Youth and the benefactor of Mankind.
There are so few materiais from which to obtain information, that even a slight sketch of Mr. Linsly seems almost impossible, and yet it is right and proper that some effort be made to pre- serve the name and memory of a man who, coming a stranger into the State, displayed such generosity towards our people.
Noah Linsly was born in Branford, Connecticut, February 9, 1772. His family was of English descent, his earliest ancestor in this country, John Linsly, having emigrated from the vicinity of London, and settled in New Haven in 1644. He was the third son of Josiah Linsly, but we have no additional knowl- of his family, other than that Dr. Jared Linsly, of New York, is his nephew. Noah Linsly graduated at Yale College in 1791, was tutor in that institution in 1794-5, and afterwards studied law at the Litchfield Law School, under Tapping Reeve. After completing his studies, he removed to Virginia and settled at Morgantown in 1797 or '98, where he remained two years, and then removed to Wheeling, where he passed the remainder of his life.
He is described as a man of fine presence, six feet in height, with florid complexion and auburn hair, which he wore in a queue; he was extremely particular in his dress and very digni- fied in manner. In politics, he was an old Federalist; in reli- gion, of Presbyterian lineage, though we have no means of knowing his private feelings and opinions upon the subject. He never married, and his personal friends are all gone, but his deeds speak for him more eloquently than could tongue or pen. He died at his residence in Wheeling, of hemorrhage of the lungs, after a very brief illness, March 25, 1814.
In Weeling he established a school of learning, which was at first styled "the Lancasterian Academy." This was nothing more nor less than our present system of common schools. At that time it was new and novel in the South, and was by no means popular with the people. It, however, gave an impulse
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to education in Wheeling that can be seen and felt even to the present day. He left two large farms, in Ohio county, to Sam- uel Sprigg and Noah Zane, as trustees, for the purpose of en- dowing the school that he had already established. This was the first money ever given for free instruction upon slave terri- tory, and preceded the public school system many years. The farms were sold by the trustees, and a lot purchased in Wheel- ing, a building erected, and the Academy was regularly opened. The first school property occupied all the ground from Market to Chapline street, along the line of Alley 11. The building was of brick, 33x66 feet, and two stories high. After long years of use, it became dilapidated and unsightly, and was torn down, and the lots sold for residences. A new lot, on the cor- ner of Eoff and Fifteenth streets, was purchased and a large three-story brick edifice erected. The State established a free system of education, and the old Academy was changed to the "Linsly Institute," and for many years it has been used to pre- pare boys for college. It has a large endowment fund, and is consequently one of the established educational institutions of the State.
It is, therefore, no vain boast that Noah Linsly was truly a benefactor of mankind. Could prophetic vision have been granted him, he might justly have said, and we now say for him, Si monumentum quaries circumspice.
BETHUEL M. KITCHEN.
ROM March, 1867, to March, 1869, the Second District of West Virginia was represented in Congress by Bethuel M. Kitchen, an elector from Berkeley county. He was born near Martinsburg, Virginia, March 21, 1812; received his edu- cation in the ordinary select schools of the day, and his early years were devoted mainly to agricultural pursuits. He was elected a member of the General Assembly of Virginia, session of 1861-2. Siding with the Union sentiment of his section, he allied himself with the Republican party, and was sent to the State Senate of 1865-6, and was a member of the House of Delegates in 1870. He was elected to the Fortieth Congress, receiving 8,296 votes, against 5,190 for E. W. Andrews, Democrat.
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FRANCIS H. PIERPONT.
H ON. F. H. PIERPONT, one of our State's most distin- guished sons, was born in Monongalia county, Virginia, June 25, 1814. As a boy he worked upon his father's farm, and in the tanyard, until he arrived at his majority. In the meantime he attended school at intervals in the neighborhood where he resided. At twenty-two he matriculated as a student at Allegheny College, Pennsylvania, and remained there, an earnest, industrious toiler, until June, 1840, when he gradu- ated. After graduation he went south, and taught school in Mississippi. Having determined to enter the legal profession, while a teacher he began a systematic course of reading. In a year or two he passed the required examination, and, return- ing to Virginia, was admitted to the Bar at Fairmont, Marion county. Being thoroughly educated, and possessing a pleasant address, which, added to a high order of talent as a public speaker, he was not long in attaining a rank as an attorney that brought clients, reputation and fees to his law office. He has spent almost his entire mature life in the town of Fairmont, in the practice of his profession; and now, at the age of seventy-five, he still lives to enjoy the fruits of a distinguished and successful career, and possesses the confidence and respect of the people with whom nearly fifty years of his life have been spent.
Educated in northern ideas and among northern people, he naturally became an outspoken Abolitionist. His convictions were so intense, he rarely allowed an opportunity to pass with- out open opposition to the doctrine of human slavery. He took an active part, even before graduation from college, in the general political discussions of the times; and to this day he enjoys the opportunities often extended to him by his fellow citizens of speaking at length upon the living questions that are now before the people in State and National campaigns. Indeed, there are but few platform speakers his equal in the entire State.
At the June 11, 1861, Convention, held at Wheeling, for the purpose of re-organizing the government of Virginia, after the State had seceded from the Union, Mr. Pierpont was almost unanimously elected Governor by the representatives of the forty counties that had sent delegates to the Convention. He
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held office under this election for about twelve months, and in the meantime was elected by the people to fill an unexpired term of two years. He was subsequently re-elected by the loyal people of the State for the full term of four years, and was recognized by President Lincoln as the legitimate Governor of Virginia. He was one of the many War Governors of the States who stood by the Government in its darkest hours, and contributed a noble part in sending troops to the front to de- fend the flag. He was true as steel in those solemn times that tried men's souls.
Atter the division of Virginia into two separate States, Governor Pierpont removed the State archives to Alexandria, convened the Legislature, and remained there two years. At his call, in 1864, a convention assembled, which, by vote, abolished slavery in the State. When Richmond fell, he moved the seat of government from Alexandria to that city, and in a few months had the State properly re-organized. During his entire administration, he made it a matter of conscience never to appoint a man to office without moral and intellectual qualifications for the place. A part of his record is that during the seven years of official position, amid the degeneracy of the war, there never was a suspicion of the mis- appropriation of one dollar of the public money.
At the close of his Gubernatorial mission, Governor Pier- pont returned to Fairmont, and resumed the practice of his profession. In 1870 he was elected a delegate from Marion county to the West Virginia Legislature. His natural abilities, added to his long experience in public affairs, equipped him for great usefulness in that body. He was an active and influential member, and did much in shaping the legislation of that ses- sion. He was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue by President Garfield, and held the office until the First and Second Districts were consolidated and thus legislated him out of office.
Governor Pierpont became a member of the Methodist Protestant Church when eighteen years of age, and has usually been a member of its important conventions, and several times representative to the General Conferences.
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JAMES PAULL.
TRULY good man's character rests on a granite basis, which sustains the structure of public virtue and private integrity, while an inflexible personal independence keeps guard over the intellect and conscience, and challenges the advance alike of friend and foe to this seat of power and secret of suc- cess. The subject of this sketch had no other aim in life than to be right and to do right. He did not defer to the decision of the popular judgment as the sum of political wisdom and the inevitable law of duty. His own and not the public sense was his rule of action as citizen, attorney, and judge. He paid little court to the people, and practiced no artifices and employed no gratuities to enlist them in his interests or purposes. He influ- enced men not so much by the sublimity of his sentiments as he inspired confidence and admiration by the dignity of his man- ners, the clearness of his understanding, and the purity of his life. Skepticism of all kinds was foreign to his mental consti- tution. Thoughtful and sincere, with characteristic independ- ence of creeds and traditions, his was a nature to feel the religi- ous sentiment strongest as it dwells apart in the silence of the soul. Profoundly spiritual both by nature and education, his life was an exemplification of faith in God and a Christian's hope of endless and more exalted life.
James Paull was the son of George and Elizabeth Paull, and was a native of Belmont county, Ohio. Early in life he re- moved to Wheeling, Virginia, where he resided up to within eighteen months of his death, when he removed to Wellsburg, Brooke county, and departed this life May 11, 1875, in the fifty- seventh year of his age. His first wife was Miss Jane A., daugh- ter of the late Judge Joseph L. Fry, for many years a resident of Wheeling, by whom he had three sons, Archibald W., Joseph F., and Alfred, all prominent and successful business men of their native city-Wheeling. His second wife was Miss Eliza J., daughter of Samuel Ott, of Wheeling, who was the mother of five children. She lives in a commodious brick mansion on a beautiful elevation in Wellsburg.
Mr. Paull attended an academy at Cross Creek village, Penn- sylvania, where he was prepared for college. He entered Wash- ington College, Pennsylvania, and graduated therefrom in June, 1835. He studied law in the office of Z. Jacob, Esq., at Wheel-
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ing, and completed his legal training by attending upon the lectures of the Law Department of the University of Virginia. With the exception of a short time that he was engaged as a teacher in Linsly Institute, Wheeling, and one or two terms he represented Ohio county in the Legislature of Virginia, he de- voted himself to his chosen profession, in which he attained an eminent position even before he reached the zenith of manhood. In 1872, he was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ap- peals of the State. Never robust, but always industrious, the work of such a position was too great for him. His associates on the Bench begged him not to persist in overtaxing his strength, but he could not obtain his own consent to fall short of his full share of duty, and therefore kept on at hard work until his health entirely gave way, and he fell just after his sun had reached its noon. His decisions were clear, able, exhaust- ive, honest. He left a high record as a judge, and as a citizen all who knew him esteemed him as an honest man.
Judge Paull was a man of fine natural powers of mind. These had been developed by the advantages of a liberal edu- cation in early years, and by much cultivation in later life. In point of taste, culture, information, sound judgment, and the like, he occupied a very high place among men. In his tastes he was simple, but highly refined. Anything that savored of ostentation was extremely offensive to him. Equally repulsive was everything that was in the slightest degree akin to vulgarity. He was a man of remarkable purity of character. He was al- ways distinguished by the most unswerving integrity. Those who knew him best say that his life was as nearly blameless as it is possible for humanity to be. He was just, upright, God- fearing, and he loved his fellowmen. He was possessed of all the attributes that go to make up the full, noble character of the Christian gentleman, the highest type of manhood on earth.
There are two relations in the life of this distinguished law- yer and jurist in which his character shone out with the greatest beauty. One of these is that of the family-the home-life. His home was the abode of the most delightful peace and love. As a husband and father, it is but truth to say, he was a model. His memory therefore in that circle must ever be cherished with a fondness that is not often equalled. The other of these rela- tions was that of the Church. While yet a young man, he
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united with the First Presbyterian Church, Wheeling, and at the end of more than a quarter of a century of religious living no man could truthfully say that he ever brought reproach upon the cause he sought to uphold and defend. He was not a neg- ative Christian. On the contrary, he was an earnest worker. For eighteen years he was a Ruling Elder; he was at the same time a constant attendant upon the sessions of the Sabbath School and week night prayer services, always taking an active part. It can be said of him, as of but few public men, he was constantly foremost in every proper place in laboring for the good of his fellowmen.
"He is gone! The problem that so long he studied, That mystery of the world to come -- profound Is solved ! His tree of life which only budded Bears now full harvest in celestial ground."
EUSTACE GIBSON.
USTACE GIBSON, who was the first Congressman from the Fourth District of West Virginia, after the redistrict- ing under the 1880 census, was born in Culpeper county, Vir- ginia, October 4, 1842. He received a common school educa- tion ; studied law and began practice in the spring of 1861; en- listed in the Confederate army in- June of that year, as First Lieutenant; was promoted to Captain in 1863, and retired on account of wounds received in the line of duty. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Virginia in 1867-8; located in Cabell county, West Virginia, in 1871; was elected to the House of Delegates from that county, in 1876, and therein was chosen Speaker; and was a Presidential Elector on the Democratic ticket in 1880. In November, 1882, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the Forty-eighth Congress, and in 1884 was re-elected to the Forty-ninth, as a Democrat, receiving 16,588 votes, against 16,445 votes for Andrew R. Bar- bee, Greenback-Republican. He now resides and practices law, in Huntington. Mr. Gibson is a man of great energy. He stands at the top of his profession in his section of West Vir- ginia. As a Representative in Congress he was able, efficient and attentive to duty.
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