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 24
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Senator Faulkner was married, November 25, 1869, when a little over twenty-two years old, to Miss Sallie Winn, a charm- ing young lady of Charlottesville, Va., whose gentle influence has contributed much to his success in life, and has made his
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home a happy one. Five promising children have blessed their union. Mr. Faulkner is a bright member of the Masonic Fraternity, and in 1879, was chosen Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of West Virginia, over which he presided with credit to himself and Honor to the Craft.
In the prime of life, with a splendid physique, fine abilities, courteous manners, and devoted friends, it may be confidently expected that his name will shine still brighter in the history of his State and country.
JOHN HALL.
T HE diversified citizenship of the United States has no bet- ter element than the Irish, as will be found by perusing the pages of our legislative, judicial and military history. County Tyrone, Ireland, furnished the subject of this sketch- John Hall-who was born there in April, 1805, and was brought to America when only two years of age, so that he was almost "to the manor born." On the rudimentary education he re- ceived, he builded well, and by application, close observation and that ready tact for which his countrymen are proverbial, in early manhood he became a useful and honored citizen. Mr. Hall was widely known throughout the two Virginias, having served in both branches of the Legislature of the old State, and was one of the founders of West Virginia, as a member of the first Wheeling Convention and President of the Convention that formulated the first Constitution of the new State-the records of both latter bodies, as well as the Virginia legislative journals, being replete with paragraphs showing his zeal, and resolutions, bills and ordinances evidencing his ability. He was one of the commissioners appointed by the Wheeling Conven- tion to secure the admission of West Virginia into the Union, and was at one time the candidate of the Republican party in the Third District for a seat in Congress. To the loss of the young State, John Hall was stricken with paralysis and died April 30, 1882, leaving a widow who still survives him. Of his ten chil- dren, only one is alive, the wife of Mr. B. J. Redmond. The departed children died in youth, except two sons, soldiers, Lt. Col. James R. Hall, 13th W. Va. Infantry, killed at the battle of Winchester, and Maj. John T. Hall, 4th W. Va. Infantry, killed in a skirmish at Kennedy's Hill, during the late civil war.
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DANIEL DUANE TOMPKINS FARNSWORTH.
T HIE subject of this sketch, D. D. T. Farnsworth, was born on Staten Island, New York, Decembr 23, 1819. His father, James S., and grand-father, Daniel Farnsworth, with their fam- ilies, moved from Staten Island to the town of Buckhannon, Lewis county, Virginia, now Upshur county, West Virginia, in June, 1821, where our subject has resided the most of his time since. He was brought up a farmer; in early life he learned the tailor trade with Charles Lewis, in Clarksburg, and followed that trade a few years in the town in which he now resides, after which he merchandised for thirteen years. He is now a farmer and owns a fine full-roller mill. When the county of Upshur was formed, in 1852, he was one of the first magis- trates. He was elected to the House of Delegates in 1861, to meet at Richmond, Virginia. Soon after his election the civil war broke out and he was deprived of going to Richmond; but by virtue of his election, was a member of the first House of Delegates that met the 1st day of July, 1861, in the city of Wheeling. He was also a member of the Convention of June 11, 1861, which met in Wheeling and re-organized the State government, and took an active part in its proceedings. He offered the first and only resolution looking to the formation of a new State, which motion was quickly tabled by a vote of 50 to 17. The nerves of many failed them when that resolution was offered. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of the State's Independence. At the re-convening of the conven- tion, in August, he was chairman of the committee of six that presented the ordinance of the new State, which passed; he, therefore, claimed to be the author of the ordinance of the State of West Virginia. He was a member of the first House of Delegates of the new State and was a member of the State Senate for some seven years, and for two years was President of the Senate; by virtue of which office he was Governor of the State to fill the unexpired term of Governor A. I. Boreman, who was elected to the United States Senate in the session of 1869. He was one of the committee of twenty that revised the code of 1868; was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1872.
During the civil war his life was often threatened because of his persistent advocacy of the Union versus secession. On one
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occasion in Philippi, while speaking in the face of an armed company of Confederates, he was told that if he did not desist from speaking for the Union, he would be riddled with bullets; but he continued to speak, declaring that his voice should ever be heared in defense of the Union and the flag of his country.
He is a warm advocate of equal rights, and the protection of labor; advocates the Government issuing the only money, gold, silver and greenbacks, making all equal legal tender; and of paying the National debt according to the original contract ; opposing class legislation ; his motto is the greatest good to the greatest number, equal rights to all, and exclusive privileges to none.
EDWARD BOARDMAN KNIGHT.
DWARD B. KNIGHT, was born in Hancock, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, August 22, 1834, and has been a resident of this State since April, 1865. His youth was spent on a farm near Milford, N. H., where he worked in a machine shop at Nashua, N. H., from eighteen until he was twenty-one. After due preparation, he entered Dartmouth Col- lege in the fall of 1847 and graduated in 1851. He was admit- ted to the New Hampshire Bar in September, 1853, and began practice the following spring in Dover, same State. In the spring of 1861 he moved to Charleston, Virginia, and perma- nently settled, where he has built up a very respectable and lu- crative law practice. The Bench and Bar hold him in high esteem as a lawyer and gentleman, while his clients confide in him with perfect assurance, and society invariably respects him. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1872, in which he ably served upon the Committee on Legislative Department, and the Select Committe on Land Titles. He is acknowledged to be one of the foremost lawyers of West Virginia.
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SAMUEL PRICE.
H ON. SAMUEL PRICE was one of the able men of Vir- ginia, when both Virginias were one. Not particularly aggressive in spirit, or ambitious for distinction, he neverthe- less, by the native simplicity of his tastes, his habits of life and education, and better still, by his enlightened sense of justice and hatred of wrong, was always the fearless advocate of truth, morality and right. There was absolutely nothing in his public or private life that was factitious or artificial. His success in private life, as well as in his professional undertak- ings, and his influence in public position, did not come to him by accident, nor by the employment of adventitious supports, but by the inherent energy and force of his mental constitution. He was eminent in his profession, as in him were combined those intellectual faculties and mental habits that make the lawyer, the statesman, and the public administrator. He was not a theorist or enthusiast. Had he possessed more imagina- tion, more of the ideal, doubtless he would have ranked higher as a man of power before the people; but it may be doubted whether such acquirements would have rendered him greater or more influential.
I have said that Governor Price was not particularly aggres- sive; and yet by this I mean no disparagement of his massive, native power as a man and citizen. Prudence very often is mistaken for timidity, because it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. Governor Price was a prudent, and not a timid man. He was never hesitating or over careful as to self, but was always concerned about the effects of any new and untried step in legislation upon the safety and happiness of the people and the honor and peace of the State. He did nothing from impulse. Always cool, calculating, deliberate, selí-poised, no possible excitement could unnerve him, or throw him off his balance. With him it was the calm of high resolve, persistent and tenacious, that triumphed over passion and senti- ment. Men of such a mold are scarce, and their value as leaders of society is incalculable.
Governor Price was most conspicuous for his great common sense. He viewed everything that came before him purely in the light of practical availability. Some men reach eminence through transcendent genius, others through great learning,
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but no man can be a wise statesman, or a successful leader, with- out a large endowment of common sense; for through it alone is afforded that clearness and comprehension of mind that enables one to form correct judgments, and arrive at proper conclusions. Governor Price was a born jurist. Theories and abstractions were foreign to his nature. Free from all Utopian ideas, he passed upon men and measures as he found them, and not as they might or ought to be; and his every act invariably looked to the interest and welfare of all concerned. He was, in a certain sense, conservative. Like many other distinguished lawyers, he followed the language and forms laid down in the books; but withal, he was a friend to every movement that had for its object the bettering of society and the purification of government. He never made set speeches or orations, but he was nevertheless clear, thoughtful, able in all his public addresses. When he spoke, he bore himself proudly and with graceful ease, always choosing language the most simple to ex- press his meaning. Of tremendous physical stature, imperial in his personal bearing, pleasant in appearance, commanding in expression, with manly, unaffected speech, thoroughly in earn- est, he never failed to force conviction on his hearers. It may be said of him that he said just what he meant to say, and like an expert navigator steered his words and ideas through the shoals that beset the lawyer on every side, not only without going to wreck, but without ever running aground.
Senater Price was a Christian. He was ever true to his con- victions. He possessed a clear head and a pure heart, coupled with a firm will and a determined spirit. Moreover, the writer, who knew him well, can bear testimony that he was a man of the finest sensibilities, tender-hearted, affectionate, and generous to a fault. If injury excited him to anger, it was a generous anger that could hardly outlive the occasion and perished of itself if left alone. Of exquisite sensibilities, he brought love and sunshine into his family .. He was tender and thoughtful of the rights of others, and if unjust to anybody, it was to himself and not to others. He was, the greater portion of his life, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and for more than a quarter of a century a Ruling Elder. He carried his religion into both business and politics. The oft mentioned plea that the discharge of public political duty was inconsistent with the
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maintenance of spirituality was shown to be false by Senator Price's upright life. People who are so very spiritual that they feel compelled to abstain from political associations ought to renounce the benefits that the political exertions of their sup- posed less spiritual fellow citizens secure for them. The whiner who is constantly asserting such sentiments as the above, is Phariseeical and disgusting. For men to neglect their duties to their State on the ground of their piety, while they insist on the State protecting their property, and protecting from dis- turbance even their religious meetings, in which this exquisitely delicate and valetudinarian spirituality is developed, is gross unrighteousness, and ought to be frowned upon by all good people. What our country needs most to-day is a larger num- ber of religious men in our halls of legislation, and in all pub- lic positions, to lift the Nation to a higher plane of morality and usefulness. Senator Price will be remembered longest for his loyalty to church, to conscience, to God.
Samuel Price was a native of Fauquier county, Virginia, where he was born July 28, 1805. On his paternal side he was descended from Major Morris, of New Jersey, of Revolutionary fame. His mother's maiden name was Mary Clyman. The son always spoke of her as a woman of extraordinary intellect and piety. His education was obtained in the common schools of that period. They were indifferent, it is true ; but to one who hungered for knowledge, they offered the necessary rudimentary training that would fit one for the higher attainments that fol- lowed self-exertion and determination to succeed. He moved to Preston county in early life, thence to Nicholas county, where in 1830, he took the census of that county. He soon thereafter took up the study of the law; was admitted to the Bar at Summersville in 1832, and began practice. In those days, young lawyers extended their practice into the counties adjacent to their homes. Young Price, who was ambitious for success, took this course. He was almost as much at home in Greenbrier and other adjoining counties, as in Nicholas county. In 1831 he was chosen Clerk of the County Court of his adopted county, and in 1833, he was made Prosecuting Attor- ney for the same county. In 1834 he was elected to the Vir- ginia Legislature from the District composed of Nicholas and Fayette counties ; was re-elected in 1835 and '36; represented
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Braxton county in the Legislature of Virginia from 1837 to 1850; having become a citizen of Greenbrier county in January, 1838, he was also Representative from that county from 1847 to 1852, except one year; was delegate from Greenbrier to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850-1; was again elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1860-1.
February 6, 1837, he married Miss Jane Stuart, a descendant of the Lewis family, of Revolutionary memory. This union was one of great harmony and happiness. Nine children were born to them. The wife, most tenderly loved, died in 1876. The ring of his former contagious laugh was never heard after her death. The idol of his heart had been taken, and he was never himself any more. About a year before his own death, he said to one of his daughters, Mrs. Mary Alderson: "I am not happy as when your mother was with us, and I care not how soon the summons comes for me."
In 1863, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, and continued in that office till the close of the civil war. He was elected a Circuit Judge in the fall of 1865, but declined to qualify, because he could not take the " Test Oath." He was a delegate from Greenbrier county to the Convention in 1872 that framed a new Constitution for West Virginia, and was President of that body. He was appointed a Senator in the Congress of the United States to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Hon. Allen T. Caperton, and served from Decem- ber 4, 1876, to January 31, 1877. He was, prior to the war, a Whig, but from 1865 to the time of his death, he acted with the Democratic party. In every public position he was honor- able and efficient, and was ever esteemed as an upright man. He died at his home at Lewisburg, February 25, 1884, aged seventy-nine years.
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COL. THOMAS B. SWANN.
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THOMAS BELT SWANN.
T is of not much consequence in what station of life an able 1 man is born. If he have it in him to rise, no earthly power can keep him down; but to become very much distinguished in this busy world, it is necessary for one to toil with great earnestness and with never ceasing industry. The subject of this sketch descended from a sturdy ancestry. His parents were loyal to truth and right, and these characteristics were likewise implanted in the nature of the son. Like the parents, the son, too, has courage, manliness, ballast. He is true to principle, true to associates, true to friends, true to conscience. He was born in Powhatan county, Virginia, September 12, 1825. His father, Richard Archer Swann, was a farmer on the James river, and a man of fine literary attainments. His paternal ancestor, Thomas Swann, was a colonel in the army of Charles I, and fought against Cromwell for the King. He fled from England, with two brothers, who were also officers in the King's army, and settled in Surry county, Virginia, where his tombstone is still - standing in the old family burying ground. His mother was the daughter of Dr. Humphrey Belt, a Maryland family related to the Lloyds and Montgomeries.
In 1866 a correspondent of the Philadelphia Telegraph, who was traveling in Virginia, wrote the following, which appeared in that paper under the head of " Ramblings in the Old Domin- ion :"
" An ancient tombstone on a plantation nearly opposite James- town, bears the following inscription : 'Here lies ye body of ye Colonel Thomas Swann, who departed this life ye 4th day of November, 1680.' Immediately above the inscription is a coat- of-arms, representing a lion and a swan, separated by a shield. The stone or slab is broken in two, but the inscription is plain and perfect. Horses and cattle have trampled upon it, but have not considerably defaced it. The name of the deceased gentle- man was evidently one of those few 'that were not born to die. An ancient cedar, four and a-half feet in diameter, stands near the head of the grave. It has been 'belted ' and is dead, and all the surrounding country is green with 'waving corn.' In a few years, perhaps, the same hand that belted that ancient tree may upturn the slab of slate and drive the ploughshare through the grave of the unknown ' Colonel Swann.'" 25
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Colonel Thomas Swann's two brothers, who fled with him from Cromwell and came to America, settled, one in Virginia, on the waters of the Potomac, and one in Massachusetts. Their descendants are numerous, who, like their ancestors, are men of mark.
The subject of this sketch was liberally educated at the Ame- lia Academy, Virginia. For some time after graduating from the academy he taught school at Orange Court House, in Or- ange county. While engaged in teaching he chanced upon a law book and became greatly interested. At once he began a systematic course of study in legal text-books under the direc- tion of Attorney William Greene. He received license to prac- tice within sixty days after he began to read Blackstone's Com- mentaries. After obtaining license as an attorney, he laid aside all other duties and commenced studying in earnest to equip himself for the profession upon which he was then entering. On the 18th of March, 1849, in company with his brother, John S. Swann, he removed his residence to Charleston, Kanawha county, where they entered upon their professional career. They have constantly resided at Charleston ever since, and have at- tained an eminent rank at that distinguished Bar.
Mr. Swann was a Whig prior to the civil war. He took an active part in the Scott campaign of 1852. He however soon found that politics and law would not work smoothly together, and ac- cordingly abandoned the former that he might give his undi- vided energies to the latter and thereby achieve success. This was the course of wisdom; and many, many times in after years has he rejoiced that he was thus guided.
Being a member of a volunteer company at Charleston when the war came on in 1861, he, with the rest of the organi- zation, was ordered into camp by Governor Letcher, and thus entered the Southern army, although he was at that time an outspoken opponent of secession. He believed in the Union, but, like thousands of others who resided in the South, could not resist the temptation, when Virginia seceded, to go with his State. The fact is now patent that thousands of people in the South were then alarmed at the common cry that the General Government was centralizing power, and were forced, even against their better judgments, to support secession as the only cure for such centralization. Mr. Swann was one of this class.
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Soon after the South had launched into revolution, and at the time when the Conscript law was passed at Montgomery he said to Governor Floyd and Colonel D. S. Honshell, of Virginia, that " the South had nothing left to fight for-that all power was centralized on the James, and if we must have centralized power upon this continent, it had better be on the Potomac, where we were known to the Nations, than on the James, where we were not known." He, however, continued in the Confed- erate army, for awhile as Captain of a company, and afterwards Colonel of a batallion, until the close of hostilities.
Immediately after the surrender of General Lee, Colonel Swann returned to Kanawha county and resumed the practice of his profession. The writer, then a boy, heard him say to a friend the day after he reached Charleston in 1865, "I have come home to stay. In the past I was a Whig; in the future I shall connect myself with the political party that represents the greatest liberty to the greatest number." The circumstance in- delibly impressed itself upon my mind. He accordingly became an ardent Republican, and up to this time has been a leader in that party's councils. He has been a delegate at large from West Virginia to every National Republican Convention since the war, except two, and has several times been an elector for the State on his party ticket. He has many times been urged to ac- cept office, but he always positively declined. He prefers private life to public position. For his home and his law office he has unusual attachment and love. When not in court, he can near- ly always be found at one or the other of them.
Col. Swann, shortly after his return from the war, married Miss Mary Tompkins, daughter of Mrs. Rachel M. Tompkins, who was an aunt of General U. S. Grant. They have lived all these years in happy wedlock in their pleasant mansion on the banks of the Kanawha river in the city of Charleston.
Col. Swann is one of the most indefatigable students the writer ever knew. He revels in books. Being naturally religious, he loves theology. You can scarcely mention a book of any value that he has not read. Such men are rare. He has been a mem- ber of the Protestant Episcopal Church for forty-five years (a member of the Vestry of St. John'sParish in Charleston), and is an earnest worker in the ranks. The State of West Virginia has no worthier, more exemplary citizen than Col. Thomas B. Swann.
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A.LITTLE. PHILA.
GENERAL R. S. NORTHCOTT.
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ROBERT SAUNDERS NORTHCOTT.
ENERAL NORTHCOTT was born in Rutherford county, Tennessee, ten miles northeast of Murfreesboro, the 30th day of September, 1818. He was brought up on a farm, occa- sionally attending the " old field schools" in his neighborhood, until he was twenty-one years old. Having, by close applica- tion, become qualified to teach school, he commenced life as a teacher. He followed this business for several years, going to school occasionally until he became a fair Latin scholar and proficient in some of the higher mathematics. In December, 1843, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Cunningham, a young lady of South Carolina parentage, with whom he lived happily until August, 1881, when she died.
While General Northcott was engaged in teaching he pur- sued a course of legal studies, but never practiced. In 1850, he entered the mercantile business in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and continued in the same until 1855, when he abandoned it and became editor of the Rutherford Telegraph, a newspaper published in Murfreesboro. He continued editor of this paper until November, 1860. In 1856 his paper advocated the elec- tion of Fillmore to the Presidency and of John Bell, in 1860. He was a delegate from Tennessee to the convention, which was held in Baltimore in May, 1860, that nominated Bell and Everett. In 1860, while secession was firing the Southern heart, his paper took an active part in favor of the Union.
On the 7th of January, 1861, Governor (now Senator) Isham G. Harris called the Legislature of Tennessee in extra session to consider the relation of the State to the Federal Union. On the 21st of January this Legislature consummated an act pro- viding for a convention of delegates to assemble at the State capital the 20th of February. General Northcott became a candidate to represent his county of Rutherford in this conven- tion, and in circulars and in speeches, took absolute and uncon- ditional Union grounds, and was elected by a large majority ; but the act of the Legislature authorizing the people to elect delegates to a convention also provided that they should vote at the same poll to determine whether they should have a con- vention. The people of the State were so well satisfied with the Federal Union that they were not willing that their rela- tions with it should be disturbed. But after the firing upon
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