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 32
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tion, which rusulted in greatly improving the several shoals of the river, and greatly lessened the loss of barges and property.
He was for several years a member of the Republican State Central Committee ; was a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1880, and cast his vote for General Garfield in that Convention. He was nominated on the Repub- lican State ticket for the office of Auditor, and was defeated by the Democratic candidate for the same office. He has held other offices of public trust and is now, in 1889, President Judge of the Kanawha County Court.
THOMAS INGHRAM STEALEY.
H ON. THOMAS I. STEALEY, who was Judge of the Fourth Circut from 1881 to 1889, was born May 15, 1830, in Tyler county, Virginia. His grandfather Jacob was resident in Clarksburg, the oldest Tanner in the State. His father Joseph was a merchant, farmer and tanner. The Judge was educated in the Northwestern Academy of Clarksburg, studied law and was admitted to the Bar by Judges Fry, McComas and Lee in 1851. He has been twice married, first in 1851 to the daughter of D. Hickman, who for forty years was Clerk of Tyler county. She died December 9, 1880. His second wife was Elizabeth Heallowell, of Washington, D. C., whose father was assistant to the Chief of the Statistical Bureau. He has five children, one, a son, Managing Editor of the Evening Journal, Minneapolis, Min- nesota. Although devoted to law, he takes an interest in all that pertains to agriculture, and obtained patents in 1857 for fourteen claims for improvement in combined reapers and mowers, and self-raker, with hinged bar and hinged platform, and rake mounted thereon. Too poor to manufacture, he sold the right to Commissioner of Patents Mason, and he to others, till the in- vention has brought a saving of millions to the farmers of the land, but nothing to the inventor. During his judicial term he tried thirty-two murder cases, with seventeen convictions. He is now one of the successful lawyers at the Bar of Parkersburg, Wood county.
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HON. J. C. M'GREW.
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JAMES CLARK MCGREW.
H [ON. J. C. McGREW'S ancestry on his father's side were Highland Scotch; on his mother's side, Protestant Irish. His father was Col. James McGrew, who had command of a regiment of Virginia militia in the war of 1812. His mother was Isabella Clark. Both of them were born in America. James was born September 14, 1813, near the village of Bran- donville, in that part of Monongalia county, Virginia, which is now Preston county, West Virginia. He received a practical English education, and when not in school worked on his father's farm until he was nineteen years of age, at which time he was employed by Harrison & Elisha M. Hagans as clerk in their general store in Kingwood, in which town he continues to re- side. He followed the mercantile business with fair success for thirty years.
In 1841, Mr. McGrew married Persis Hagans, eldest daughter of Hon. Harrison Hagans, of Brandonville. He was a delegate from Preston county to the Virginia Convention which met in the city of Richmond the 13th of February, 1861, and which passed the ordinance of secession the 17th of April follow- ing, and was one of "the fifty-five" Union members who voted against the ordinance. He was one of about twenty members who held the secret meeting in a bed-room of the Powhatan hotel in Richmond, in the afternoon of Saturday, April 20th, where it was decided that certain of the Union members of the Convention from the northwestern part of the State should quietly retire from the Convention, leave the city, go home to their constituents, and, if possible, arouse them to active oppo- sition to the ordinance, and to the secession of the State from the Union. Accordingly, on Sunday, the 21st, in company with his colleague, Hon. Wm. G. Brown, and twelve or fourteen others, he left the city, and with no little difficulty, and some danger, he made his way home, and immediately took an active part in the movement which resulted, first, in the re-organization of the State government, and ultimately in the division of the old and the formation of the new State of West Virginia. As a consequence, he was, with eleven other loyal members, on the 29th of June, expelled from the Convention for being engaged in what the Confederates chose to call " conspiracy against the Commonwealth of Virginia, and abetting its open enemies."
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He was a member of the House of Delegates of the first Leg- islature of West Virginia, and as such was present at the organ- ization of the State, June 20, 1863. He was a member, also, of the second and third Legislatures of the new State. In 1864 he was appointed by Governor A. I. Boreman, a Director of the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, then in its infancy and just being constructed, and continued to act as such until 1871. In 1865, in connection with a few others, he organized the Na- tional Bank of Kingwood, and was its cashier up to 1869, when he resigned, but continued to act as managing director until 1884, when, upon the death of Hon. Wm. G. Brown, President of the Bank, he became its President. In 1868, Mr. McGrew was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the Second District of West Virginia, and was re-elected in 1870, and served through the Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses. He declined a nomination to the Forty-third Congress. In 1881 he was appointed by the Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church as a delegate to the Ecumenical Conference which met in London, England, the 7th of September of that year. In that and the following year, he traveled somewhat extensively in the British Islands, in France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, &c. For a number of years he has been a Trustee of the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, Ohio, by appointment of the West Virginia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which church he has been a member for nearly half a century. It may be said of him, what can be said of but few men, that is, that he never offered him- self or sought a nomination for any office, and never solicited the vote or support of any man for office, and never was defeated in an election.
At the age of three score and sixteen, he is still robust and active, giving constant attention to such duties as come to him, and says that, in looking back over his past life and conduct, he discovers but little that he could wish had been otherwise.
Scotch-Irish gentlemen in the United States, as in every part of the civilized world-and they are found wherever energy, perseverance and pluck take men-are universally acknowledged to be the chief factors in their country's pros- perity, power and national glory. It was the Scotch Irish ele- ment in the Revolution that was one of the chief factors in
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securing independence to the colonies; and in the second British attempt to conquer our people, the same Scotch-Irish, like Mr. McGrew, in 1812, led fighting battalions to glorious victory. They came to the front again, brigades of Scotch-Irish, to hold the fort of freedom against the suicidal policy of would-be se- cessionists; and either on battle-field, where foe met foe in open manly fight, or in the dark dangers of secret assassination per- illed their lives-like James C. McGrew, in the dark days of '61 at Richmond-these same Scotch-Irish were found shoulder to shoulder preserving and perpetuating the Nation their fathers helped to create; and alas! so many of them lie side by side on the gory fields of Virginia they died to win. Not only on her battle-fields, but in her council chambers and legislative halls these same Scotch-Irish produce our Nation's statesmen, its law- makers and executors of law. Mr. McGrew may well be proud of his lineage and their record.
JOHN W. HARRIS.
J OHN W. HARRIS was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, December 5, 1840. His parents placed him at school at an early age, and with some slight intervals, during which he was inducted in the elements of business in the store of his father, who was a merchant. He attended the schools of the neighborhood until he was sixteen years of age, when he was entered as student of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. He remained at that institution for several sessions, and then matriculated at the University of Virginia, where he attended lectures for two years, entering the Confederate army with a company of students from the latter place. After about a year of service, which greatly impaired his health, he returned to his home and resumed his legal studies, and was admitted to the Bar in 1862.
At the close of the war he established, and for some time edited, a newspaper at Scottsville, in his native county. In the latter part of 1866 he settled in Lewisburg, in Greenbrier county, where he has since resided, confining himself closely to his professional duties and connected business enterprises. A pronounced Democrat, he has taken but little active part in politics, having been only once a candidate before the people
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for a public office-that of Prosecuting Attorney of his county, to which he was elected in 1872. He has been frequently mentioned in connection with Congressional and Senatorial honors in West Virginia. Major Harris is a scholarly gentle- man, and ranks a number one lawyer.
SAMUEL WOODS.
H ON. SAMUEL WOODS, LL. D., one of the former Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, was born of Irish parents in Bedrice county, East Canada, Septem- ber 19, 1822. Thence his father removed to Meadville, Pennsyl- vania, where, until manhood, the son worked at the trade of a plasterer, going to college during winter and working at muscu- lar labor in the summer. At the age of twenty he was gradu- ated from Allegheny College in the classical course. He began law studies at Pittsburgh, under Attorney Alden, author of "Index to Reports of United States Supreme Court," in 1846. He was a member from Barbour county of the famous Virginia Convention that passed the Ordinance of Secession, and sup- ported the measure there, and in the subsequent election. Dur- ing the war he was in the Confederate service, attached to the "Stonewall" Brigade. He was elected from the Sixth Sena- torial District to the convention of 1872, which revised the Constitution of West Virginia, and therein was chairman of the Committee on Bill of Rights and Elections, and a member of the Select Revisory Committee. In January, 1883, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Bench of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, and was afterwards elected for the balance of Judge Haymond's term, serving ably and con- tinuously till December 31, 1888. As an advocate before a jury Judge Woods is almost irresistible-few men can withstand the force of his reason or the power of his logic. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; is active in church work ; is large of stature, and of commanding presence; has three sons-all lawyers of prominence. In 1888 he received the honorary degree of LL. D., from his alma mater-an honor worthily bestowed.
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c
A. LITTLE
HON. SAMUEL WOODS, LL. D.
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PROMINENT MEN OF
HENRY KILBOURNE LIST.
OR over half a century Henry K. List has been going in and out of the active business walks of Wheeling. No man in that section of the State, in all that time, has been more active, more useful, more successful, or more highly respected. Unassuming, yet under all circumstances aggressive, he has permanently left his impress upon his native city and State.
Mr. List was born in Wheeling, Virginia, October 20, 1821. His ancestors were of English origin, who came to Virginia many generations in the past. In early life the subject of this sketch engaged in mercantile pursuits, which he kept up with unceasing vigor until quite recently. As is always the reward in business, when men possess energy, good judgment and frugal habits, Mr. List amassed a large estate, and is living to a ripe old age to enjoy it.
For a full half century, no public improvement has been pro- jected, in and about the city of Wheeling, that Henry K. List did not foster with both his energy and his money. Foremost in every good word and work, he has supported with his large resources every movement that has tended to develop the mate- rial interests of Wheeling and better the condition of her people. Unlike many who amass wealth solely for the pleasure of count- ing their bonds and contemplating their gold in secret, Mr. List acquired his with the object that it should contribute to the rational comfort and happiness not only of himself but of others also. There is no enjoyment in life so pure and so substantial as that which springs from the reflection that others are made content and happy by one's benevolence; not so much the be- nevolence of gratuitous bounty as that of fair-dealing tempered with benignity. Considerate kindness is like mercy :
" It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd ; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ; 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown."
Mr. List's contributions for charitable purposes, not only in his native State, but in all the States, though extensive and often munificent, are known to but few, for he follows as far as possi- ble, the Scriptural injunction to not allow his left hand to know what his right hand does. He contributes systematically to all
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classes of benevolence. His generous hand has been felt in thou- sands of the homes of the needy and helpless, and in weak churches and educational institutions from one end of the Con- tinent to the other. In his relations to church and religious work generally, he is so good a man that no one can take his place with those that know him. It is the simple truth that he cares for others more than for himself; that his greatest happi- ness is to make others happy; that he would prefer to see others attain distinction than to become distinguished himself. He is at once manly and childlike-manly in honor, truth and ten- derness; childlike in the simplicity that suspects no guile and practices none. Fourth Street M. E. Church has been his church home for nearly a half century. He is one of its Trustees, and there is no position within its gift that he could not have had, if he had not declined. Many times he has been tendered an election as a Lay Delegate to the General Conference of his church, but he always refused to accept. As in church, so in State, he never would accept an official public trust. He could have received any position in the gift of his fellow citizens, but he preferred the privacy of his counting room to any office the people could bestow upon him.
Mr. List married Sarah J. Shaw, October 15, 1844. Ten chil- dren blessed their union. Daniel C. List, Jr., his eldest son, is married and resides in Kansas City, Missouri ; one of his daughters married Robert C. Dalzell, Cashier of the City Bank of Wheeling ; another married Edward Hazlett; his youngest son, John K., is also married, and a son and daughter remain unmarried. Five of the heirs are dead. The two younger sons, Ambrose S. and John K., with their brother-in-law, Mr. Dalzell, are engaged in banking in Wheeling. The sons inherit the energy and appli- cation of their father and are starting out upon an apparent successful business life.
Educated mainly by reading and by associations with men in every-day life, with strong common sense and unusual good judgment, Mr. List has got on in the world more successfully than many of his contemporaries who had better advantages at the start. Envious of no one, liberal in all dealings, happy in his home-life, in his business, in society, he has lived almost to the allotted three score years and ten. Moderate in all things, and in robust health, his friends confidently hope his useful life may be protracted for many years to come.
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PROMINENT MEN OF
SAMUEL AUGUSTINE MILLER.
M AJOR S. A. MILLER was born on a farm near the village of Mount Jackson, Shenandoah county, Virginia, October 16, 1820. He was the son of Reuben Moore and Atlantic Ocean (Walton) Miller. The son came to the Kanawha Valley in 1841, and studied law with the distinguished George W. Summers, in Charleston, until the year 1844, when he became partner, and practiced in Kanawha and adjoining counties under the firm title of Summers & Miller, which partnership continued until 1851. He wedded Helen, daughter of Alexander W. and Caro- line Winston Quarrier, July 27, 1845, in the Presbyterian Church. He joined the Army of Virginia in the civil war as a private volunteer in the Kanawha Riflemen; was appointed Captain and A. Q. M. in the Confederate army in 1861, and promoted to the rank of Major in 1862. He was elected to the Confederate Congress from Virginia to fill the unexpired term of General Albert G. Jenkins, and took his seat in January, 1863. He was re-elected in 1864, and was a member at the end of the war and then par- doned by President Andrew Johnson. He was elected from Kanawha to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1874 and served two sessions, the first at Charleston, the second, an ad- journed session, in Wheeling, after the capitol removal. He has pursued the practice of law since 1843, except from 1851 to 1856, when engaged in business pursuits, and from 1865 to 1870, when debarred from practice by the restricting laws of West Virginia. He is now a successful practitioner in the Courts of the State and in the Supreme Court of the United States.
BERNARD LEE BUTCHER.
T HREE generations of the ancestors of this prominent edu- cator lie buried within this State. The subject of this sketch was born near Huttonsville, Randolph county, Virginia, September 12, 1853. He was educated in the common schools till about the age of seventeen, when he began to teach others. He then attended the State Normal at Fairmont, under the principalship of the late Dr. James G. Blair, and after three years' study graduated. He studied law in the office of Judge Alpheus F. Haymond, of Fairmont; was admitted to the Bar of his native county in 1875 ; and in 1876 was elected Prosecut-
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ing Attorney thereof, in which office he served four years with acceptability to Court, Bar and the people. In the Centennial year he was a member of the Board of Regents of the State Normal Schools. In 1880 he was nominated by the Demo- cratic party and elected to the position of State Superintendent of Public Schools. During his four years administration he was efficient, popular, and energetic in elevating the standard of education throughout every county. He founded and published The School Journal, which aided in closer sympathy between teacher and scholar, between Normal and University work. Since the expiration of his official term he has resumed law- practice, and is extensively interested in buying and selling real estate. In 1888 he was appointed Secretary of the State Board of Immigration and Development, and continues to hold that responsible position.
THOMAS BENTON KLINE.
T
HOMAS B. KLINE, a companion of the writer's college
days, was born September 26, 1840, in Hagerstown, Mary- land, and died in the prime of life, in Cabell county, West Vir- ginia, leaving a widow, who now resides in Gallipolis, Ohio. When a mere boy he came with his parents to Mason county, and spent the later years in Point Pleasant, on the shores of the grand Ohio river. He was liberally educated; attended Jeffer- son College, at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, till 1860, therein as an extra study taking first lessons in law under Doctor of Laws, Joseph Alden. He was private secretary to Congressman Kellian V. Whaley, while in Washington, for several years. In 1866 he began practice of the law in Cabell county, in the firm of Moore, Kline & Moore. In 1871-2 he was State Senator from the District with which Cabell is connected; was made one of the State Commissioners to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia ; was Prosecuting Attorney, and Superintendent of Schools of his county, and a member of the Regent's Board of the State University. He was genial, warm-hearted, talented, and popular among all who made his acquaintance.
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HON. P. C. EASTHAM.
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PRESLEY CHAPMAN EASTHAM.
THE subject of this sketch, Hon. P. C. Eastham, was born in - Rappahannock county, Virginia, April 16, 1835, and is the eldest son of Col. Lawson Eastham, a prominent citizen of that county, who served in the Virginia House of Delegates and Sen- ate. His great-grandfather, Major Robert Eastham, came from England, located in Culpeper county, Virginia, and, according to the "History of St. Mark's Parish," was Church Warden as early as 1758. His maternal ancestors were Rixeys, Tutts and Pendletons, well known Virginia families. He received a liberal classical education, and acquired a taste for literary reading and culture. In 1860, having married the only daughter of Mr. David Long, of Mason county, he came to that portion of the State to reside, and engaged in the occupation of farming. At the commencement of the war, believing his allegiance due to the State of his birth, he cast his fortunes with the South, and held a commission in the Confederate army. The war over, he turned his attention once more to agricultural pursuits, and be- gan farming near Point Pleasant, where he and his family now reside. He was for several years President of the Mason County Agricultural and Mechanical Association.
From educated and intelligent tillers of the soil come some of the best and purest statesmen, and so thought, no doubt, the voters of Mason, Jackson, Putnam and Roane counties, when they elected Mr. Eastham to the State Senate for four years, from 1872 to 1876. While in the Legislature he served upon the Com- mittees of Finance, Education and Public Printing, having been Chairman of the last named Committee, upon which devolved the duty of framing a bill to provide for the State printing by contract to the lowest bidder. Subsequent test shows the work to have been well done. At the close of his Senatorial term his name was presented by his friends to the Democratic State Con- vention at Charleston for the Gubernatorial nomination, and, in a contest with Governor Mathews, who was nominated, he re- ceived a very flattering support for one who had been no longer in public life. In 1880 he was a Delegate-at-large to the Demo- cratic National Convention.
Mr. Eastham is a man of broad experience in public affairs, an intelligent farmer, and an honest, upright citizen, commanding in an eminent degree the confidence of his fellow-citizens.
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WILLIAM T. THOMPSON.
H ION. W. T. THOMPSON, the present State Treasurer for West Virginia, was born at Hurricane Bridge, Putnam county, Virginia. His father Hon. R. N. B. Thompson, was a member of the General Assembly of Virginia, in the House of Delegates for the sessions of 1856 and 1858. The son entered the Confederate army when quite young, and was in the battle of Scary, under Colonel A. R. Barbee. He was in the campaign in the Valley of Virginia, under General Jubal A. Early ; also in the winter campaign around Norfolk, under General Longstreet. HIe was paroled after the war, in 1865, in Charleston, Kanawha county, by the late Major William Gramm; attended Wythe- ville College, Virginia, and graduated therefrom in 1867. He subsequently read law under Judge James W. Hoge, of Putnam county, and began law practice in August, 1870, at Barbours- ville, Cabell county. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of that county in 1876, and was re-elected in 1880, thus serving eight years in that position. Mr. Thompson was next called from county to State official responsibility, and in 1884 was nominated by the Democratic party, and elected as Treasurer of West Virginia. In 1888 he was re-elected for another four years term.
In 1878 he married Lola L., daughter of William Briggs, Sr., ยท of Greenup, Kentucky, who died in 1882, leaving a daughter. In 1888 he wedded Nannie S., daughter of Judge W. H. Hagan, of Huntington, West Virginia.
JAMES CARSKADON.
FOR ROM Hampshire county into Legislative experience came James Carskadon, the subject of this brief sketch. He was born at Shutz Mills, Virginia, May 30, 1819. He was a farmer by occupation, and died in the Centennial year, March 17. His son is connected with one of the banks in Keyser, Mineral county. He was elected from his district to the State Senate of Virginia in 1860. By virtue of that election he met with the June, 1861, Convention, which had for its object the restoration of the State Government. He afterwards served in the Senate of West Virginia from 1863 to 1864, and from 1867 to 1868, being active in the discharge of every Legislative duty.
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