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 37
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PROMINENT MEN OF
return to his profession ; but a year and a half later he entered the employ of R. E. Sellers & Co., wholesale druggists, of Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania, and two years later returned to Wheeling, and associated in business with John L. and George A. Smith, under the firm name of Smiths, Sinclair & Co., wholesale drug- gists. Later he became a member of the firm of Howell, Paull & Sinclair, wholesale dealers in teas and tobaccos, and in March, 1878, removed to Benwood, Marshall county, to engage in the drug business.
In 1880, Mr. Sinclair was elected by the Republicans of Mar- shall county to the House of Delegates, and was the patron of a bill to incorporate the City of Benwood. The bill met with an opposition seldom made to a measure brought before a legis- lative body, but passed without a dissenting vote. In 1882 he was elected a member of the Benwood City Council, at the first charter election, and as Chairman of the Committee on Ordin- ances, aided in the organization of the city government. In 1884 he was again nominated for the House of Delegates, but owing to a fusion of the Independent Republicans and Demo- crats, was defeated. In 1886 he was again nominated for the House of Delegates, and elected by 816 majority, the largest ever given in the county for a candidate on the Legislative ticket. In the Legislature of 1877, he was the patron of a bill to amend the charter of the City of Benwood. The bill was opposed by a strong and well-organized lobby, and after passing the House without a dissenting vote, was defeated on its third reading in the Senate. As a member of the House of Dele- gates, he took part in the discussions upon various bills and measures considered by that body. He is a man of broad cul- ture, and possesses superior business attainments.
495
WEST VIRGINIA.
ALEXANDER MITCHELL JACOB.
LEX. M. JACOB, son of John J. and Betsy Mitchell Jacob, was born in Wellsburg, Brooke county, Virginia, June 29, 1823; soon after, moved to Short Creek, Ohio county; gradu- ated at Washington College, Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1845; studied law but never practiced; was Deputy Sheriff under the old Virginia dispensation from 1847 to 1852, from which time until the spring of 1856, he was engaged in glass and iron man- ufacturing. He was elected to the City Council of Wheeling and was appointed City Assessor; moved to the country and en- gaged in farming; was elected a Magistrate and ex-officio mem- ber of the County Court until 1861; was elected one of the Board of County Commissioners and re-elected two terms, during which time he was appointed to re-value the land of the county ; was elected to the Legislature in 1866, and was re-elected twice. Assisted in codifying the laws under the Constitution of 1868; was elected to the State Senate in 1872. During his term as Senator he was mostly engaged in adapting the statutes to the new Constitution and trying to remove the capital back to Wheeling. He moved to Iowa in 1877, where he is engaged in farming.
JOHN CRANSTON NASH.
T HERE has for many years been a coterie of literary gentle- men in Parkersburg, who compared favorably with those of more pretentious educational centers. Some of them have "passed over the river," others are launching after them ; a few of the old circle still survive-many of them will be sketched in this volume. Among the most unobtrusive, but none the less brilliant of them is Professor John C. Nash, who is a native of Lowville, Lewis county, N. Y. He came west in 1836, and has resided in what is now West Virginia ever since, except five years spent in Alabama. He taught a private school in Parkersburg from 1844 to 1882-excepting the absence men- tioned-and many of the leading lawyers, legislators, merchants and others in the young State thank him for their intellectual superiority. Our educational interests suffered loss on his re- tirement in 1882.
496
PROMINENT MEN OF
LITTLE
GEORGE ADAMS.
497
WEST VIRGINIA.
GEORGE ADAMS.
G EORGE ADAMS was born at Baltimore, Md., September 13, 1834. He came from a family line prominent in Mary- land history since the settlement of that State, and early evinced the same qualities which made his ancestors influential and re- spected. He received his early education in the Baltimore city schools, and began mercantile life in the same city. In 1852 he moved to Wheeling, Va., to take charge of an extensive packing establishment operated by his Baltimore employers, and contin- ued in that employment until 1857, when he engaged in the grocery and commission business in Wheeling on his own account. In 1864 Mr. Adams organized the First National Bank and be- came its cashier and principal manager. Under his direction it became the leading financial institution of the State, and no small share of its success was due to the vigilance and correct business methods of its managing officer.
While actively engaged in business Mr. Adams at all times took a keen interest in the public and social affairs of his State and neighborhood. An uncompromising Union man, he ad- vocated the resolution adopted by the first Union meeting held at Wheeling after the passage of the ordinance of secession at Richmond, to pay no taxes to the Letcher government after it assumed a position of hostility to the United States; and during the war served as Captain and subsequently as Colonel of the Fifth Regiment of West Virginia Militia, an organization that did good service in defence of the Union. He never sought political office, but in many other positions of trust and honor which he has been called upon to fill his record has been an exceedingly creditable one. Among the positions so held, may be mentioned the Presidency of the Wheeling Library Associ- ation ; the Treasurership of the Soldiers' Aid Society; the Pres- idency of the Buckeye Glass Company; Director of the Frank- lin Insurance Company, etc., etc.
Mr. Adams was married in 1857 to Mary, daughter of the late Samuel McClellan, one of Wheeling's former prominent business men. The issue of this marriage was a son and two daughters. One of the latter died in infancy in 1866; its mother died in 1870, and in 1874 Mr. Adams was married to his wife's sister, Miss Jane McClellan, a lady similarly gifted with good qualities of head and heart. In 1882 Samuel P. Adams, the son by the
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PROMINENT MEN OF
first marriage, and a young man of much promise, died and his father, who with his wife and daughter had spent several years in travel in the hope of recovering his son's health, has since lived in retirement.
Although not now actively engaged in business, Mr. Adams is largely interested in the industries of the new State. In the full vigor of middle age, with ample means, and judgment ma- tured by business experience and observation, it is not likely his present retirement will be permanent. Socially, a pleasant com- panion, his fund of information has been extended by travel and a memory singularly tenacious of whatever comes under his observation, and these gifts added to a kindly hospitable nature, have earned him a host of friends who would be glad to welcome him back to former pursuits.
ANTHONY SMITH.
H ON. ANTHONY SMITH, of Tyler county, has been farmer, soldier, lawyer and legislator. He was born in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1844, and came over the line into Virginia, in 1848, when only four years old. In boy- hood he received a fair, but not liberal education. He enlisted, August 14, 1862, in Company F, Fourteenth Regiment, West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. May 9th, 1864, he was captured at the Battle of Cloyd Mountain, Virginia, and was a prisoner in Danville, Lynchburg, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen, Bluck- shear, Docktown, and Thomasville, Georgia. He never applied for furlough or was at home during the entire war; was released from prison, near Jacksonville, Florida, April 28, 1865, with the collapse of the Confederacy, and returning to the farm near Wick, Tyler county, he resumed agriculture and began the study and practice of law. He was elected to the House of Delegates of 1871, '72 and '73; served in the State Senate, ses- sions of 1883 and 1885; was a candidate for the pending Senate and filed papers of contest for the seat held by John D. Sweeney, Democrat. Mr. Smith was upon the Republican ticket of 1888, as a candidate for Presidential Elector, but was defeated with the rest of the nominees.
499
WEST VIRGINIA.
MARCELLUS BROWN HAGANS.
H ON. M. B. HAGANS, son of Elisha M. and Annie M. Hagans, was born in Petersburg, Pennsylvania, April 21, 1827. His boyhood and early manhood were passed in King- wood; hence he comes properly in West Virginia biography, having attained a prominence in an adopted and adjacent State, but claimed by many friends as a product of our own soil and atmosphere. He graduated at Washington College, Pa., when only seventeen years old; studied law with his uncle, Hon. Wm. G. Brown; was admitted to the Bar in 1848, and with his brother- in-law, Judge John A. Dille, formed the firm of Dille & Hagans. In 1852 he removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1856 became, as he still is, a member of the legal firm of Hagans & Broadwell. In 1868 he was elected Judge of the Superior Court of the Queen City, and voted to retain the Bible in the Public Schools.
In 1851, he married the only daughter of Hon. Samuel Lewis, who was an earnest friend and advocate of the Free School system of Ohio.
WILLIAM WOODYARD.
A LWAYS at duty's post might truthfully be said of Senator Woodyard, from the county of Roane. He is a native of Wood county, Virginia, and was born in 1849, near Parkers- burg, the seat of Justice. He was educated in the public schools, and by the experience of mercantile pursuits. From 1861 to 1864 he sold goods in Parkersburg, then moved to Spencer, Roane county, where, in his home, he has since continued to be one of the most prosperous business men of the section.
In 1882 he was elected to the State Senate for four years, and in 1886 he was given a second term. He is popular, energetic and clear headed. Among the important measures advocated by him in the Legislature was the erection of a second Hospital for the Insane, which, through his influence and liberality, is to be built at Spencer. He believes in public improvements, and was one of the first Directors of the Ohio River Railroad, and is the Vice-President of the Ravenswood, Spencer and Glenville Railway Company. He would be valuable to any constituency. In the pending Senate he is a member of the Committees of Fi- nance, Penitentiary, Railroads, and Chairman on that of Public Buildings and Humane Institutions.
500
PROMINENT MEN OF
MIRTLE
HON. L. D. ISBELL.
501
WEST VIRGINIA.
LEWIS D. ISBELL.
T HE mining interests of our rich and yet only partly de- veloped State are second in value and importance to only one, if any, in the Union. Of its counties, Fayette is rapidly coming to the front in its coal and coke production, and requires legislation adapted to a rapidly increasing mining population. Such a constituency sent the above named Delegate into the House of 1883. His grandfather was of like name. His father, John W., was in the war of 1812, and at its close moved from Cumberland county, into Appomattox, Virginia, where years afterwards, at the age of fifty, he married Miss Celia Smith, twenty years his junior. By this union, April 20, 1850, was born the subject of this sketch, the elder of two brothers. At the close of our civil war the father, who previous had been a wealthy farmer, was financially crushed, and his family thrown upon their own resources. Under Judge Isbell, his first cousin, Lewis D. studied law, taught school in the meantime for sup- port, and was admitted to the bar in the fall of 1871. Subse- quently he attended a full course of lectures and reading in the law school of Norwood College, Virginia, and received the first distinction in his class. He removed to Fayette county, West Virginia, in the fall of 1874, and swung out his professional shingle in the Valley air. In the fall of the Centennial year he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of the county, and served the people in that capacity four years, making a successful and able prosecutor. At the head of the Democratic county ticket in 1882, he was named for the House of Delegates, elected by a flattering majority, and was in the Legislative session of 1883, serving his constituency in an acceptable manner. Upon the floor of the House he was the champion of the rights of the miner and working man. He was the Chairman of the Com- mittee on Mines and Mining, and introduced a bill for the proper ventilation and drainage of coal mines, and providing for the appointment of State Inspector. The passage of the bill was strongly opposed by its enemies, but owing to the tact and energy of Mr. Isbell, it went through both houses and be- came a law. He has served as Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of his (Eighth) Senatorial District.
502
PROMINENT MEN OF
THOMAS HAMNER DENNIS.
H JON. THOMAS H. DENNIS, who was Speaker of the House of Delegates during the session of 1885, was born February 20, 1846, in Charlotte county, Virginia. He received a common school education until eighteen years of age. In February, 1864, he entered the Confederate army in the Four- teenth Virginia Cavalry, and served therein until the end of the war. In the fall of 1865 he came to Greenbrier county, West Virginia, and attended the old Lewisburg Academy, taught by Rev. John Calvin Barr and Walter C. Preston. He attended Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, from 1866 to 1868, and then taught school two years in Charleston, Kanawha county, with one of his former preceptors; spent two years West, in Kansas; read law with his brother, Capt. Robert F. Dennis, at Lewisburg, in 1872, and graduated at the University of Virginia in 1873, with the B.L. degree. He at once began law practice in Greenbrier and surrounding counties; was thrice elected County Superintendent of Free Schools, and was four years, from 1880 to 1884, a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee. At the election of 1884 he was made a Delegate to the Legislature, and upon its opening, was chosen to preside over the House. In 1887 he took charge of the well established journal, The Greenbrier Independent, as editor and proprietor, in which business, along with the practice of law he is now en- gaged. He was Mayor of Lewisburg in 1888 and 1889.
DAVID POWELL.
D AVID POWELL was born near Flemington, Taylor county, Virginia, July 18, 1831 ; worked on farm till he was twen- ty-two years old; attended school only during winter seasons ; was a pupil of Rev. B. Bailey for three years, until he reached his twenty-fifth year; became a teacher and taught continuously until breaking out of civil war ; volunteered as a sergeant, Com- pany "F," Third West Virginia Infantry ; in 1862 he was com- missioned First Lieutenant in Company "H," Twelfth West Virginia Infantry, and served till close of war; was engaged in ten different battles. After close of war he engaged in farming and teaching ; was County Superintendent of Public Schools of Tay- lor county in 1867-'8 : was engaged for a time as financial agent
503
WEST VIRGINIA.
of the West Virginia College at Flemington; removed to Wis- consin and entered the ministry of the Free Will Baptist de- nomination, and was pastor of Johnstown church; in 1879 he returned to his former home, near Flemington, West Virginia. He was elected as a Republican from Taylor county to the House of Delegates of West Virginia in 1882, and served with distinction in that body. He is now engaged in the Gospel Ministry in his native county. Mr. Powell is a man of large stature, and possesses ability, energy and force.
ALEXANDER CALDWELL MOORE.
N the exciting and memorable legislative session of 1889, Major A. C. Moore, was a leader on the Republican minority side. His action was always prompt, his speeches terse, logical, well directed. He was born in Clarksburg, Virginia, August 26, 1837. Until eighteen years of age he was schooled at the Northwestern Academy; was in the county clerk's office six months ; studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1857. He was deputy county clerk under his brother until 1861, when he enlisted as Captain of Co. G, Third Virginia Volunteer Infantry. Afterwards he enlisted in the Sixth West Virginia Cavalry; then as Captain of Co. E, First West Virginia Light Artillery; was sent to the South Branch Valley, and assigned to Colonel Camp- bell's Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Regiment. At Lee's retreat from Gettysburg he went to Fairview Mountain, above Williamsport, to prevent Lee's crossing the Potomac; returned to the Valley and remained until 1864; then was assigned to Colonel Crook's command, and joined Sheridan's forces. He was never wounded, and was mustered out at the close of the war in Washington City. He resumed law practice at Buckhannon, as one of the firm of Moore & Poundstone for one year; settled in Harrison county and was elected consecutively for ten years, Prosecuting ยท Attorney; then re-elected for the term from 1880 to 1884, and declined further nomination.
Major Moore was elected to the present House of Delegates of West Virginia by 438 majority, and serves on the Committees of Judiciary, Privileges and Elections, Military and Special In- vestigating. He was a delegate to the National Republican Conventions of 1872, 1880, and 1888. President Harrison re- cently appointed him U. S. Consul to St. Thomas, W. I. .
504
PROMINENT MEN OF
A.LITTLE
HON. JOHN C. VANCE. .
505
WEST VIRGINIA.
JOHN C. VANCE.
T is said that when Kossuth visited the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, he stood silent before it for several min- utes, and then, as he turned to leave the place, remarked, " How necessary it is to be successful." Kossuth was right. Every- thing in life is measured by success or failure. In the learned professions, in business, indeed in everything. It makes no dif- ference how wise one may be, unless he succeeds, but few will do more than cast a glance upon him as life's busy procession passes. A noted American wit once said, "There is nothing so successful as success." The subject of this sketch, like all men of courage and integrity usually do, succeeded in all that he un- dertook.
John C. Vance, son of Col. Cyrus and Minerva Vance, was born in Harrison county, Virginia, November 28, 1835. His edu- cation was obtained principally at the Northwestern Academy, at Clarksburg, in his native county. When he grew to man- hood he took up the study of the law, and, after reading a num- ber of text books, he became a student in Judge Brocken- brough's famous law school at Lexington, Virginia. Here he remained through the sessions of 1856-'7 and '57-'8, and thor- oughly equipped himself for the profession upon which he was about to enter. He returned to Clarksburg and was admitted to the Bar in the early part of 1859, and began practice. The outlook was most encouraging. From the first he had a paying clientage. Having a taste for politics, he was made an Elector in the campaign of 1860 on the Douglas and Johnson ticket for President and Vice-President, and took an active part in the campaign. Though young in years, in that noted contest, Mr. Vance made for himself an enviable reputation as a political speaker and worker.
The war coming on, Mr. Vance, naturally fearless and ener- getic, was very active in raising the first company of volun- teer Union soldiers in Harrison county. He accompanied them to Wheeling, where they were mustered into the Federal army. He was elected a delegate to the June, 1861, Convention which assembled in Wheeling and organized the Restored Government of Virginia, and was an active and able member of that historic assembly. He was also a member of the first Legislature under the Reorganized Government in 1861-'2, and opposed much of
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PROMINENT MEN OF
the legislation that he considered unnecessary and fanatical. In 1862, when the Emancipation proclamation of President Lincoln was issued, Mr. Vance, believing that the war had been per- verted from its original and declared purpose, resigned his seat in the Legislature, and, with others who maintained like opin- ions, attempted a reorganization of the Democratic party. On the 19th of April, 1862, he was arrested by the Federal authori- ties and was confined in Fort MeHenry, near Baltimore, as a political prisoner of war. After his release from prison, he re- turned to his home at Clarksburg, and was active in the early efforts to organize the party of his faith. During and since the war he was an energetic partisan, and did as much, perhaps, as any other man in West Virginia to place the Democratic party successfully on its feet throughout the State. Many times he has been urged to accept official position, but he always refused. Although naturally a politician he prefers business to public life.
In January, 1870, Mr. Vance was elected Cashier of the Bank of West Virginia at Clarksburg, and for nineteen years he has held that trust to the satisfaction of stockholders and people. All of his time and energies are given to that enterprise, which has steadily grown from its organization to the present.
Mr. Vance has been an active, contributing member of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows since 1859. He has passed all the chairs in the subordinate bodies, and has three times repre- sented the Grand Encampment of West Virginia in the Sover- eign Grand Body-in 1881 at Cincinnati, 1882 at Baltimore, and 1883 at Providence, Rhode Island. In this benevolent in- stitution he bears an enviable reputation.
He married Miss Amelia Hornor, daughter of Mr. James Y. Hornor, of Clarksburg, November 28, 1861.
In appearance Mr. Vance is of medium size, fair complexion, of sanguine temperament, and is always courteous, gentlemanly and polite. He enjoys great popularity among those with whom he associates, and has a large acquaintance in many portions of the State. He is a man of pleasant countenance, as will be seen by a glance at the engraving which we present in connection with this sketch.
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WEST VIRGINIA.
ARCHIBALD W. CAMPBELL.
H ION. A. W. CAMPBELL, the subject of this sketch, is the son of the late Dr. A. W. Campbell, of Bethany, Brooke county, West Virginia, and was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, April 4, 1833. He removed to Bethany in his boyhood days and was educated at the well known college there, graduating in 1852, when nineteen years of age. He afterwards studied law, at- tended lectures at Hamilton College Law School, New York, and graduated from that institution in 1855. He removed to Wheeling in the spring of 1856 as an attache of the Daily In- telligencer, then owned by Pendleton & Beatty, and in the fall of that year bought out the paper in partnership with John F. Mc- Dermot and became its editor. At once the paper took ground in favor of liberal political principles and soon allied itself with the then young but rapidly growing Republican party. These were not the days of free speech on the slavery question on the soil of Virginia. The influence of the eastern part of the State was predominant here in the west, albeit so many of the west- ern counties had so few slaves, and to be a Republican was but little better than being an out and out Abolitionist, and to be an Abolitionist was but little better socially and politically than to be tainted with crime. All classes of society felt the despotic influence of slavery over their status. It made preachers timid in the pulpit, merchants and tradesmen timid in their business, and politicians timid and time-serving in their utterances. To be in accord with Richmond, with the pro-slavery press there, with the growing demands of the South in general for more slave territory, was the correct thing in politics and social life, and ambitious lawyers, editors and public men bowed their heads and knees at this shrine.
Wheeling and Ohio county had then not more than one hun- dred slaves. This is the number given by the census of 1860. And yet the governing tone in politics and in society was but an echo of Richmond and old Virginia. In the year in which the Intelligencer began its career as the advocate of the right of all men to express and vote their political sentiments, the circuit judge of the Wheeling district charged a grand jury (in effect) that Republicans were suspicious persons and obnoxious to the laws and institutions of Virginia. Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, was deterred from delivering a con-
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PROMINENT MEN OF
servative lecture in Wheeling on the issues of the day, because simply of incidental references in his address to the slavery question. A Baptist minister of culture and high character left the city under the ban of this proscriptive opinion, because he taught colored children to read in his Sunday School. The circuit court of Harrison county issued a menacing edict against the reading of the New York Tribune, and the club agent of that paper fled the State to escape indictment and imprisonment. Partisan post-masters, subservient to the Richmond despotism, withheld such papers as the New York Christian Advocate from their subscribers and were not rebuked by their superiors at Washington. A valuable statistical book written by a native North Carolinian, which discussed the economic phases of sla- very, had to be read by stealth in Wheeling, and news dealers were afraid to keep it on their shelves. They were threatened with indictment in the courts. Republican meetings were bro- ken up by mobs and their processions stoned in the streets. They had no adequate police protection. Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, was threatened with personal violence for coming to deliver an address in Wheeling that he had delivered in the heart of his own State, and the directors of the hall in which he was to speak deliberated whether it would be safe to open their doors to this eminent citizen.
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