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 38
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These were the days and these the auspices under which Mr. Campbell began his career as the editor of the only Republican daily paper in all the then vast area of Virginia. A stout heart might well have quailed over the prospect. Almost from the start the Intelligencer was the constant target of the pro-slavery press of the State. The Richmond press reproached Wheeling because such a publication was permitted to exist in her midst, and between these reproaches and the objurgations of influen- tial persons and papers at home, it looked as if the fate of the enterprise was uncertain indeed. But the paper lived, although in a precarious way for a time, and pursued such a fair, firm and conservative course that it gradually gained in influence and circulation, and when the great and exciting Presidential can- vass of 1860 opened it was fairly able to stand alone.
Mr. Campbell went as a delegate from Virginia to the Conven- tion that nominated Abraham Lincoln for President, and return- ing home gave his candidacy an enthusiastic support. Wheeling
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was the scene of many excitements that year. There was no telling what a day would bring forth in the way of violence. Eight hundred Republican votes were polled in the county- mostly in the city of course-and these among the workmen in the iron mills, particularly the La Belle mill. About 3,000 votes were polled in the State. These were the nucleus of the Union organization that at a later day rallied to the defense of the Nation and the salvation of the State from secession.
The local Republican speakers of that day were Mr. Campbell, Alfred Caldwell, and E. M. Norton. They discussed the discrim- inations in favor of slavery, in the matter of taxation and the basis of representation in the Legislature, and these were strong points that arrested public attention and made a decided popular impression. Governor Pierpont, although a Bell and Everett elector, discussed these issues from the same standpoint, and virtually made Republican speeches. Public documents were issued and sent out among the people showing how West Vir- ginia was subordinated and injured in all her interests by East- ern Virginia, and gradually the way was prepared for the new State movement that assumed practical shape at the very outset of the war-just as Daniel Webster predicted in 1851 would be the case in the event that Virginia ever allied herself with secession.
The history of the Intelligencer during the war is the history of the Union and new State cause. They will all remain one and inseparable in the annals of West Virginia. In all those years no one threw himself more earnestly, ably and untiringly into the support of both than Mr. Campbell. President Lincoln told Governor Pierpont that it was a dispatch penned by Mr. Campbell that determined him to sign the bill (against the wishes of a part of his cabinet) that admitted West Virginia into the Union as a State. The Intelligencer was the right arm of the " Restored Government " of Virginia and Mr. Campbell was the trusted counsellor and supporter of the Union authorities both in civil and military matters.
When the new State Constitution was being framed he pro- tested against the clause recognizing slavery, and predicted that Congress would never consent to the formation of a second slave State out of the territory of Virginia, a prediction that was verified to the letter. The Constitution had to come back
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for amendment, and West Virginia was finally admitted as a free State.
After the war the great problem of the political rehabilitation of the State had to be met. There was an intense feeling among the rank and file of the Union element in favor of re- stricting the suffrage. All who had aided or abetted the re- bellion were regarded as public enemies, dangerous to the results of the war and the public peace of society, and there- fore not to be trusted with the ballot. Mr. Campbell was forced to dissent from this view of many Union men. He believed that such a policy would make an Ireland out of the State, pro- duce endless discord and work to the infinite injury of all the material interests of the Commonwealth. He, therefore, pre- pared the celebrated " let up" address (as it was called) to the Union people of West Virginia, which was influentially signed, in which these views were strongly discussed, and although there was wide-spread dissent on the part of many leading Union people and some bitter criticisms at the moment, yet the sober second thought of the people endorsed the position thus taken, and at a later day it became, in substance, an amend- ment to our State Constitution and as such was adopted by the people.
Mr. Campbell, although an original and unswerving Repub- lican, has not hesitated when the occasion arose to thus differ from his party. He differed from them on the policy of the Greenback alliance and held that sound ideas on the currency of the Government was a matter of such vital moment to the public welfare that the party could not afford to temporize for the sake of any campaign advantages. He differed from a large and influential element of the party on the issue of the third term in the Grant movement of 1880, a difference that resulted in the memorable denouement in the Chicago Conven- tion of that year that is supposed to have paved the way to Garfield's nomination for President. In that Convention Sena- tor Roscoe Conkling, who was the leader of the third term move- ment, sought by the introduction of a resolution before the bal- loting begun, to commit the delegates in advance to a support of the nominee, whoever he might be. Mr. Campbell, in an able and vigorous speech, opposed such unprecedented action. Sen- ator Conkling promptly offered a resolution proposing to expel
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Mr. Campbell from his position as a delegate in the Convention. Mr. Campbell obtained the floor and most ably defended the posi- tion he had conscientiously taken, and among other things gave utterance to the remark, which gave him a national reputation as a man of unusual courage and ability, viz : " Whether in or out of this Convention, I carry my sovereignty under my own hat." Mr. Conkling's resolution did not prevail. Upon Mr. Campbell's return to Wheeling a public mass meeting was held in the opera house, elaborate addresses indorsing his conduct in the Convention were made, and he was publicly presented with a large oil painting representing the scene alluded to in the Chicago Convention.
Mr. Campbell with all his prominence in the public affairs of West Virginia for a generation has never been a politician. He has left the manipulation of conventions and nominations to others. He had no taste whatever in that direction, preferring to discuss public measures in his paper and on the hustings. He has been largely voted for time and again for the United States Senate, and there is no doubt had he so chosen he could have effected his own election. But this he always declined to do, and because he did not no one ever heard him repine over the result, or saw him falter in his usual political course. His name was urged by his friends for a position in President Garfield's Cabinet. His endorsements were extensive, and came from the leading Republicans from nearly every portion of the Republic.
Of late years he has given more attention to business interests than to politics. He has been connected for many years with iron and steel manufacture, as President and Director of one of the large works, but has always been ready to take up his pen or go before the people in advocacy of Republican principles.
He was one of the three Commissioners on the part of West Virginia to adjust the debt question with Virginia, and was charged with the duty of preparing a large part of the able re- port upon that question.
He has from time to time delivered addresses on various sub- jects of public interest, and in 1887 prepared an interesting his- torical resume of the events, civil and political, that led to the formation of the State, at the request of the Society of the Army of West Virginia.
His familiarity with all matters relative to the tariff caused
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him to be sent to Washington as the representative of the Ohio Valley Steel Association before the Ways and Means Committee of Congress.
But few Americans have studied the varied phases of political economy as deeply and with the same amount of care and re- search that Mr. Campbell has given to them. He seems to know the history of the great tariff question from A to Z. The writer has heard him make a large number of public speeches upon that subject, and it was a rare thing for him to repeat himself. Each address seemed to be a presentation of some new feature of the matter that he had not formerly considered. He appeared to have stored away in his memory a fund of information that was illimitable, and like a great spool, unraveled at his will. It was said of his uncle, the great Bishop Alexander Campbell, that his mind was like a sponge-it absorbed everything with which it came in contact. This is true to a very great extent of the sub- ject of this sketch. He is an industrious student, and possesses the power to retain what he reads.
His thorough knowledge of the great economic questions of the country, and his well known fitness for the place, caused his friends to present his name to President Harrison for the vacancy on the Inter-State Commerce Commission. The most promi- nent men in the Nation, representing upwards of three-fourths of the States of the Union, and embracing both of the leading political parties, urged the President to appoint him as a mem- ber of that Commission. The President admitted Mr. Camp- bell's general qualifications for the position ; but was of the opin- ion that some active and experienced jurist should be chosen, and accordingly appointed Judge Veasy, of Vermont. The num- erous testimonials forwarded to the President in Mr. Campbell's behalf, show the high esteem in which he is held by the leading men of the country.
Mr. Campbell's individuality is impressed upon almost every page of West Virginia's first twenty years of history. With voice and pen he was heard and felt, and largely followed, dur- ing the early years of our Statehood. Scholarly, and at the same time, possessed of a deliberate judgment rarely found in men, he was heard and heeded by his less endowed fellow citizens. No man in all our borders is better known ; and I say it with due re-
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spect to other prominent West Virginians, no man is abler, and none more highly respected.
Mr. Campbell was for a number of years Chairman of the State Republican Committee. In 1868 and 1880 he was the West Virginia member of the Republican National Committee and Republican nominee for elector-at-large.
For several years past he has been an extensive traveler, and has visited almost every part of the United States, and written extensively for the press upon the vast resources of our country.
ALSTORPHIUS WERNINGER.
IN 1813, when our second British war was in progress, there was working in his father's store a youth who in 1889 deserves a place in the history of the "Prominent Men of West Virginia." He was the son of Augustus and Matilda Wernin- ger, born in Morgantown, Virginia, June 30, 1805. When the 1812 war closed Alstorphius was sent to school until at the age of thirteen he entered his father's store as an employe until 1824, when the father dying, the boy purchased the stock from the estate and continued the business in Morgantown until March, 1827, when he removed to Clarksburg and engaged in merchan- dising and farming. May 10, 1827, he married Martha E., daughter of Col. Wm. Martin, a Revolutionary soldier. They had eleven children, of whom six sons and one daughter sur- vive. He was an active Union man throughout the late civil war, assisting zealously in the restoration of Virginia on a loyal basis. He was afterwards an outspoken advocate of the new State. Too old to take up arms, he assisted the government as
Provost Marshal and Assistant Collector of Revenue. In 1866 he was elected on the Republican ticket to represent his Senato- rial district in the West Virginia Legislature, and was re-elected in 1868, each time by a large majority. In that body he was prompt and industrious for the State and his constituents. He has also served several terms as Justice of the Peace in Harrison county, to the people's satisfaction. At an advanced age he continued unusually active, robust and laborious. Within the past few years he was one of the Commissioners of Accounts of Harrison county as also a Notary Public.
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HON. N. B. SCOTT.
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NATHAN B. SCOTT.
H TON. N. B. SCOTT, for nearly eight years a State Senator of West Virginia, and one of the leading business men of Wheeling, was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, December 18, 1843. At the age of eleven he entered a country store as an as- sistant to the proprietor and regular clerks. During the winter seasons he attended the public schools of the county. His sal- ary was $25.00 per year, with his board, clothing and washing " thrown in." He remained in this employment until 1859, when, at the age of sixteen, he went to Wheeling, and there secured passage on a steamboat for Leavenworth, Kansas. Arriving at his destination, he was promptly employed to drive an ox team across the prairies, to the point where Denver now stands, arriv- ing May 8, 1859. At that time there were only a few houses there. He located a lot, but rather than pay the required fee of $2.50, gave it up. That same lot sold in 1878 for $40,000. Re- turning to the States he apprenticed himself to learn the trade of a tanner and currier. He labored earnestly at this business until the breaking out of the war in 1861, when he enlisted in the Union army. His father objected to his going as a soldier, and he was required to return home. In September, 1862, when the Confederates under General Kirby Smith were threatening the destruction of Cincinnati, Governor David Tod called on the " squirrel hunters" of Ohio to turn out and defend the borders of the State. Responding to this call, young Scott shouldered his musket and was found among those on their way to the in- trenchments in the rear of Covington, Kentucky. Here he re- mained until they were recalled by the Governor. The letter of discharge from this military service Mr. Scott prizes most highly.
Shortly after his discharge from State service he enlisted in the Eighty-eighth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, and served un- til the 3d of July, following the close of the war, when he was honorably discharged.
He next went to Bellaire, Ohio, and engaged in business, and at once began a course of study which occupied all his spare mo- ments. He saw the necessity of an education, which he did not possess, and therefore set about, in dead earnest, to obtain it. In 1870 he began work for a glass factory at Bellaire, and resolved to master its many details. He remained there until 1875, when
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he settled in Wheeling in the employment of the Central Glass Company, one of the largest establishments of the kind in the world. By this time he had become efficient in his chosen oc- cupation, and it was not long before the owners of this exten- sive establishment saw in Mr. Scott the kind of a man they needed to manage their great interests, so they elected him their President. For a number of years he has managed the business affairs of the company in the most successful and satisfactory manner.
Though a self-made business man, successful in every sense of the word, Mr. Scott has for years had a hankering after poli- ties. He never sought office, but the taste for political affairs brought him into associations with a class of men who many times insisted upon his accepting public position. Hence, when barely old enough to be eligible, he was chosen Mayor of Mill- wood (now Quaker City), his native town. In 1880 he was elected to the Council of Wheeling, and was made President of the Sec- ond Branch of that body. In 1882 he was nominated and elected to the West Virginia Senate from the First District. His compet- itor was the late Capt. Andrew Wilson, a very popular man. This, added to the fact that the District was largely Democratic, proved Mr. Scott's popularity among the people.
He served faithfully, ably and efficiently in the Senate for four years. One of his most noted legislative acts was the introduc- tion of a bill requiring the co-education of the sexes in our State University. For years he clung to his favored scheme, intro- ducing bill after bill of the same kind, until it became a law. For this valuable work Senator Scott is entitled to the gratitude of all progressive people.
His fellow-citizens, greatly pleased over the conduct of their representative in the highest legislative branch of the State Gov- ernment. again, in 1886, nominated and elected the Senator, over his earnest protest, for a second term of four years. His competitor, this time, was Hon. John O. Pendleton, and his ma- ยท jority was very much larger than the one he received four years before.
As a legislator, Mr. Scott was attentive and painstaking. He was open and fair in all his acts, and, accordingly, possessed the confidence of his associates, Such men are necessarily influen- tial and useful, both in and out of legislative assemblies.
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Mr. Scott has always been an ardent Republican. At the Chi- cago Convention of 1888, he was elected a member of the Na- tional Republican Executive Committee for the term of four years. During the campaign of that year he proved himself a valuable and active member of that organization. He is Presi- dent of the Dollar Savings Bank of Wheeling, one of the most prosperous banking houses in the State, and is a Director in a number of Wheeling's leading business enterprises.
GEORGE HENRY MOFFETT.
H ION. GEORGE H. MOFFETT, the Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1879, is now the editor in chief of The Daily Globe, one of the leading journals of the Northwest, issued at St. Paul, Minnesota. He was born in Hun- tersville, Virginia, March 3, 1845. He was classically educated at Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, entered the Con- federate army in 1861, at sixteen years of age, and served through the war in Stuart's Cavalry Corps. After the conflict ended he studied law with Hon. Samuel Price, of Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, and located in Pocahontas county. From that county he was elected by the Democratic voters as a mem- ber of the Convention of 1872 to revise the State Constitution. In 1876 he became editor of the Wheeling Daily Register, per- forming the arduous duties with ability and vivacity. From 1879 to 1881 he was a member of the House of Delegates from Pocahontas county, and in the first session was elected Speaker, serving with popularity and efficiency during that term. In 1881 he removed to Buckhannon, Upshur county, and engaged in the lumber business. Preferring journalism to mercantile, manufacturing, or even legislative labor and honors, he went West in 1885, and took a position in the editorial rooms of the Globe, in far-off St. Paul. In this responsible trust his influence is wider and more potent for the public welfare than when wielding the Speaker's gavel in the State House of West Vir- ginia. He is nevertheless devoted to the prosperity of the peo- ple of his native mountains, and hopes again to become identified with their every interest.
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SAMUEL P. M'CORMICK.
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SAMUEL PHILLIPS McCORMICK.
S. P. McCORMICK was born Nov. 25, 1841, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and died at Washington, D. C., June 6, 1889. He attended school a short time in Pennsylvania, but the principal part of his education was obtained at the select academy of Professor Kidwell, at Fairmont, West Virginia, whither he came from Pennsylvania in October, 1856. He also attended several terms at the old Fairmont Academy. When he finished his education he decided to learn the trade of a brick- mason, and accordingly worked at that business for two years -1857-'8. During the fall of 1858 he began to teach school in Marion and Monongalia counties, which he kept up until the breaking out of the civil war. He desired to enter the Union army, but his father, J. B. McCormick, who was a Methodist minister, interposed an objection. He left home, went to Indi- ana, and there, in the month of July, 1861, was regularly mus- tered into the Federal army. After serving as a soldier for about a year in General Bank's Division of the Army of the Potomac, he was honorably discharged on account of a chronic attack of bronchitis. Returning to Morgantown, Monongalia county, he took up the study of law, under the direction of Judge Ralph L. Berkshire, and was admitted to the West Virginia Bar in October, 1864. Soon thereafter he located at Harrisville, Ritchie county, and began the practice of his chosen profession. Find- ing the field anything but encouraging at that place, he removed the next year to West Union, Doddridge county, and in 1866 was elected Prosecuting Attorney of that county. He refused a re-election in 1868 ; located at Grafton, Taylor county, in 1873 ; was elected Prosecuting Attorney of that county in 1876 and served four years, discharging the duties to the satisfaction of all the people; was chosen one of the delegates-at-large from West Virginia to the Republican National Convention in 1880, and was one of the three delegates who created a National sen- sation by refusing to vote for Senator Roscoe Conkling's resolu- tion binding delegates in advance of a nomination to support the party candidates ; was eight years a member of the Repub- lican State Executive Committee, and a large part of the time its Secretary ; was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for West Virginia, by President Arthur, in January, 1885, and upon
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the change of administration was removed by President Cleve- land the same year.
But few men in West Virginia were better known than Sam- uel P. McCormick. He possessed great energy, and always had the courage to openly advocate whatever he believed to be just and right. He was invariably found on one side or the other of all great questions. He despised demagoguery ; was a good lawyer, a reliable business man, an earnest partisan, and was honest and trustworthy.
EPHRAIM B. HALL,
H ON. EPHRAIM B. HALL was born in Harrison county (now Marion county), West Virginia, in August, 1822. He lived a farmer's life in boyhood; acquired an academical educa- tion ; studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1851, and practiced that profession in Marion and adjoining counties from 1850 until after the commencement of the war in 1861, com- manding an honorable position in the profession, and eminence as a chancery lawyer.
He was elected and served as a member of the Richmond Con- vention in 1861, and was one of the fifty-eight who voted against the adoption of the ordinance of secession, and on the recess ad- journment of the Convention in May, 1861, returned home and canvassed his own and the adjoining counties against the adop- tion of the ordinance by the people.
Not returning to the adjourned meeting of the Convention in June, 1861, for his absence and alleged disloyalty to the State Government at Richmond in advocating a reorganization of the State Government upon a basis of loyalty to the Government of the United States, and a division of the State, he was, subse- quently, under an ordinance of the Convention declaring certain acts as constituting treason against the State, and providing for trial, in the absence of the accused, by a proceeding in outlaw- ry, tried and condemned to be executed for such alleged treason. He was a member of the Convention at Wheeling in 1861 for the re-organization of the State Government on the basis of loy- alty to the United States.
He was a member of the Convention that formed and adopted the first Constitution of West Virginia, and one of the five ap-
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pointed by that Convention to present the same to Congress and the Federal authorities at Washington, and to secure its accept- ance and the admission of the State of West Virginia under the same.
Mr. Hall was Attorney General of the State of West Virginia for the term commencing January 1, 1865. In October, 1865, he was elected Judge of the Tenth Circuit, composed of the coun- ties of Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy and Pen- dleton. He resigned the office of Attorney General in Decem- ber, 1865, and qualified and served as Judge of the Tenth Cir- cuit until the close of the official term.
He was re-elected Judge of what, by change of Circuits, be- came the Sixth Circuit, composed of the counties of Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan and Hampshire, but declined to accept or qual- ify as such.
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