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 41
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
He is a voluminous author in his specialty, Geology, as the following list of his publications will show : Report (Q) on Bea- ver, Allegheny and South Butler counties, 337 pages, 1878; re- port (Q2) on Lawrence county and the Ohio line Geology, 336 pages, 1879; report (Q3) on Mercer county, 233 pages, 1880; report (P) on Permian Fossil Plants, joint author with Professor Wm. M. Fontaine, 143 pages, and 38 double page plates (litho- graphed), 1880 ; report (Q4) on Crawford and Erie counties, 406 pages, 1881 ; report (G 5) on Susquehanna and Wayne counties, 243 pages, 1881; report (G 6) on Pike and Monroe counties, 407
549
WEST VIRGINIA.
pages, 1882 ; report (G 7) on Wyoming, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Montour and Northumberland counties, 404 pages, 1883; report (T 3) on Huntington county, 471, pages, 1885; the Comparative Stratigraphy of the Bituminous Coal Measures in the Northern half of the Appalachian Coal Field (in press.) Be- sides these formal publications, Prof. White has contributed numerous articles on scientific subjects to the columns of Science, The American Journal of Science, the " Proceedings of the Amer- ican Philosophical Society," The Virginias, and several others, his notes on the Geology of West Virginia, taken during class excursions being reprinted in the West Virginia University Catalogues for 1883, '84 and '85.
Professor White has been elected to membership in the fol- lowing scientific societies : Fellow of the American Philosophi- cal Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, Fellow of the Geological Society of America, Fellow of the Maryland Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. He bears the degree of A.M., conferred by his alma mater, and the degree of Ph. D., or Doctor of Philosophy, conferred by the University of Arkansas.
Professor White has ably filled the chair of Geology and Natural History in the West Virginia University for many years. He stands at the very fore front of American Geologists, and is a recognized authority in that science throughout the Union.
WILLIAM P. WILLEY.
S an educator and journalist Professor W. P. Willey, son of Senator Waitman T. Willey, is best known. He was born in Morgantown, Monongalia county, Virginia, May, 1840, and had the benefit of boyhood days in the center of the excellent schools of his section of the State. In 1862 he was graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, studied law with his father and was admitted to the Bar in 1864; became Prosecuting Attorney for Monongalia county in 1866; was nomi- nated for Attorney General by the State Democratic Convention of 1868, but was defeated along with the rest of the ticket. He located at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1873, but returned to West
550
PROMINENT MEN OF
Virginia in 1878 to accept the editorship of the Daily Register the leading party organ of the Democracy at Wheeling. With industry, tact and ability he managed the editorial interests of the paper till elected in 1883 to the chair of Law and History in the State University. Since that date has been continuously connected with that institution, holding the chair of Equity Jurisprudence and History. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention of 1876.
JOHN I. HARVEY.
MONG the State's finished scholars and successful educa- tors we place Professor John I. Harvey, the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He is a graduate from Rich- mond College of the class of 1859; attended the University of Virginia the session of 1859-'60; then to perfect himself and get broader views and principles he traveled in Europe and attended the Universities of Goettinger and Heidelberg, Germany, from 1860 to 1865. On his return to the United States he taught in Kentucky, then in Tennessee, and finally became Professor of Modern Languages in the West Virginia University, which posi- tion he has held since 1875; and is also Treasurer of the Univer- sity. Professor Harvey was married July 10, 1867, to Miss M. S. Thompson, daughter of Major B. S. Thompson of (then Fay- ette), now Summers county, West Virginia. As an educator of the highest grade, it is to be hoped he will be for many years left to instruct our State's youth. He was born in Charlotte county, Virginia, July 14, 1840, but has resided in West Vir- ginia since 1875.
551
WEST VIRGINIA.
A.LITTLE.
PROF. A. R. WHITEHILL, A. M.
552
PROMINENT MEN OF
ALEXANDER REID WHITEHILL.
A LEXANDER REID WHITEHILL, Professor of Physics and Chemistry in the West Virginia State University, is a native of Pennsylvania, his parents, Stephen and Margaret Whitehill, having lived for more than fifty years in Beaver county, not far from the West Virginia line. He was born at Hookstown, August 4, 1850. Early in life having formed a taste for intellectual pursuits, his parents gave him every opportunity for advancement which the schools of his native town could afford. In 1870, he was admitted to the freshman class of Prince- ton College, New Jersey, President E. M. Turner, of the State University being his principal examiner. In this institution he remained four years, and throughout his course took rank among the first ten in a class that graduated one hundred members.
Having entered the lists as a competitor for the Experimental Science Fellowship, valued at six hundred dollars, he was awarded that prize on graduation, Dr. Brackett, author of Bracketts' Physics and Dr. Arnold Guyot, author of the Guyot Geographical Series, being examiners. The year after graduation, he went to Europe to pursue his favorite studies, and for a time was a student at the School of Mines at Freiberg in Germany, and afterwards at the famous University of Leipsic in the same coun- try. While abroad he traveled extensively through Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and other countries, and before he embarked for home, he had visited nearly every large city and country in Europe.
Returning to the United States during the centennial year, he went to San Francisco, and for four years held a professorship of physical science in one of the best institutions of the Pacific Coast. In 1881, during a visit to the East he was offered the principalship of the Linsly Institute in Wheeling, and accepting the position, he determined to make West Virginia his perma- nent home. He remained in Wheeling until 1885, when he was elected to the chair of Chemistry and Physics in the State University, which position he still holds. In addition to his other duties he has been made Meteorologist of the West Virginia Experiment Station, and was the author of Bulletin No. 2 of the Station, ten thousand copies of which were distributed through- out the State.
553
WEST VIRGINIA.
Apart from his work in the class-room, Professor Whitehill has been by no means idle, and since graduating at college, has been almost constantly engaged in newspaper work. For four years he was the regular Pacific Coast correspondent of the Chi- cago Tribune, and also wrote largely for the San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Press and New York Tribune. More recently he has written a series of articles on the "Natural Sciences in the Common Schools," for the West Virginia School Journal.
Professor Whitehill was married in 1882 to Miss Anna, daughter of S. B. Wilson, of Beaver, Pa., and with his wife, two children, Elizabeth Wilson and Charles Alexander, constitute his family. Both he and his wife are members of the Presby- terian Church, are yet in the prime of life, and for many years will take a prominent part in the educational history of the State.
ST. GEORGE TUCKER BROOKE.
T. GEORGE T. BROOKE, present Professor of Common and Statute Law in the University of West Virginia, was born July 22, 1844, at the University of Virginia. His father was a prominent lawyer of Richmond, Virginia, but his mater- nal grandfather, the late Henry St. George Tucker, was pro- fessor of Law in the Virginia University at the time of Mr. Brooke's birth. He was attending school in Richmond when the war broke out in 1861. In the fall of that year he applied for and was accepted, as a midshipman in the Confederate navy, and ordered to duty under Commodore Forrest, at the Norfolk Navy Yard. He served at that station, upon the " receiving ship," till the evacuation of Norfolk, when he was assigned to a gunboat, and ascended the James river to Rich- mond. He took part in the repulse of the Monitor and other Federal gunboats in their attack upon the fort at Drewry's Bluff. While in this service he fell into wretched health, and his appointment was revoked. After recruiting at home several months, in 1863 he volunteered into Co. B, Second Virginia Cavalry, in General Fitzhugh Lee's Brigade. He was at Gettys- burg, Spottsylvania C. H., the Wilderness, and in one continu- ous fight from the Rappahannock to the James. He was so
554
PROMINENT MEN OF
severely wounded on the 28th of May, 1864, that he was never able to rejoin the army. After the war he taught school near Salem, Roanoke county. He attended the law school of the University of Virginia, 1867 to 1869, and was admitted and practiced law in Craig and Roanoke counties until the winter of 1870, when he removed to Charlestown, Jefferson county, West Virginia. Here he practiced until the fall of 1878, when he accepted the appointment of Professor of Law in the Uni- versity at Morgantown, which position he still occupies. The West Virginia University conferred upon him the degree of A.M. pro honore, and Wake Forest College, North Carolina, gave him the degree of LL. D.
JOHN ALVA MYERS.
PROFESSOR JOHN A. MYERS is one of West Virginia's practical educators, one who by the application of scien- tific research to agriculture " causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before." He is a native of West Liberty, Ohio county, Virginia, born May 29, 1853, but has been a resi- dent of West Virginia more than twenty-four years. From the State Normal School at West Liberty he entered Bethany College, of which he is a graduate and post-graduate. Three years travel and study in Europe, Egypt and Palestine, added, make him a carefully educated scientific man. He is the author of a variety of scientific publications, mostly upon chemical topics and the relations of chemistry to agriculture. He was brought up on a farm; taught chemistry in Indiana, Kentucky and Mississippi-of which latter he was State Chemist six years, professor of the same in Kentucky University one year, and is now Director of the West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station at Morgantown, West Virginia. He is a gentleman of rare attainments, and a young man of whom his mother State is justly proud.
JAMES S. STEWART.
J AMES S. STEWART, Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematics at the State University, was born January 5, 1854, at McCoy's Station, Jefferson county, Ohio. His parents were James R. M. and Cordelia K. Stewart, born in London,
555
WEST VIRGINIA.
England, but of Scotch parentage. He went to Morgantown, Monongalia county, West Virginia, in 1873; graduated at the University June 28, 1877, and in September of that year began to teach in his alma mater. He is still one of the professors on duty, and has had a successful career as a teacher.
POWELL BENTON REYNOLDS.
T HE Rev. P. B. Reynolds, D.D., was born in Patrick county,
Virginia, January 9, 1841. His parents were very plain, poor people. The part of the country in which he grew up was a newly settled, backwoods, isolated section. He worked on a little mountain farm till he was twenty years old. There were no schools in the region except an occasional session of two or three months of the primitive "subscription school," in which the merest rudiments of learning were taught. He had the benefit of not more than three months' tuition in these schools. Books were scarce in the region. He sent to New York for the first algebra he ever saw. Nearly the only read- ing matter accessible in his boyhood were the occasional sample copies of newspapers sent to his father, who was postmaster. These were devoured. By private study he qualified himself by the time he was sixteen or seventeen years old to teach such schools as the country could afford. He taught several sessions.
In 1860 he went to Kentucky. In 1861 he made arrange- ments to study law in the office of Hon. Thomas B. Monroe, Judge of the Federal Court for the District of Kentucky. But the war broke up the arrangement. He went into the Con- federate army and served as a private soldier through the war. He was in many hard battles, but was never wounded. He spent the last winter of the war in the Federal prison at Point Lookout, Maryland. He devoted his time in prison to hard study.
While a soldier, Mr. Reynolds professed religion, and at the close of the war joined the Baptist Church and was immediately licensed to preach. In 1866 he entered Richmond College and con- tinued altogether about four years. In 1872 he came to West Vir- ginia to take charge of a school projected by the Baptists of the State, afterwards known as Shelton College. Here he taught ten or twelve years-for many years keeping up the institution entirely
556
PROMINENT MEN OF
by his own efforts. Many of his pupils fill high positions in this and other States. He interested himself in the Prohibition movement in the State, writing much for the papers and lectur- ing in many places. In 1882 he was proposed as a candidate for Congress in the Third District, and although he made no canvass and withdrew his name some time before the election, he received over 1,400 votes. In 1884 he was President for a short time of Buckner College, in Arkansas. Returning to West Virginia in 1885, he was elected to the chair of English in the State University, which position he still holds. In 1889 his alma mater conferred on him the degree of D.D.
Prof. Reynolds has been twice married, first in 1868 to a Miss Woolwine, of Virginia, and in 1874, to Miss Love, of Putnam county, W. Va. He possesses scholarly attainments and is one of the foremost educators of the State and a leader in his denomination.
WEST VIRGINIA.
557
A.LITTLE.
PROF. J. W. HARTIGAN, M. D.
558
PROMINENT MEN OF
JAMES WILLIAM HARTIGAN.
P ROFESSOR JAMES W. HARTIGAN, M.D., whose portrait appears with this sketch, was born in Lexington, Virginia, April 19, 1863. His father was John Wesley Hartigan, and his mother's maiden name was Sarah Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, of the numerous family of that name in the county of Rockbridge. The names of his parents sufficiently indicate that he is of Irish extraction. Shortly after his birth, his father died of wounds received in the army during the rebellion.
Some years after the close of hostilities, his widowed mother became the wife of Dr. John Daily, of Westernport, Maryland. At the schools of the latter town and Piedmont, West Virginia, the subject of this sketch received a good common school edu- cation. He afterward received the appointment of State cadet to the University of West Virginia, which institution. he at- tended for four years, devoting much of his time to the study of natural history. The bent of his mind leading him to the medical profession, he attended the medical department of the University of Wooster, Cleveland, Ohio, from which school he graduated, bearing away one of the honors of the class. He then entered upon the practice of medicine at Piedmont, West Virginia, but shortly thereafter removed to Wilsonia, Grant county, West Virginia. His desire for more advanced knowl- edge in his chosen profession, led him to attend the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, of New York City, where he gradu- ated with high honors, and was selected, after competent exam- ination, as an ambulance surgeon to that hospital-which was a staff position-where he acquired a fine reputation as a prompt and efficient officer.
While at the latter institution, surrounded by all the advant- ages of modern medicine and surgery, he took private instruc- tions from eminent physicians and surgeons, notably, Professors A. A. Smith, R. Ogden, Doremus, and J. D. Bryant, on opera- tive surgery, etc. From these and other eminent masters in their respective departments, he received the highest testimonials of excellence.
In June, 1887, he was selected by the Board of Regents of West Virginia University to fill the chair of Natural History and as Lecturer on Human Anatomy. The name of the school has since been changed and his chair is now known as the
559
WEST VIRGINIA.
Chair of Biology, and includes geology, structural botany, anatomy, microscopy, etc.
In 1888 he passed the examination at the Indiana Eclectic Medical College, of Indianapolis, and received the degree of M.D. from that institution, and shortly after, took the degree of D.S. from the Post-Graduate Department of the University of Wooster, Ohio; he also received the degree of A.M. from the West Virginia University.
It will be seen from the foregoing sketch that Professor Harti- gan has achieved at a very early age, as much as men ordinarily attain in a lifetime.
In person his physique is splendid and capable of great en- durance and strain of mental exertion. He is a constant worker and unremitting in his application to his studies. His chief intellectual strength lies, perhaps, in his power of analy- sis. By that gift he penetrates the hidden secrets of nature and extorts from her a favorable response. He is a born naturalist, and no process of the common "mother of us all" is too insignificant to claim his scrutiny or escape his notice. It is this faculty of analysis and thorough research that makes him so successful in imparting his knowledge to those who at- tend his department at the University. Being acquainted with his subjects, he is very fluent as a lecturer and possesses a charm for his hearers. No school has a superior teacher of anatomy ; being acquainted with Comparative Anatomy and possessed of rare powers as a speaker, he holds by his eloquence the inter- ested attention of his students upon the most intricate questions of Biology.
560
PROMINENT MEN OF
FOLGER CIN
HON S. B. ELKINS.
561
WEST VIRGINIA.
STEPHEN B. ELKINS.
PON the line of the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway, connecting with the Baltimore and Ohio at Pied- mont, and still in process of construction southward with ulti- mate destination down Elk river to the capital city of Charleston, is located and laid out the town of Elkins, named in honor of the able legislator, orator and liberal capitalist whose name and bland features characterize this sketch.
The enterprise, in which years ago he joined the distinguished James G. Blaine, Henry G. Davis and others of equal promin- ence, is pushing its way surely through a range of counties in our State rich in mineral resources and long awaiting the devel- opment certain to follow as this road is completed. At this station in Tucker county, is building the palatial residence of this influential citizen whose name, in 1884, from its prominence in political organization, was a household word, as the lieutenant of Presidential Candidate Blaine.
Hon. Stephen B. Elkins is a representative man, truly Amer- ican in the broadest sense. From boyhood he has been, as far as human effort is possible, the arbiter of his own fortune. Without the benefit of property inheritance or the inspiration of a long line of notable ancestry, he has pushed his way to an enviable and honorable distinction, which reaches beyond the confines of a single State.
Indeed, in all that goes to make up real manhood, there are few more noteworthy figures than he in our country. He is rather a worker and thinker than a talker, and without seek- ing notoriety and ostentation, he has become recognized as a moving force in the worlds of politics and business. He is truly a many sided man, and finds time for much besides busi- ness and public affairs. He is an effective speaker, well read, and possesses a large fund of general information. He is fond of science, and keeps himself posted in the literature of the day.
He was born September 26, 1841, in Perry county, Ohio. His early boyhood, like that of other illustrious men of this conti- nent, was spent in muscular duty upon his father's farm, and in attendance upon the public school in an adjacent town, where he was fitted for college. He then entered the University of Missouri, where diligent study and innate ability placed him at the head of his classes, and enabled him to graduate at the age
40
562
PROMINENT MEN OF
of eighteen. At this period his family suffered financial reverses which partly threw the young graduate upon his own resources, and uplifted in his path obstacles which to a less resolute youth might appear insurmountable. Not so with him, however. With that invincible will and firmness of purpose so character- istic of his subsequent life, he entered the law school and worked his way up, gaining admission to the Bar in 1864. New Mexico then invited to its limits men of enterprise, perseverance and talent, and thither, upon receiving his diploma, young Elkins went fearlessly. Here an unexpected difficulty appeared in the way ; more than half the population was of Spanish extrac- tion and spoke that language. It was necessary, in order to transact legal business successfully, to write and speak the lan- guage. Far from being discouraged by the new obstacle which faced his career, Mr. Elkins nerved himself once more to intel- lectual effort, and within one year was completely master of the Spanish tongue.
From that time his progress in influence and popularity was rapid. Within the first year of his residence in the Territory he was elected to the Legislature, and soon after was appointed Attorney General. An additional honor was conferred upon him by President Andrew Johnson, who designated him United States Attorney for the Territory, which appointment he held for four years into the succeeding Grant administration. In 1872 he resigned the office of United States Attorney, and was elected Delegate to represent the Territory in the Forty-third Congress of the United States. After serving his first two years with fidelity and popularity, he visited Europe, and upon his return was sincerely surprised to find that during his absence his friends and numerous admirers had elected him for a second term, to the Forty-fourth Congress. This tribute of appreciation, conferred without any solicitation or action on his part, was a distinguished compliment seldom awarded to men in political life.
While in the National Legislature he won the confidence and friendship of the ablest and best men over the entire land. In alluding to him one of his colleagues pays this tribute to his merits : “ His intellectual strength, his sound sense, his gener- ous nature and high-minded personal worth won him the friend- ship of the best men of all parties. This high regard, won by
f C S
t
M ne a E
the it
563
WEST VIRGINIA.
the force of his own liberal merits, he has constantly kept, and it has changed only to be brightened by lapse of time."
During his second term the question of admission of New Mexico as a State of the Union came up in Congress. It is needless to state that the most ardent advocate of the Territory's admission to the dignity of a sovereign State was Delegate Elkins, and nobly did he discharge the trust. His speech, ardent, logical and impassioned, placed him in public estimation in the front rank as a reasoner and debater. His eloquent effort alone carried the measure through the House and hushed every oppo- sition which might otherwise have influenced to retard its enact- ment.
For thirteen years he has successfully pursued his legal prac- tice. As a financier he developed remarkable aptness. The same number of years he was President of the First National Bank of Santa Fe, which he had organized, establishing for it a national name that placed it in credit with the foremost institu- tions in the land.
In politics his role has not been that of a politician, in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather that of the business man whose remarkable soundness of judgment and skill in the man- agement of men make his opinion respected in the most import- ant councils of his party.
During his Congressional term he wedded the daughter of Senator Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, a lady of amiability, womanly refinement and mental and social accomplishment.
Hitherto, till within the last two years, he has, in the manage- ment of his extending railroad, land and coal mine interests, had his business office in New York, and therefore his winter home in that metropolis, while his summer residence has been near his West Virginia investments, at Deer Park cottage. He has an interesting family of children to whose education, com- fort and happiness he is devotedly attached. His home, now transferred to West Virginia, is surrounded by everything which can make life attractive, enjoyable and elevating. Here he finds a nepenthe for business cares and worry-if he ever allows them such force-and a real solace in the tranquil joys of home.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.