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 42
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He is an ardent advocate of Home Rule for Ireland, as well as the American States and Territories ; is in sympathy with and does much to encourage the benevolent movements and so-
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cieties of the age; is deeply and sincerely interested in the labor question, and has done much by pen and tongue, and by practi- cal illustration as well, to promote harmony and confidence, which he believes should exist between capital and labor, em- ployer and employed. He takes part in all that concerns the welfare of the community in which he resides, the prosperity of his State, and the progress of the Nation in true manhood and real reforms.
For a decade he has been financially interested in West Vir- ginia's prosperity, mechanical, agricultural, industrial and polit- ical. His large investments within our borders have drawn his residence at last within our confines. During the campaign of 1884, when attention was turned to the probabilities of placing the State with its Presidential Electors in the Republican col- umn, he, as the adviser of standard bearer Blaine, his warm personal friend, conferred with prominent leaders in the State, and saw as he thought the certain fingers pointing ultimately to its alignment away from the dominant party. In 1888 he deliv- ered addresses on protective tariff, in which he is a firm believer, all over West Virginia, never failing to interest by his logic, his facts, and his eloquent expression.
The portrait fronting this sketch, while not giving full ex- pression to his kindly eyes, indicative of benevolent heart and manly purposes, yet seem to invite your friendship and your honorable esteem and confidence.
In physique Mr. Elkins is robust, in manner gentle, in voice clear but tender, in tastes refined, in intellect vigorous, in logic and oratory perspicuous and convincing. In his habits he is domestic rather than social, shrinks from crowds and public places, is rarely seen at clubs or even hotels except on business. Is literary in his mental desires, a great reader, and keeps his Latin and Greek books about him in his office or cottage, ready to snatch up at any moment of leisure.
In 1888 he delivered before the literary societies of the West Virginia University an eloquent, forcible, patriotic and very practical address upon American Civilization. He believes in America, her people, her future. He believes also in West Vir- ginia, and has cast his social and political, as he has long since his financial destiny, with our citizens. He exhibits his faith by his planting his well earned capital, his energies and his time
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in the development of our mineral endowments, and the opening up of our forests and mines to the commerce of an outside world. These are the benefactors, the truly valuable citizens we are anxious to welcome, honor and retain.
HENRY HAYMOND.
T HE first Haymond who settled in the section now called West Virginia, was William, of Montgomery county, Mary- land, who had been a soldier in Colonial service with General Washington, and located in 1773 in West Augusta, Virginia, near the present site of Morgantown. In 1784, when Harrison county was organized, he was appointed principal surveyor, and held office thirty-seven years, dying in 1821. All the Haymonds of Marion, Braxton and Harrison are descended from him. His great grandson, the subject of this sketch, was born January 6, 1837, in Clarksburg, Virginia, attended the Northwestern Academy and the Loudoun Agricultural Institute; studied law with and was in the office of Judge John S. Hoffman, until 1861, then was appointed Captain in the Eighteenth Regiment U. S. Infantry, serving in the regular army until 1870. During the war he served in the Army of the Cumberland, participating in the battles of Perryville, Kentucky ; Stone River, Chicka- mauga, siege of Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, and various skirmishes. He served also on the plains in Wyoming, Dakota and Nebraska, taking part in several Indian expeditions. He was brevetted Major and Lieutenant Colonel for bravery in the battles of Stone River and Chickamauga; resigned from the army in 1870; held the position of Recorder of Clarksburg, Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue, President of the Board of Visitors to West Point in 1884, a member of the House of Delegates in 1887, serving upon the committees of Military Af- fairs, Arts and Sciences and General Improvements, and Mines and Mining. In 1888 he was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court of Harrison county, which position he now holds.
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HON. JOHN T. M'GRAW.
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JOHN THOMAS MCGRAW.
N O branch of the United States service is more important in its bearings upon the people than that which regulates the amount they directly, or indirectly, pay toward the public treasury. Hence the position of Internal Revenue Collector, in a State even so small as West Virginia, is a responsible and coveted trust. To fill its various duties well, between the Government and the governed, requires tact as well as execu- tive ability.
The recent incumbent, and appointee of four years ago to that office, will be recognized in the portrait facing this sketch. He is the son of Thomas McGraw, the pioneer merchant and grocer of Grafton, in Taylor county. There was born on the 12th day of January, 1856, the son, John T. McGraw. His an- cestors were Thomas McGraw, who was one of the first settlers of the town of Grafton, and Mary B. Luley, both having emi- grated from Ireland at a very early age.
Mr. McGraw was educated primarily at the excellent college of St. Vincent, in Wheeling, of this State, and afterwards in the celebrated Yale University, at New Haven, Connecticut, graduating from the Law Department of the latter institution in the class of 1876. He was admitted to the Taylor county Bar in the same Centennial year, and has practiced his profession, with office at the county seat thereof since that time. Shortly after coming to the Bar he was appointed one of the West Vir- ginia counsel for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, and has since continued as such legal adviser and attorney. In the fall of 1880 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for Taylor county, and served efficiently and popularly in that capacity until the spring of 1885.
In 1882 he was appointed an aide-de-camp, with the rank of Colonel, on the Staff of Hon. Jacob B. Jackson, Governor of West Virginia. He held such semi-civil and military position during that administration of four years. In the spring of 1886, upon the expiration of his term of service as Prosecuting Attorney, he was appointed by President Cleveland, during the vacation of the Senate, Collector of Internal Revenue for the collection district including all the counties of the State of West Virginia, and at the following session of the Senate was nominated and confirmed as such Collector. An ardent Demo-
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crat in his political faith, and believing that each National Ad- ministration should have its responsible and important offices in the hands of those in sympathy with its policy, on the 18th of May, 1889, he surrendered his commission and voluntarily re- signed his office, to take effect at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, on which date the office was promptly, and in ex- cellent shape, transferred to Albert B. White, of Parkersburg, who was appointed by President Harrison to succeed to the office upon the acceptance of the resignation of Col. McGraw.
In his management of the collections through his jurisdiction of our fifty-four counties, he was satisfactory to the people who had business duties and relations with the Collector, and emin- ently so to the Government over him. During the administra- tion of President Cleveland he was appointed the United States Disbursing Agent for the public buildings at Clarksburg, Charleston and Wheeling, and as such disbursed the funds ap- propriated by Congress for the construction and enlargement of these buildings.
He has resumed the practice of law at Grafton ; is unmarried ; comparatively young in years and features, and with a promis- ing future before him.
HEDGMAN SLACK.
H EDGMAN SLACK was born in 1834, in Kanawha county, Virginia. His education was obtained in the district schools of that day. When his country called for volunteers, early in 1861, young Slack, in company with his younger brother-Greenbury, who was killed in the battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia-enlisted in the Union army, the former in the Fourth, and the latter in the Thirteenth Virginia Regiments. Both of the brothers were made captains. The Fourth Vir- ginia Regiment was changed to the Seventh West Virginia Cavalry, and Captain Hedgman Slack was elected its first Major. He was a man of great courage, and in several severe engage- ments commanded his regiment. April 20, 1868, President Grant appointed him United States Marshal for West Virginia, which office he held for nine consecutive years. He now re- sides on his farm seven miles northeast of Charleston.
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PETER DARNEL.
PETER DARNEL was born in Ohio county, near Wheeling, Virginia, October 11, 1816. He resided on a farm until seventeen years old, then learned the trade of a blacksmith, and at the age of nineteen moved to Kanawha county, and locating near Blackshire's Mills, learned and pursued the busi- ness of a mill-wright. He was a captain in the militia from 1843 to 1850. At the formation of Roane county he was a Justice of the Peace and served until 1858, then removed to Mason county and there served as President of the Board of Education. He was three years in the Union army as Captain of Company I, Thirteenth Regiment, West Virginia Infantry. He enlisted September 9, 1862, and was mustered out June 24, 1865. In that year he was elected to the Legislature from Mason county, and served on the Committee of Military, ses- sion of 1866. His mother's father, Robert Thornton, received the original grant to the land on which the city of Parkers- burg now stands. In 1881 Captain Darnel removed from West Columbia, Mason county, to Big Sandy, Kanawha county, and there died June 9, 1889.
OLIVER W. O. HARDMAN.
O LIVER W. O. HARDMAN was born in Tyler county, Virginia, September 23, 1850. He was educated in the common schools, and taught therein for eight years, beginning at the age of eighteen ; was elected to the State Legislature from his county to the session of 1877, and served therein on several committees. The next four years he devoted to legal writing, surveying and politics. In 1881 he was appointed deputy in the Sheriff's office and served four years, then engaged in the combined pursuits of farming, grazing, lumbering and milling. For the four years from January, 1889, he was elected Sheriff of the county, in which position he serves the people acceptably and faithfully. He is a man of superior ability and large politi- cal influence. As a platform speaker, he has but few superiors in West Virginia.
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ALEXANDER L. WADE.
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WEST VIRGINIA.
ALEXANDER L. WADE.
A LEXANDER L. WADE, eldest son of George and Anna Wade, was born near Rushville, Indiana, February 1, 1832. His father and mother were natives of Virginia, the former of Monongalia county, and the latter of Washington county. In 1839 the family moved from Indiana to Monongalia county, where, in 1846, the father died, leaving the family no fortune save the force of a Christian example. Alexander, beig then eldest of five children, and at the time of his father's death but fourteen years of age, undertook to aid his mother in maintain- ing the family, a work which he continued till after he reached his majority. He had early imbibed a love for reading and an earnest desire to be a scholar ; but schools were inferior and books were scarce, and his time was divided between labor and study, while his earnings went to buy bread for the family and books for the library.
In 1848, being but sixteen years of age, he began teaching school. The two succeeding years he worked in summer and taught in winter. From that time till the beginning of the war, in 1861, he made teaching his vocation. During all these years he was an earnest student, mastering, one by one, without an instructor, most of the college branches and several subjects outside of an ordinary college course.
In 1852 he made a public profession of religion and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church. He received license as a local preacher in 1860, was constituted a deacon by Bishop Clark in 1866, and was ordained an elder in 1874, by Bishop Scott. In October, 1883, the West Virginia Lay-Electoral Conference, held at Wheeling, elected him a delegate to the General Conference held at Philadelphia, in May, 1884.
He married, in 1854, Hattie Sanders, daughter of John and Elizabeth Sanders, of Monongalia county. They have six child- ren,-three sons and three daughters, named in the order of their ages, Clark C., Spencer S., Mary E., Anna B., Charles A., and Hettie L.
In 1861 he was elected Clerk of the County Court of Monon- galia county, and he moved to Morgantown, where he has ever since resided.
In 1863, when the new State of West Virginia was formed and the County Court was abolished, he was elected County Recorder,
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which office he held, by election, four successive terms of two years each. Upon his retirement from the Recorder's office, in January, 1871, he was elected Clerk of the County Board of Super- visors, and in the summer of the same year he became Principal of the public schools of Morgantown. Though his official duties had been fairly remunerative, and though he had been buying and selling real estate with a good degree of success, he had not felt satisfied since he left the school room. His duties as Princi- pal of the public schools were to him so much more enjoyable than the recording of deeds, the searching of records, and the buying and selling of real estate, that he determined to devote himself entirely to the educational work.
In the autumn of 1873, in order to widen his work as an edu- cator, he engaged with Superintendent Cox to visit the schools of Monongalia county. This work he continued through the Superintendent's term of two years. In 1875 he was elected Superintendent of Monongalia county, to which office he was re- elected in 1877.
He had long entertained the belief that there is entirely too much waste in country school work, and while County Superin- tendent he saw this fact in a still clearer light. He saw that average students in academies and colleges complete more branches in a single year than the average pupils in country schools complete in the entire school period. After much care- full study he became satisfied that the chief cause of difference is found in the fact that in all higher schools there is a definite work to do, a definite time in which it ought to be done, and a test as to whether it is well done, while in country schools no such provisions exist. He, therefore, determined to introduce into the country schools of his county a system of graduation similar to that of academies and colleges.
In the autumn of 1874 he began to organize graduating classes in the country schools of his county ; but the first classes grad- uated and the first common school diplomas were granted in the spring of 1876,-the centennial of American Independence. The first common school catalogue was published in the autumn of the same year, and alumni associations were formed the follow- ing year. So wide-spread was the progress of the new plan that General Eaton, Chief of the National Bureau of Education'at Washington, in his annual report for 1878, says :
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" Of all the plans developed none has excited more attention than that known as the 'Graduating System for Country Schools,' devised by A. L. Wade, Superintendent of Monongalia county, West Virginia. * * It has been reviewed by all the edu- cational journals, and has excited the attention of the principal State Superintendents of the country."
In July, 1879, by invitation, he read a paper on this subject before the National Educational Association at Philadelphia. The Association, after thoroughly discussing the subject, adopted the following resolution :
"Resolved, That the attention of the State Superintendents of Public Instruction throughout the United States be called to the propriety of adopting a graduating system for country schools."
Since the passage of the foregoing resolution several States have adopted the system entire, others are testing it in single counties, and the plan bids fair to become universal.
Upon his retirement from the Superintendency in 1879, he en- tered upon the work of writing a book entitled "A Graduating System for Country Schools," which he completed in 1881. The book is published in Boston, but is sold also by leading houses in several of the larger cities.
Wishing to test new educational methods under circumstances presumably the least favorable, he asked, in 1880, to be appointed Principal of the Morgantown colored school. His experiments proved not only the value of his methods, but the capabilities of the colored people.
In February, 1884, by invitation, he discussed "Supervision in Country Schools" before the National Association of School Superintendents, held at Washington, District of Columbia. His paper upon this subject is published by the National Bureau of Education.
In June, 1886, he was elected to membership in the American Institute of Civics, Boston, and was afterward chosen one of its counsellors.
Though actively engaged a part of his time in primary teach- ing, his chief employment from 1881 to 1884, inclusive, was that of a lecturer and institute instructor. In this field he was in- timately associated with such men as State Superintendent Smart, of Indiana; State Commissioner Burns, of Ohio; State Superin- tendent Butcher, of West Virginia; State Superintendent Nor-
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throp, of Connecticut; State Superintendent Apgar, of New Jer- sey ; State Superintendent Newell, of Maryland; City Superin- tendent Peaslee, of Cincinnati, and Professor DeGraff, author of " School Room Guide." The following are the subjects of his most popular platform lectures :
I. Fun as a Factor in Lengthening Life.
II. How to make our Homes Handsome, Healthy, and Happy.
III. Sunshine in Christian Countries.
IV. Hinderances and Helps to Popular Education.
V. How to Make the Honeymoon last through Life.
In studying the needs of the schools from the standpoint of an institute instructor in several States, he came to the conclusion that no other one thing so crippled the school work as does the want of a comprehensive dictionary in each school room, as a book of reference for teacher and pupils.
With an earnest wish to relieve this want, early in the autumn of 1884 he sought and secured the West Virginia agency for Un- abridged and Intermediate Dictionaries, and at once entered upon the work of supplying the schools through boards of education. So wide was his success from the very beginning of this work, that State Superintendent B. L. Butcher, in his report to the Legislature, in January, 1885, under the head of "Dictionaries," says :
"I am pleased to be able to report that the work of supplying the schools with dictionaries has been undertaken, and is going forward with marked success under the management of Professor A. L. Wade, who is giving the work his personal attention. Nothing in the line of school-helps is of greater necessity, or con- tributes more to secure the correct use and pronunciation of the mother-tongue, than convenient access while in school to a com- prehensive dictionary."
In January, 1887, State Superintendent B. S. Morgan, in his report to the Legislature, speaking of the same subject, says : " During the past two years, Professor A. L. Wade has been en- gaged in introducing Unabridged dictionaries in the free schools, and has met with excellent success. I commend this work and desire to see it go forward; the Unabridged dictionary should find a place in every school house in the State."
The plan which he has projected is :
1. Supply each school room in the State with a dictionary, as
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a book of reference, giving all needed information in the matter of words.
2. Supply each school in the State with an encyclopædia giving information upon all subjects.
When all the schools of the State are thus supplied, our youth will have access to the best sources of information, and will learn in school the habit of searching for themselves,-a habit which, when once formed, will last throughout life. With this end in view, he is giving the work the benefit of his best strength, both in body and brain.
Possessing in a fair degree the ability to make money, he turned away from business in the prime of life in order that he might devote himself to the improvement of primary schools. Few men of his attainments have devoted themselves so entirely to this work.
Though his chief calling is that of an educator, he has not con- fined himself entirely to school work. The church, the Sunday school, the Bible cause, and the temperance movement have each received a due portion of his time and attention. He served for several years as agent and distributor of the American Bible Society, and as a member of the West Virginia State Temper- ance Executive Committee.
He long since chose as his life motto, and as his favorite verse in the English language,-
"I live for those who love me, Whose hearts are kind and true, For the heaven that smiles above me, And awaits my spirit too ; For all human ties that bind me,
For the task my God assigned me, For the bright hopes left behind me, And the good that I can do."
He is ardently attached to teachers, and is proud of the teacher's calling. In an address to the teachers of his county, he once said, "I love the teacher better than I love men and women of any other calling or profession, and I want these teachers, when I die, to bear me to my last resting place and inscribe upon my tombstone, 'A. L. Wade, Teacher, and Author of a Graduating System for Country Schools.'"
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PROMINENT MEN OF
A.LITILE
HON. D. B. LUCAS, LL. D.
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WEST VIRGINIA.
DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS.
D ANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS, LL. D., the poet of the Shenandoah Valley, was born at Charlestown, Virginia, March 16, 1836. On his father's side, Mr. Lucas is a lineal de- scendant of Robert Lucas, of Deverall, Lingbridge, of the county of Wiltes, England, who was among the first settlers in the Prov- ince of Pennsylvania. His name is found in the ancient registry of Bucks county, where he arrived, as we learn from that chron- icle, " the fourth of the fourth month, 1679," in the good ship " Elizabeth and Mary," of Waymouth. His wife, Elizabeth, and their children, arrived nine months later in the "Content," of London.
Robert Lucas was a member of the first Assembly, under Penn's Charter, of 1682. He signed the acceptance of this great bill of rights, "at Philadelphia, the second month, 1683." He was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly of 1687 and 1688, and died during the session of the latter year. He was a consider- able land owner, his farm lying on Falls River, in the parish of that name. He left a son, Edward, who was a supervisor in 1730, of Falls township, Pennsylvania. In a few years after this date, Edward crossed the mountains and took up his home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, settling a large tract of land, on the head waters of Rattle Snake Run, which empties into the Potomac a few miles below Shepherdstown. He was twice married. His first wife was Mary Darke, sister of the famous General William Darke, of Revolutionary fame. He had seventeen children, the eldest of whom, Edward, was born in 1738. In the sanguinary annals of Indian warfare, of that age, and in the still more destructive campaigns of the old French war, in one of which Braddock fell, and in another Washington became a prisoner, Edward Lucas and several of his brothers dis- tinguished themselves by numerous feats of daring courage, and bodily strength, in hand to hand conflicts with the Indians. In Captain Morgan's celebrated company, which at the first drum beat of the Revolution, marched by a " bee line to Boston," Ed- ward Lucas was first lieutenant. His fifth brother, William, was perhaps the most intrepid Virginian who figured in the old In- dian campaigns. He took up arms at the age of seventeen, and after the death of four of his brothers, who had been massacred with all the atrocities peculiar to savages, his avenging rifle rang
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PROMINENT MEN OF
requiem to many a tawny son of the forest in the wild Virginia and Pennsylvania mountains. Governor Robert Lucas, of Ohio, was a son of this William Lucas. Edward Lucas, the elder brother of William, also left a son Robert, who was born in 1766, in that part of Berkeley county, Virginia, now forming Jeffer- son county, West Virginia. This Robert left issue three sons, Edward, Robert and William Lucas, the last named father of Daniel B. Lucas. Edward, the eldest of three brothers, was a soldier in the war of 1812, serving as lieutenant in the battle of North Point, and in the fight at Crany Island. He was elected to Congress from the Valley district, in 1833, and served two sessions. William Lucas, his youngest brother, was also elected from the same district, and served two terms in Congress from 1839 to 1843. This gentleman was an able lawyer and an opu- lent planter. His beautiful estate, called Rion Hall, which he bequeathed at his death, in 1877, to his only surviving child, Daniel Bedinger Lucas, is situated upon a commanding eminence a short distance from the Shenandoah river, in one of the most picturesque regions to be found in the whole Valley of Virginia.
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