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 43
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The maiden name of William Lucas' wife was Virginia A. Bedinger. She was a daughter of Captain Daniel Bedinger, a Revolutionary soldier and a man of great poetical genius. One of the effusions of his pen, styled "The Cossack Celebration," was a poem of extraordinary vigor, which would not discredit the author of Hudibras.
Daniel B. Lucas was the third child and second son of his parents. After attending several private academies, he was sent to the University of Virginia, first during the session of 1851- 1852, and continued there for four years, graduating, on the elective system, in most of the schools of that famous seat of learning. Mr. Lucas excelled in oratory, and was the valedic- torian of the Jefferson Society of the University, in 1856. He entered the well known law-school of Judge John W. Brocken- brough, at Lexington, Virginia, and having graduated there, commenced the practice of law at Charlestown, his native place, in the Spring of 1859. At the beginning of the following year, he moved to Richmond, and was in that city when the civil war broke out. He joined the staff of General Henry A. Wise, in June, 1861, and served under him during his campaign in the Kanawha Valley, which terminated October 1, 1861.
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Mr. Lucas' poems, many of which were written during the war and were filled with a martial tone, early attracted atten- tion to their author as a man of genius. He ran the blockade to Canada, leaving Richmond, January 1, 1865, in order to as- sist in the defence of Captain John Yates Beall, a college friend of his youth, who was tried as a spy and guerrilla at Govern- or's Island, New York, by a court martial, and convicted and executed February 24, 1865. Captain Beall's defence was con- ducted by the famous lawyer, James T. Brady. Mr. Lucas not having been permitted by General Dix, the Commandant of the department, to take part in his friend's defence, he remained in Canada for the next few months and there wrote, shortly after the surrender of General Lee, his celebrated poem, "The Land Where we Were Dreaming," which was published, first in the Montreal Gazette, and afterwards reproduced in many papers, both in England and the United States. His next publication was a memoir of John Yates Beall, containing Beall's life and diary, and the official report of his trial. [John Lovell, Mon- treal, 1865.]
Mr. Lucas returned to West Virginia shortly after the close of the war, but was excluded from the practice of his profession by the test oath until 1870. On resuming practice, he entered into partnership with that distinguished jurist, Judge Thomas C. Green, afterwards president of the Court of Appeals of West Virginia. In 1869-70, he was co-editor of the Southern Metrop- olis, a weekly published in Baltimore, owned and conducted as editor and chief by J. Fairfax Mclaughlin, L.L. D. Of this paper the late Alexander H. Stephens, said : "I have read the Southern Metropolis from its first number, and have often said, and now repeat, that it comes nearer filling the place of the London Saturday Review than any other paper on this conti- nent."
Mr. Lucas soon attained high rank in his profession, and for the past fifteen years, as the West Virginia Reports show, has been one of the most distinguished and successful practitioners before the Court of Appeals of that State. Of forty-five cases which he argued before that tribunal, some of which involved profound questions of law, he has gained thirty and lost fifteen.
In 1872 he was Democratic Presidential Elector for his Con- gressional District, and again in 1876. In 1884 he was Elector- at-large on the Cleveland ticket in West Virginia.
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Mr. Lucas took a conspicuous part in these campaigns as a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, of which he has always been an uncompromising champion. His addresses on the "Re- naissance of the Jeffersonian Democracy," and kindred topics, have exercised a potential influence upon public sentiment in West Virginia. Wendell Phillips, during the days of the Abo- lition movement, never displayed more resolute purpose or inflexible devotion to his cause than Daniel B. Lucas has shown in his rigid adherence, both in practice and oratorical appeals, to the Jeffersonian standard of Democracy.
Mr. Lucas was Regent of the State University for eight years, and in July, 1876, he was unanimously elected Professor of Law in that institution, an honor which his law practice compelled him to decline. For the same reason he also declined, in the same year, the office of Judge of the Circuit Court of his Cir- cuit, to which he was appointed by the Governor to fill a ya- cancy caused by the resignation of Judge Hoge. He received the degree of L L. D. in 1884 from the University of West Vir- ginia.
Mr. Lucas was elected to the Legislature of his State in 1884, and took an active part in the public business. His opposition to sumptuary laws, and to co-education of the sexes in the State University, was very marked, and his advocacy of a system of high license and equalization of taxation of all property, whether real or personal, corporate or individual, was earnest, powerful, and in some respects, effective. He maintained that inequality of taxation, in one form or another, has been the bane of all re- publics.
In the fall of 1886 he was re-elected to the Legislature. His career, this session, was chiefly distinguished for persistent op- position to the corrupt and corrupting influence of railway dom- ination in the State. Mr. Lucas introduced a bill against the acceptance and use of free passes by public officials, which he forced through the Lower Branch, in spite of a strong but co- vert opposition on the part of monopolists and their tools; also a bill to compel the railroads to fence their tracks. His most notable act was his resistance to the tyranny of the caucus which proposed to re-elect the President of the Standard Oil Company, of West Virginia, Hon. Johnson N. Camden, to the Senate of the United States. In a speech delivered in joint Assembly,
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February 14, 1887, Mr. Lucas denounced the dictation of a packed caucus, and said : "Does any man here believe if Mr. Camden's name were presented at a primary election, that the free Democ- racy of this State would select him as United States Senator? No man dares assert such a proposition. Nearly every one of his champions upon this floor carefully concealed his preference before his election. Out of five thousand Democratic majority in this State at the Presidential election of 1884, three counties which I have enumerated, Jefferson, Hampshire and Hardy, con- tributed three thousand five hundred. The fiat of the true Democracy has gone forth, and Mr. Camden cannot be re-elect- ed, unless by a Republican coalition. We have fought the bat- tle against monopoly too long in this State to be willing now to surrender our principles. It is this that encourages us-that the truths on which our Democracy is founded, as the party of the people, though baffled for a time, eventually carry conviction to the masses. And the masses once inspired, the press and the leaders take new departures, and correct their courses. With this faith and the ultimate triumph of political truth, while oth- ers have been preaching Democracy, as an organization without convictions, we have been endeavoring to breathe into it the vitality of correct principles, that it might become the embodi- ment of that political faith which its great founder, Thomas Jef- ferson, taught as the only true foundation of American liberty."
This speech, which was extensively copied by the press through- out the country, settled the contest, and Mr. Camden was de- feated. On the 5th of March, 1887, Mr. Lucas was appointed United States Senator by Governor E. Willis Wilson, in con- formity with the provision of the Federal Constitution, where no election by the Legislature has been effected.
The Legislature re-assembled in special session the following April, by call of the Governor, and although prohibited by the fundamental law from entering upon the business of electing a Senator, they proceeded to do so, and elected Hon. C. J. Faulk- ner. A contest over the seat resulted in Judge Faulkner's favor.
In 1869 Mr. Lucas married Miss Lena T. Brooke, a great-niece of John Randolph, of Roanoke, and of Governor Robert Brooke, of Virginia. He has one daughter, an only child.
Mr. Lucas' literary works, in addition to the Memoir of Cap- tain Beall, are : "The Wreath of Eglantine," (Kelly, Piett & Co.,
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Baltimore, 1869), a volume of poems written by him, also con- taining a few poems by his deceased sister, Virginia Lucas; " The Maid of Northumberland," a drama of the Civil War, (Putnam's Sons, New York, 1879; ) " Ballads and Madrigals," (Pollard & Morse, New York, 1884.)
Mr. Lucas has further written occasional poems and addresses, which he has read or delivered, by invitation, before literary or patriotic assemblies. His finest production of this nature is his oration on Daniel O'Connell, masterly as an analysis of the character, and exhaustive as an historical picture of the times of the Irish Liberator.
From his many occasional poems the following may be men- tioned as the most notable : At the dedication of the Confederate Cemetery at Winchester, 1865; at the Semi-centennial of the University of Virginia, 1875; at the dedication of the Confeder- ate Cemetery at Hagerstown, 1879; at the unveiling of the Con- federate monument in Charlestown, 1882; at the Convention of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Literary Society for the Northwest, Chicago, October 19, 1887, and at the annual banquet of the New York Southern Society, held in that city, February 22, 1888. At each of these places on the occasions named, Mr. Lu- cas was the chosen poet. At Winchester, in 1865, and in New York, in 1888, the poems he read were unusually happy, and will hold a place among his best productions.
Among his lectures, that on John Brown, at Winchester, in 1865; that on John Randolph, at Hampden-Sidney College, in 1884, and the one on Daniel O'Connell, already mentioned, are admirable specimens of American eloquence.
Mr. Lucas prepared his O'Connell lecture for, and first deliv- ered it at the invitation of the Parnel Club, August 6, 1886, at the Opera House in Wheeling. He was invited to repeat it at Norwood Institute, Washington, D. C., April 13, 1888, and again at the State House, in the Hall of Delegates, at Charleston, West Virginia, January 20, 1889.
The late Judge William Matthews Merrick, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, who heard this lecture when delivered at Washington, declared that for power of statement, originality of thought, and gifts as an orator, Mr. Lucas was surpassed by no one that he had heard. Laudavi a laudato viro
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-the praise of the illustrious-may well be appreciated, and in- troduced, even in so dispassionate a paper as this hasty and im- perfect sketch.
JAMES ATKINSON.
M AY 27, 1811, Colonel James Atkinson, the subject of this sketch, was born in the county of Kanawha, Virginia. He was reared on a farm, and because of the lack of educa- tional advantages at that time, it was under many embarrass- ments that he secured an ordinary English education, and thereby qualified himself for business. In early manhood he was elected a constable, next a Justice of the Peace, next Deputy Sheriff, and finally Sheriff of the county. He was a superior business man, and always commanded a large follow- ing of friends. He was many times urged to become a candi- date for the Legislature, but always refused, on the ground that his tastes ran entirely in the line of business and not politics. Although an ardent Whig, and subsequently a Republican, he was in no sense a politician. His square methods in business and his sturdy common sense gave him a wide influence among his associates. Politicians early found that he was a valuable man to have on their side in a campaign. For many years he was a merchant in the city of Charleston, and was among the best known men in the county. Years before the war, he was elected Colonel of a militia regiment, and for over a quarter of a century was addressed by the title of "Colonel." In 1842 he married Mariam Rader, of Nicholas county. Eight children were the result of their wedlock-six daughters and two sons. Two of the daughters are dead. One of the sons ( George W.) is a lawyer in Wheeling, the other (James S.) resides in Char- leston, where he was born thirty-one years ago. The living daughters are all residents of Charleston.
Colonel Atkinson died September 11, 1866, from the effects of a sip of caustic soda taken through mistake for cider. He was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and died the triumphant death of a faithful Christian. His untimely death was mourned by a large circle of admiring friends. His wife, now seventy-six years of age, still resides in Charleston.
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HON. CAMPBELL TARR.
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CAMPBELL TARR.
AMPBELL TARR was born in Wellsburg, Brooke county, Virginia, January 8, 1819, and was the son of William Tarr, a prominent merchant and Ohio and Mississippi river trader of the day. His ancestors on the father's side came from Prussia about the close of the Revolutionary war and settled in eastern Pennsylvania, whence, about the close of the last cen- tury, his grandfather, Peter Tarr, emigrated first to Westmore- land county, and finally located in Brooke county, Virginia, where, on King's Creek, not far from the present Holliday's Cove, he established an iron smelting establishment with a foundry attachment for the manufacture of the pots and kettles and other iron ware required for the pioneers. This establish- ment antedated any other in the Ohio Valley, except possibly something in the foundry way at Pittsburgh, of which there are indistinct accounts, and though small as compared with the immense industrial establishments of the present day, was large in its time; at any rate, large enough to swamp its proprietor in debts beyond extrication. It was not a financial success, though a great convenience to the community, and the incident is mentioned here mainly as an evidence of the spirit of enter- prise and progressiveness that characterized the family.
As the sons grew up, William, being the eldest, together with his brothers, gathered up the wrecks of the furnace business, settled the old gentleman's affairs, and thereafter assumed the support of the family.
Not long after this William married Miss Mary Perry, a daughter of James Perry, an old Revolutionary soldier, and our subject, Campbell, in due course came upon the stage. Of his youth and boyhood not much can be said which might not be said of other village youths. He had the advantage of a most excellent mother to train him in the ways of morality and cor- rect behavior, and almost from childhood he was trained to habits of industry and close attention to business as a boy in his father's store, which was a large one for the day, its trade extending for many miles in all directions in the sparsely settled but rapidly filling up region on both sides of the Ohio, and miles to the north and south. With this experience he grew up, not only with good ideas of business and enlarged views of the capabilities of the surroundings, but with a very extensive
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acquaintance with the people with whom he came in contact.
In his early manhood he developed pretty strong indications of political ambition ; but though he was at the front occasion- ally in the musters of the Democratic party, his aspirations in that line, whatever he had, were not at the time gratified to his satisfaction.
He pursued the even tenor of his way, driving a profitable trade in the dry goods business, until the secession era came on. In the Douglas and Breckinridge split of the Democratic party, preceding the Rebellion, when the Douglas wing was under- stood to represent the Union-supporting branch of the party as against the secession portion as represented by Breckenridge, Mr. Tarr early, earnestly and unreservedly took the side of Mr. Douglas and the Union as against Breckenridge and secession, which was considered tantamount to disunion and war. Many of the staunch Democrats of the day in this section, probably most of the more intelligent, espoused the same views; while the infant Republican party, embracing the better element of the old-line Whig party, were almost unanimously of that way of thinking. In this shape of things Mr. Tarr rapidly rose into political prominence and the dreams of his youth appeared to be in the way of fulfillment.
It is not necessary to go over the political history of those days. The merely partisan features were soon overwhelmed and forgotten in the rush of patriotic feeling that preceded the breaking out of the war, and partisanship was at a large dis- count. The first Convention was called by act of the Virginia Legislature, January 12, 1861, to consider the subjects involved, to meet at Richmond, Virginia, the 13th of the following Feb- ruary. There was a very considerable desire on the part of the Unionists, who seemed to be in the majority, to be fairly represented in this Convention, and a very natural and credita- ble ambition on the part of aspirants, all over the State, for the distinction. Several parties were put in nomination in the newspapers and elsewhere in Brooke county, and the candidacy there finally narrowed down to Mr. Tarr on the part of the Unionists without reserve, and J. D. Pickett, who represented the Secessionists of all shades of belief and degrees of modera- tion, himself being a Kentuckian and a believer in the doctrine of State's Rights. He also was a sub-professor in Bethany Col-
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lege at the time and a young man of ability, natural and acquired. He had the advantage of his opponent in being a more polished and accomplished talker; but Mr. Tarr had other advantages that more than counterbalanced, and when the re- sult of the election of February 4, 1861, was ascertained he was declared elected by a majority of 255 in a vote of 849 (about a two-thirds vote being cast) to represent the county of Brooke in the Richmond Convention.
The Convention assembled in due time and Mr. Tarr prompt- ly took his place in the front of the Unionists, concerning whom there could be no misgivings under any circumstances, and so remained while he continued a member.
His adieu to the Convention was irregular but characteristic. When the ordinance of secession was under consideration in secret session, toward the close, he, with several others, refused to take part in it, and though closely watched at Richmond, seeing that further stay was useless, quietly boarded the cars and left for their homes. Orders were telegraphed to intercept them at Martinsburg, Harper's Ferry, and other points on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; but though the orders were re- ceived and a show of compliance with them made, no great effort seems to have been made for their apprehension and return to the bar of the Convention to answer for their con- tempt. It was surmised and said at the time, that Governor Letcher and some of the authorities connived at their non- arrest, which is not improbable.
Mr. Tarr arrived at home in Wellsburg, accompanied by Hon. J. S. Carlile, of Clarksburg, who was one of the party that took French leave, and immediately upon their arrival there was a spontaneous gathering of all the population that could crowd its way into the court house to hear their account of the proceedings. The report of their stewardship was unanimously approved and endorsed with loud applause by the assembled crowd, and under the eloquence of Mr. Carlile, who was an impassioned orator, the excitement was wrought to a very high point. This was on Saturday, April 13. A few days after- wards came the news that the Convention had, on the 14th, passed the Ordinance of Secession, and that Old Virginia, so far as the act of the conspirators could effect it, was out of the Union, The actual attack upon Sumpter was on the 12th, and
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the final secession vote not until the 17th; but as an unwritten incident of history, Mr. Tarr always asserted that it was a part of the conspiracy that the passage of the ordinance should be simultaneous with the first overt act of war, and in support of this he was in the habit of repeating a Shakesperean quotation made by a prominent Secessionist debater in secret convention, that by twelve o'clock on the 12th, by "Shrewsburg clock," Virginia would be independent of the Yankee Union.
The actual enactment of the ordinance seems to have been deferred about five days or so; but at the time of the court house incident referred to, it was so reported and commonly be- lieved to have been just consummated.
Mr. Tarr had remained at his post as long as there seemed to be a fighting chance to keep Virginia within the Union, and when there seemed no longer any hope of defeating the ordi- nance he left the Convention by a like short cut just in time to save himself the humiliation of being a member when it voted for disunion.
Immediately on his arrival at home, Mr. Tarr engaged vigor- ously in the enlistment of men for the three months' service un- der the call for seventy-five thousand men, and to his efforts was attributed in a great degree the alacrity with which two companies, aggregating about one hundred and fifty men, were, in less than six weeks, sent into the service of the country from the small community of Brooke county. He supplied from his store large amounts of provisions and clothing for the recruits, for some of which he was reimbursed afterwards by the Govern- ment. His heirs, however, it may be said have to this day a claim pending for such supplies furnished then and charged to the patriotic fund of 1861, that in the intricacies of red tape has not been settled.
In May, 1861, he was one of the party from Wellsburg-Adam Kuhn, Joseph Applegate, David Fleming and Campbell Tarr- who procured the two thousand stand of arms for the use of the Union soldiers that made such a figure in the early stages of the conflict. The proceedings toward getting them were irregular, both as regarded form and legality, but fully justified by the emergency. These parties went quietly to Washington City and made their application, narrating the circumstances with all their eloquence; but in the hubbub of affairs at that time
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the authorities were at first undecided what answer to make to it; and they might have failed, when, just in the nick of time, the personal acquaintance of Mr. Tarr with Hon. Edwin M. Stanton (late of Steubenville and an old neighbor, but then a practicing attorney in Washington City, high in the esteem of the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, and others of Lin- coln's cabinet), came in play. Stanton warmly seconded the application. On the representations of the committee and upon the advice and counsel of Stanton, the application was granted without further delay, Stanton undertaking to " find the law for it afterwards," and the guns arrived promptly at Wellsburg on the morning of May 7 from Watervleit Arsenal, New York. These were taken in charge immediately on their arrival by a Union committee, and the fact of their possession contributed very materially to the solidification of the Union sentiment in all this region. Something of this sort was very necessary. They were promptly distributed when needed to equip home guards and the bulk of them afterwards used in arming the Union soldiers mustered in at Wheeling Island and elsewhere for the war. Such as were retained at home had a good moral ef- fect in repressing the ardor of the home Rebels and gave the Unionists a very decided practical as well as moral advantage in the formative period of the conflict.
During the period of the interregnum between the secession of Virginia in 1861 until June, 1863, Mr. Tarr was acting Treas- urer of Virginia under Governor Pierpont, with headquarters at Wheeling or Alexandria, as the exigencies of the case re- quired; and at the first election under the new State organiza- tion was regularly elected as its Treasurer. He filled the office during this trying period with ability and faithfulness, and handed it over to his successor at the end of his term, not only with a balance on hand, but with great credit to himself for able management. The capitol was at this time at Wheeling, and many a Union soldier in distress or stranded for means to travel, or line his stomach, found prompt relief by application to the Treasurer, to the depletion of his private purse.
Mr. Tarr was naturally a generous, large hearted, kindly man, and his sympathies were easily excited in favor of a Union sol- dier, so that such appeals were seldom refused, though possibly not in all cases wisely granted. He was, however, a warm friend of the soldier, and the soldier appreciated his friendship.
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