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 45
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Everyone remembers the memorable struggle in the State Senate for the position of President of that body. Some of its ablest members-among the foremost men in the State-were candidates for the coveted seat, notwithstanding its laborious duties and responsibilities-especially so during that session, as the Joint Assembly were called upon, under the Senate Presi- dent presiding, to elect a United States Senator. After eleven days' balloting and any amount of shrewd party wire manipu- lating, Capt. Carr was elected and presided over that Senate during the session with dignity, marked indiscrimination, rare parliamentary ability and with unusual satisfaction to the mem- bers. Indeed, in the performance of its most delicate duties, he surprised his most sanguine friends.
It was during this session that the remarkable quadrilateral Gubernatorial contest took place-remarkable from the fact that the failure of the Legislature to open and declare upon the returns of election who had been elected Governor, threw into the conflict at one time four claimants for the office. The in- cumbent was Governor E. Willis Wilson, whose term expired March 4, 1889, by the constitutional limit; but he, on the as-
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sumption that no successor had been declared elected by the Legislature, claimed it became his privilege and duty to hold over until such successor was legally declared Governor. Gen. Nathan Goff, the Republican candidate, Judge A. B. Fleming, the Democratic candidate, each declared himself elected "by the face of the returns" and demanded the office, but Governor Wilson refused to yield the office to either. Robert S. Carr, as President of the Senate, filed a petition in the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, March 14, 1889, averring: That on the 4th of March, 1889, the office of Governor of the State had become and remains vacant, and that under section 16, article 7, of the Constitution, it was his right and duty to act as Governor; that, at the last election held for Governor, Nathan Goff and A. B. Fleming were the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes for that office; that Goff, claiming to have received a greater number than Fleming, on the 4th of March, 1889, he took the oath of office and demanded possession of the office, but that E. Willis Wilson, a private citizen, found in its possession, refused to admit Goff; that Goff asked the Court for a mandamus to compel Wilson to surrender the office to him, but that the Court held that he (Goff) was not entitled to the writ, and that the act of Goff in taking the oath was void. The petition of Senator Carr further stated that either Goff or Fleming was elected, but that both were and continued to be under such disability as prevented their acting; that Fleming failed to qualify, and for that reason and others was disabled from entering on the duties of the office; and that Goff, for reasons stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court (Goff vs. Wilson), is disabled from so doing. Senator Carr had also de- manded the office from Wilson, but was likewise refused ad- mission. He alleged, and apparently under the State Constitu- tion, that Wilson had no right to hold the office beyond the Constitutional limit of his term, and hence asked the mandamus compelling Wilson to yield the office to him. The Supreme Court took the other view of the law in the case under the Con- stitution, refused the mandamus, and Wilson continued to act as Governor pending investigation of the contest by the Joint As- sembly's Committee.
At the adjournment of the Legislature, Captain Carr resumed his usual business with renewed interest and application. His
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political career, however, cannot be considered ended; for his exceeding popularity, as evinced by the unprecedented majori- ties given him for the various offices he filled, indicates the wishes and intent of the people that he should give the State the benefit of his rare business and executive abilities. The fu- ture of such a man it is difficult to point up to.
That a man with comparatively no education at the age of twenty-one, with no capital (other than indomitable will to plan, courage to attempt, industry to accomplish, and pluck to hold on), and almost a stranger when he landed at Charleston- that a man with such a start should succeed as Robert S. Carr has, is but another evidence of the possibilities in this wonder- ful young State to every man of energy and integrity. Poverty never conquered him; he conquered poverty ; illiterate at the start, he secured, with no other aid than his wife and close study and observation, a very fair amount of learning, to which he happily added a knowledge of human nature acquired in his rough contact with the world, and a natural ability for quick, prompt, successful business ventures, with executive qualities of a high order. These pushed him inevitably to the fore front of the masses; but the chief factor in his popularity with the peo- ple is, doubtless, the fact that he has an Irish heart beating always to the music of the grand brotherhood of man, thus giving him those broad sympathies and brotherly impulses that ever lead him to extend a helping hand to his fellows. Quick as any Irishman to resent an insult, he is so slow, as chivalry itself, to commit one. The height of his ambition, he says, is to help his friends.
DAVID H. LEONARD.
H ON. D. H. LEONARD is now practicing law in Denver, Colorado, whither he went in 1888; but had held import- ant public positions in this State while a resident. He is a na- tive of Beaver county, Pennsylvania, born June 20, 1839; edu- cated at common schools and at Beaver Academy ; read law and admitted to practice in his native State, September, 1864. August 10, 1869, he married Miss Mary R. Blake. He had taught school while studying law. He began the practice of law at Wirt C. H., November, 1864, building up a lucrative practice ;
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was appointed Prosecuting Attorney in 1865, and elected twice afterwards to same office. In 1872 he removed to Parkersburg; in 1876 elected Prosecuting Attorney for Wood county; was on the Democratic State Committee; Regent of the West Virginia University in 1880; member of the Constitutional Convention of 1882 : resigned Chairmanship of Democratic State Central Committee in 1888; represented Wood county in the Legisla- ture of 1881-'2, serving on Taxation and Finance Committees ; in 1884, was unanimously chosen delegate-at-large to the National Democratic Convention, and Chairman of the delegation; was attorney for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company for West Virginia, and chief attorney for the Ohio River Railroad Company, resigning on leaving for Colorado in 1888.
JOHN J. HETZEL.
J OHN J. HETZEL is of German parentage, born in New York City, February 1, 1849, and came to West Virginia permanently in April, 1876; but after considerations induced him to remove to Indiana. After obtaining a German educa- tion, he struggled for the English, and succeeded as far as an academic course, by working in summmer and attending school in winter. Before the age of twenty-one, he had charge, in Everett, Pennsylvania, of a retail mercantile business, of $100,000 a year, and soon after became a partner, but in 1875 he was com- pelled by ill health to abandon it. Since then he has been en- gaged in leather manufacture in West Virginia. He was Secre- tary of the West Virginia Convention of 1876; was elected to the House of Delegates from Morgan county, as a Republican, in 1882; Chairman of the County Republican Committee four years; Blaine elector in 1884. He was frequently and prominently named for the Congressional nomination in 1888, but his re- moval from the State prevented it. He is a man of superior business tact, is an excellent public speaker, and his personal character is above reproach. His life has always been exemp- lary, and his influence on the side of morality and religion.
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FRAGEN CIN
HON. DANIEL PECK.
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DANIEL PECK.
D ANIEL PECK was born in the village of Woodstock, Ver- mont, in 1798. His father, Samuel Peck, was a man of great evenness of character, but very feeble constitution, whose every business venture was a new disaster, he having lost, by defective titles, two farms sucessively, in both Vermont and New York, after he had expended great labor in establishing homes upon them. His mother was a woman of high talent and grace of manner. Her maiden name was Anna Dow. She was a cousin of the eccentric, but justly celebrated itinerant Evangel- ist, Lorenzo Dow, who will be remembered by many of the very aged citizens of West Virginia. She was a woman of great en- ergy, and took advantage of every opportunity, not only for her own improvement, but for the culture of her children. She was very fair and slight in form, and through all her life adhered to the Quaker dress, and to the simple faith which supported her through every trial.
Mr. Peck was the eldest of six children, and all his time and labor were expended on clearing and fencing the land and mak- ing a habitable home for the family. All their efforts at making a living on it being insufficient, young Daniel was hired out to a neighbor, living about four and a-half miles distant, on Lake Champlain. This was during the war of 1812, and he used to relate that, while working in the field, they heard the noise of distant cannon, and a man came riding along, under whip and spur, warning every man to turn out to a certain point, for the British had taken Plattsburg, a town thirty miles north of them on the Lake, and were marching up to destroy the army at Eliza- bethtown. This alarm was received with very diverse feelings by the neighbors, who immediately gathered together to con- sider what should be done. Mr. Peck, with all a boy's youthful enthusiasm and love of adventure, was eager to go, and greatly disappointed at being considered too young. Mr. Cole, his em- ployer, was taken suddenly ill, and did not recover until he heard the British had only come two or three miles this side of Platts- burg, and had returned into Canada.
The first time he had ever attended a religious service was when he was ten years of age. It made a very strong impres- sion on him, and seventy-five years after he was able both to
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sing the tune and repeat every word of the hymn which was sung upon that occasion.
It was not until he was fifteen that he went to school, and then only to a writing school. He had to walk a distance of four and a-half miles, and through the whole time was kept on "pot hooks," in which he graduated in three weeks and a-half, and to which he attributed his well known bad style of penmanship, declaring it to be a slight modification of his old "pot-hook " copies. His next school had for its head a female teacher, whose efforts were expended less towards improving the minds of the pupils than their manners, and who kept them making bows and salutations until she considered them quite capable to shine in polite society. Mr. Peck used to laughingly remark that she laid the foundation of his great politeness.
It was about this time that Mr. Peck's father found for the second time that he could not hold the land he was living on, and hearing fabulous stories of the fertility and beauty of the distant State of Ohio, he determined to go there. Leaving all but what they could carry in a wagon, which, when it is remem- bered they were then a family of seven, must have been very little, they started on their journey. In this plight they arrived in Washington, Pennsylvania, when, being nearly out of money, they remained. That winter, Mr. Peck drove a team, giving to his mother his money to support his little brothers and sister; and in the spring they had the added sorrow of seeing the father prostrated by a stroke of paralysis, from which he never recov- ered, so as to be able to work, but remained with them three or four years. Henceforth the family support devolved entirely upon Mr. Peck, and he met it as every other duty in life, with sub- lime heroism and untiring industry. He chopped wood for thir- ty-one and a third cents a cord. He threshed rye with a flail for every tenth bushel. He drove team, and finally worked for a painter at painting houses.
It was here, while working at his trade, he became acquaint- ed with one of the leading lawyers of his time, Parker Camp- bell, of Washington. He was the owner of a very fine library, which excited in Mr. Peck the most eager interest, since books and the leisure to study had been the most coveted, yet denied pleasures so far in his life. Mr. Campbell offered him any book in his library, and, seeing how he devoured the contents, he and
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several men of Washington proposed to give him a collegiate education. This, however, he could not accept, as his whole time during working hours was expended in the support of a helpless family. These books opened, however, a new life to him, and showed him the possibilities of honor and success, which he resolved to secure.
Previously he had formed the acquaintance of a shoemaker named Beatty, who was quite a musician, and, finding himself so interested in music, he resolved to study with him, and make it one of the recreations of his leisure hours. In this he succeeded so well that he could not only write music, but so thorough was his knowledge of it he could play on almost any instrument. He played upon the organ, piano and flute well, and he utilized this knowledge, as will be seen in subsequent pages.
During all these days, going every place in the neighborhood, from Brownsville through to Washington, he still found the ex- pense of the support of the family in excess of his earnings, and, giving his note for a hundred and thirty-five dollars, he deter- mined to try his luck in Wheeling. After making all arrange- ments, he was stricken with confluent smallpox. He had been a handsome boy, but every trace of his beauty had been obliter- ated by the ravages of this disease, and it was a considerable time before he regained his strength; and, the necessities of la- bor growing with his illness, he determined again on going to Wheeling. Thomas McGiffen, a prominent lawyer of Washing- ton, kindly sent a letter to Sam. Sprigg, then the most influen- tial man in Wheeling; and Mr. Peck, with a small bundle tied up in a handkerchief, journeyed on foot to Wheeling. Poor, in debt, ill, and sad, with a true heart and generous impulses, he left his family in Washington. Arriving in Wheeling he pre-
sented his letter to Mr. Sprigg. In his own language I give to you the sorrow of that hour. He says :
"My face was so disfigured by the smallpox that he refused to allow me to enter his house. I felt myself entirely alone in the world. Tabooed by society and exceedingly poor in circum- stances, I found I had been living in an ideal world. So barren had my life been of romance, that I had read a good deal of fic- tion ; and here I was confronted with the stern realities of the real world, which was the hardest trial of my life. Wheeling was a slaveholding city, and the principal inhabitants thought
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that work was for slaves, and that a white man who had to work for his living was hardly as good as a slave who had an owner. Finding myself cut off from society, I cultivated the acquaint- ance of children, who were capable of appreciating kindness."
About this time Reddick McKee removed to Wheeling from Pittsburgh, and Mr. Peck, who had been a teacher in the Sun- day-school at Washington, and had now gained the friendship of the children of Wheeling, proposed to Mr. McKee they should start a Sunday-school. He approved the measure, and, securing a room in a log house on Main street, on the lot now occupied by William Goshorn, they opened and taught the first Sunday- . school ever organized in Wheeling. No after triumph ever gave him more happiness than the prosperity of this school, which had to remove its quarters several times, on account of the grow- ing interest and attendance. The school interested a good many of the young people, and from it grew a literary society and a debating society, in which Mr. McKee and Mr. Peck took part.
During this first year of Mr. Peck's stay in Wheeling, David Shriver, Superintendent of the great National Turnpike, moved there, bringing with him the first piano ever brought to the. place. It was quite out of tune, and no person being found competent to put it in order, Mr. Peck was solicited to under- take the job, although he had never tuned a piano in his life. Mr. Shriver had a fine taste for music, and greatly assisted him, and together they accomplished the feat. Upon the piano lay a copy of Hayden's Grand Overture, which Mr. Shriver wished very much to hear and have his daughter play. They had a vis- itor, a Mrs. Laidley, who could play some, so Mr. Shriver offered his daughter and Mrs. Laidley a black silk Crepe dress each if they would learn to play that piece in one month. Mr. Peck became their instructor, and went every evening, except Sun- days, and taught them to play it. The month came to an end and Mr. Shriver had invited quite a number of the principal people of the place to come and hear the ladies perform. It was a very difficult piece, but they passed the fiery ordeal very suc- cessfully and closed with great applause from the company. Mr. Peck was quite the lion of the evening, and then and there they made him up a fine class in music. He now became a friend and associate of the musical people of Wheeling, and his knowl- edge was more frequently brought into requisition as the city grew.
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But he did not want to make a music teacher, nor did he always want to paint houses, so he decided to study law, and buying four volumes of Blackstone, he worked every night at law, but had no intermission from his daily toil at his trade. He studied at a plain board table and would write out the defi- nitions on the top of the table and, when he became familiar with them, he would plane them off and write others. He literally consumed all the law books within his reach, and de- termined to seek admission to the Bar. His application was the first notice to the Bar of Wheeling that he had any ambi- tion to become a lawyer, for he had no preceptor or confidant. The Bar did not welcome him. They did not know the power of the man whom no obstacle could keep down. He walked all the way to Clarksburg, and passed a successful examination before Henry St. George Tucker, a great man in those days, and a Common Pleas Justice, Judge Summers. The first ques- tion Judge Summers asked him was, if he had ever read " Coke on Littletone." Mr. Peck told him no, he had never seen the book. " Well," said the Judge, " I don't see how it is possible for a man to be a lawyer and never have read that book," but told him, since he had walked an hundred miles, he would ask him some questions. The Judge asked him some questions on Real Estate, which was a favorite study, and was surprised at his ready answers. "Why," said the Judge, " that is 'Coke on
Littletone.' Where did you get that ?" " Why," said Mr. Peck, " from Blackstone's Commentaries." This surprised and discomfitted the Judge, who had never seen the book. He gave him a lengthy examination and told him he was well qualified to be admitted to the Bar. He was the next day admitted to practice in all the courts of Virginia. He used to tell that he was a completely happy person; and frequently recalled the fatherly advice given to him by Judge Summers, as he jour- neyed home, so buoyant and happy, whistling to the birds as he walked along the isolated country, where there was scarcely a settler.
Mr. Peck's sympathies were not with the institution of slavery nor the laws that governed a slave-holding State, and he deter- mined upon Ohio as a future home. It was then impossible for him to gain admission to the Bar of Ohio without a previous residence of a year; so, leaving his mother, sister and brothers
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in Wheeling, he took boarding in St. Clairsville, dividing his time between the two places doing all his traveling on foot. He became acquainted with James Caldwell and his family, who at once gave him all his collections, and he began to be encouraged by business. When, however, Mr. Caldwell had a big lawsuit with the Bank of St. Clairsville and John Patterson (the other rich man of the town), he was afraid to entrust it to so young a man, but employed another, to Mr. Peck's great chagrin. Mr. Peck took upon himself the duty of informing the bank that he thought he could beat Mr. Caldwell if the case were en- trusted to him. They employed him. He had never made a speech in Court up to this time, and, having very little confidence in himself, he wrote out his argument. He read and studied hard on this case, expending forty-six dollars on seven volumes of Johnson's "Chancery Reports," and reading every line to find support for his case. One of the Supreme Judges, Judge Wood, called Mr. Peck up and told him his argument was very fine, but villainously written and he would advise him to have it well copied. He, however, took it to Wheeling and had it printed, and it was the first printed brief ever used in Ohio. He gained the case, which was a very difficult and doubtful one. The sylabus of it came out in the Columbus papers. Mr. Peck took it to Mr. Caldwell, who said to Mr. Peck, "I did not think you would have taken a case against me." "Well," said Mr. Peck, "you said you did not consider me able for your chancery business, and I have had to convince you that I was;" and Mr. Caldwell stayed convinced and gave him his business right along after that. This was the beginning of his chancery busi- ness which soon became large and profitable. He would not take a case that he did not believe to be right, and eschewed all criminal cases. It was a rare thing for him to lose a suit. In a few years his business grew until he attended the Courts in Monroe, Guernsey, Washington, Tuscarawas, Harrison, Jeffer- son, Columbiana, Morgan and Licking counties in the State of Ohio. He attended the Court in banc at Columbus, the Federal Court as it met consecutively at Columbus, Cleveland and Cin- cinnati, besides fully one-half his business lay in Wheeling and Northwestern Virginia. It was here he became associated with all the leading lawyers and politicians of the State, and socially to many of the learned and literary people of the time. Edwin
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M. Stanton became one of his earliest and strongest friends. Their affection for each other was unusual. He was grooms- man to Mr. Stanton when he was married; and used to tell me that Mr. Stanton, being very indifferent to appearances and very little occupied with dress, did not try on his wedding gar- ments until a short time before his marriage, when his panta- loons were found to be entirely too small. Mr. Peck was called in to extricate him from the difficulty, which was finally effected after great delay and great mental anxiety. When Mr. Peck arrived with the clothing, Mr. Stanton's first exclamation was, " Great Heavens, Peck; is this the bliss of a bridal morn ?" Years afterwards, when Mr. Stanton was Secretary of War, im- mersed in the cares of a country rent by war, he closed a busi- ness letter to Mr. Peck in these sweet words: "I. am, with the unabated regard of early years, yours, Edwin M. Stanton."
Governor Wilson Shannon and Mr. Peck were young men together, and were intimate friends, though diverse in political views. Mr. Shannon went to the Senate, was Minister to Mexi- co, Governor of Ohio and Kansas, yet in the closing years of his life he wrote to Mr. Peck asking him to retire from the practice of the law and go with him to Southern California and let them spend the residue of their lives near each other.
Benjamin Ruggles, who was for eighteen years United States Senator, was also an intimate friend of his, and the sweet home presided over by one of the most attractive women of her time, was a favorite resort for Mr. Peck. Such men as Charles Ham- mond, Thomas Ewing, William Kennon, Sr., Henry Stanberry, Hocking Hunter-these were the men with whom Mr. Peck associated; men, who as he said, did not become smaller as you approached them.
An ideal home had always been a part of his ambition, so upon going to St. Clairsville, he bought eighteen acres of land, which he destined to improve. Here for thirty-four years he lived and beautified and utilized these grounds, by cultivating shrubbery, fruit, and flowers. So successful was he in the cul- ture of plants, that his grounds were the finest in all that part of the State, and his home a place of resort for all, both rich and poor. It was here he studied botany; and with all his growing practice, he found time to devote to the studies of geology, astronomy and geography. His diversity of knowl-
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