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 51
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
685
WEST VIRGINIA.
speak that of the Senator which his native modesty might forbid being spoken. But he and his work are part of the history of the State, and as such, public property.
JAMES SOLACE CASSADY.
C APT. J. S. CASSADY, who now resides on his farm near Cotton Hill, in this State, was born June 4, 1819, in Chris- tiansburg, Montgomery county, Virginia, and educated in the common schools. He moved to Fayette county, along with his mother, five sisters and one brother, in 1853, and pursued the occupation of a farmer until 1861, when he enlisted as a soldier in the Fderal army, serving as Captain of Company G, Seventh Regiment West Virginia Cavalry, until the close of the war, and was mustered out August 1, 1865. In the Legislature of 1865-'6 he was a member of the House of Delegates, active in the duties of law enacting. He was elected in the same year Superintendent of Schools for the county, served two terms and organized the present system therein. He also served until 1872 as Clerk of the Circuit Court, first by appointment, in 1866, to fill the unexpired term of G. M. Blume, afterwards by election to the office.
SAMUEL B. D. PRICKITT.
HE Rev. S. B. D. Prickitt was born at Columbus, Georgia, in 1840. His parents moved with him to New Jersey while he was yet a child, and there he grew to manhood. He was liberally educated in Burlington county of that State. He en- tered the ministry of the M. E. Church in early manhood. He came to West Virginia in 1866, and entered the Methodist Itin- erancy, where he remained in the active ministry until 1888, when he was transferred to the New Jersey Conference, where he is now engaged in ministerial work. While in West Virginia he was sought after by the best churches because of his splendid talents as a minister of the Word. He is industrious and pains- taking in the preparation of his sermons. His mind is logical and his rhetoric perfect. When he was transferred to New Jer- sey that State gained what West Virginia lost, an earnest, able, faithful Christian minister.
686
PROMINENT MEN OF
HON. W. E. LIVELY.
687
WEST VIRGINIA.
WILLIAM EDWARD LIVELY.
HE Constitutional Court, commissioned by the Legislature of 1889, to receive the evidence and determine the contest between the candidates Nathan Goff and A. B. Fleming, for the office of Governor for the term ending March 3d, 1893, has, as one of its ablest members, the lawyer with above name, whose portrait faces opposite. He is the son of Charles and Elizabeth Lively, and was born March 6, 1830, in Williamsburg, Virginia. At the age of six months he was left motherless, and to the care of a faithful colored servant until three years old, when his father again married, and his stepmother assumed control of him. Being an only boy, he was generally permitted his way, and was sent to the best of schools. When eighteen years old his father, who was a sailor all his life, offered him a schooner of 160 tons burden if he would take the command. Declining this proposition his father next tendered 250 acres of land and to stock the same with negroes, animals and farming utensils, in addition to the 200 acre farm already owned and inherited by him from his mother. This was also rejected. Ambitious to carve out his own fortune, and without the knowledge of his father, he accepted the Deputy Sergeantcy of Williamsburg city. While thus employed he took an Academic course at William and Mary's College. His life from 1851 to 1854 was spent mostly in traveling, teaching and clerking. In 1854 he began the study of law. In 1856, through a disagreement with Prof. Minor of the Law department of William and Mary's College, in which the instructor was accused of partiality, Mr. Lively refused to present himself for graduation. In 1857 he formed a law partnership with the late Caleb Boggess of Clarks- burg, and made his first appearance at the Bar in Glenville, Gilmer county, about the 15th of March of that year. In 1859 he moved to Weston, and practiced until the opening of the war in 1861. In that year the County Court of Gilmer made an appropriation of $3,000 "to arm and equip soldiers for the defence of the State against Northern invasion," and Mr. Lively was appointed to negotiate the bonds and expend the money. He went to Richmond and in an interview with General Wise it was agreed to commission him as Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment and appoint Judge Wm. L. Jackson as Colonel, pro- vided Mr. Lively would return to Lewis county, recruit a regi-
688
PROMINENT MEN OF
ment and report at Hawk's Nest, in Greenbrier county. This was undertaken, and he was captured in Weston by troops under command of Col. E. B. Tyler, and from Weston was sent a prisoner to Grafton and put in confinement. During the con- finement the Confederate guerrillas shot two Union men in Lewis county, and it was seriously contemplated by the military authorities to retaliate and put to death Mr. Lively and J. T. Jackson, a prisoner confined with him. In this time of trouble Colonel Lander of Kentucky went to Washington and procured a parole for him. During his imprisonment Generals Rosecrans, Kelly and Fremont commanded that department, and toward them he feels grateful for humane and gentle treatment, each of whom paroled him and gave him pass to travel anywhere within their command. While enjoying this freedom he went to Wheeling to have some dental work done, and only took one dinner at the McLure House when he was arrested and ordered into the Atheneum, the old war prison in that city. Through the leniency of Major Darr, Provost Marshal, he was inter- cepted and permitted to take meals at the Monroe House, sleep at Dr. Winchell's, and play clerk in the Provost Marshal's office. This continued three days, when he was ordered by General Rosecrans to report at Clarksburg. His career as free- man lasted about three months, when he was re-arrested and served as prisoner in Forts Delaware, Warren, Point Lookout and Fortress Monroe, at which latter place he gained the confi- d'ence of General John A. Dix, commandant, and was chosen by him as agent to purchase supplies for the citizens of Williams- burg and vicinity. About the 10th of May, 1863, General Wise with 2,500 men made a raid into Williamsburg, and among others captured Mr. Lively and sent him to Richmond, when he was soon released from parole and entered the Confederate ser- vice as a private. He joined the Tenth Regiment of Cavalry, Company I, until after the battle of Spottsylvania C. H., where he gave out and was sent to Richmond into the Treasury De- partment, serving there until Richmond fell. Thence he re- turned home to see it a ruin and wreck of despair and abandon- ment. He returned to Weston to be confronted with the test oaths and proscription laws that were incident to the times.
June 3, 1869, he wedded Emily North Shaw, daughter of Wm. M. Shaw of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, and niece of Hon.
689
WEST VIRGINIA.
Simeon North, President of Hamilton College, New York. He has been prominent in every State, first Congressional, and his own Senatorial and county conventions, from 1868 to the pres- ent. In 1872 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for Gilmer county, and served four years. In 1876 he was appointed Di- rector of the Hospital for the Insane. In 1875 he removed from Glenville, to Weston. In 1884 he was a Delegate to the Chicago Convention from the First Congressional District and voted first for Randall and next for Cleveland. He was elected as Delegate to the House of Delegates of 1889, and is one of the leaders in that body. Modest and unassuming, but forcible and impressive, he commanded respect irrespective of party. Such was the confidence of his party, they made him first in their selection for the Contest Committee. He declined the chairmanship notwithstanding the two Republican members urged him to take it. In the midst of his usefulness in the Legislature he was summoned to the bedside of his sick wife, who died from Pneumonia on the 10th of February. He is chairman of the Democratic Conference, on the Committees of Bribery and Fraud, on Privileges and Elections, and prominent member of the Judiciary and of Railroads. He has often been selected by the Bar of Gilmer, Calhoun and Lewis counties to preside as Judge in special cases and sometimes to hold the greater part of the term of the Court.
JAMES D. HORNOR.
T HE Sheriff of Harrison county from 1881 to 1885, held the above name. He was born at Lumberport, Virginia, Au- gust 8, 1847, and was the son of James Y. Hornor and Mary Robinson Hornor, of Culpeper county. The father was a soldier in the war of 1812-'15, the mother, a daughter of Major David Robinson, and granddaughter of Major Benjamin Robinson, who was prominent in his day and Indian times. He wedded, December, 1870, Flora, daughter of Captain William Hood, who was in the Southern army. Her mother, Hannah Pindle Coombs, is connected with the most prominent and esteemed families of Harrison county. James D. Hornor is by occupa- tion a merchant and farmer and was assessor from 1877 to 1880, and from that office he was elected as a Democrat to the Sher- iffalty of wealthy Harrison county.
48
690
PROMINENT MEN OF
ALBERT B. WHITE, A.M.
691
WEST VIRGINIA.
ALBERT BLAKESLEE WHITE.
T the head of the United States Internal Revenue service for West Virginia, under the Harrison Administration, is the journalist and political orator whose portrait faces this page. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, September 22d, 1856. His first publishing experience, outside of amateur work, was as the private secretary of his father, who edited and issued from Co- lumbus, Ohio, two magazines, the Educational Monthly and the National Teacher, both of which obtained a large circulation for special publications, and were useful promoters of advancement in that field of mental exertion. With the exception of four years at Marietta College, Ohio, where he graduated as valedic- torian of a large class in 1878, he has been actively engaged in newspaper work ever since. During his college career he was for two years one of the editors of the college paper, and there- in displayed a talent for newspaper pursuits. For four years af- ter graduation he was one-third owner of the Daily Journal, of Lafayette, Indiana, three of that period serving as managing editor, until compelled to leave the State by unfavorable cli- matic influences and excessive night work. West Virginia seemed to promise the desired change of atmosphere, and in De- cember, 1881, he purchased from Governor Stevenson and O. G. Scofield the State Journal, at Parkersburg, which was then in- fluential in its position but only a weekly in issue. He rapidly improved it, extended its circulation and increased its facilities. In July, 1883, he associated with him in ownership and man- agement S. B. Baker, and they began the issue of a daily edi- tion, which is not only a financial success upon a heavy invest- ment, but advanced the paper to a prominent political and jour- nalistic position over the entire State. It is recognized in the
Republican party as a leader. Its columns exhibit vivacity, ar- gument and force. In the campaign of 1888 which terminated in the overthrow of Democracy in National, and almost its de- feat in State offices, the Journal was an invaluable factor, and the many speeches of its editor-in-chief were beneficial before the people. Till then the friends of Editor White scarcely knew him capable of oratory. He was for years President of the West Virginia Press Association, and held other offices in that organ- ization. At the Denver meeting of the National Editorial As- sociation he was elected President, to succeed the Hon. Charles
692
PROMINENT MEN OF
H. Jones, of Jacksonville, Florida, and presided at the annual meeting held in San Antonio, Texas, in November, 1888. He was an alternate in 1884, and a delegate in 1888 to the National Republican Conventions. Without personal solicitation or ex- pectation, in the proper distribution of Federal appointments in West Virginia, it fell to him to be named by the President as Collector of Internal Revenue, and he began the duties of the responsible office July 1, 1889, succeeding John T. McGraw, who had previously resigned, to take effect at the close of the fiscal year, June 30. To the administration of the office he will bring the ardeney of vigorous manhood, honesty of purpose, and a sincere desire to discharge its every duty with acceptance to the people, and fidelity to the Government.
J. WESLEY WEBB.
J. WESLEY WEBB was born in Augusta county, Virginia, June 5, 1826; was educated in private schools of his na- tive county ; at the age of nineteen, he became principal of Mid- dlebrook Academy, and remained in that position three years, when he was made principal of Roller's Academy; served effi- ciently as such principal for several years; became a student of medicine at Harrisonburg, Virginia, under the tutorage of the renowned Dr. Clay; became a Christian, closed his medical books, and, in 1850, entered the Christian Ministry in the M. E. Church. He came to Western Virginia in 1853, and for a year was principal at Baxter's Institute in Buckhannon. The next year he joined the Western Virginia Conference and began a regular ministerial career, which has continued to the present. He is a preacher of great power, and has filled many of the best stations in the Conference. In 1872 he was chosen as a delegate to the General Conference of his Church, which met that year in Brooklyn, N. Y. During his ministry he has been instru- mental, as pastor and Presiding Elder, in the erection of be- tween sixty and seventy churches and parsonages. As a recog- nition of his literary and theological attainments, several years ago, Mount Union College conferred upon him the degree of D. D.
N sho
wit con pr
319
S
I G
693
WEST VIRGINIA.
WILLIAM L. BRIDGES.
W TILLIAM L. BRIDGES was born in King and Queen coun- ty, Virginia, May 17, 1832. Educated in the ordinary school of the Mother of States. In early manhood he taught school, and also at one time was a merchant. When the whirl of war swept over the South he enlisted, in May, 1861, in the Confederate army, belonging to the Henry A. Wise Legion; was captured and paroled at Roanoake Island in 1862; exchanged within four months, and then assisted in recruiting another company, in which he was first Lieutenant and afterwards promoted to Captain. From Mercer county, West Virginia, he was sent to the House of Delegates, session of 1872-'3, but re- signed April 18, 1873. Was then made Superintendent of the State Penitentiary, serving therein eight years, to March, 1881. In January, 1887, was made Director of Hydraulic Presses in the Government Printing Office at Washington.
JOSEPH MORELAND.
T HE two peoples along either side of the border line of Penn- sylvania and West Virginia are of the same characteristics, and may be spoken of as one people. The same persevering en- ergy, in business, integrity of character, patriotism and courage, mark each, and in daily habits and social manners the same. One from the Pennsylvania side has been a resident of West Virginia since 1867, a lawyer in our courts, and an efficient offi- cer in our civil service-Joseph Moreland, a native of Connells- ville, Pennsylvania. He attended the Monongalia Academy at Morgantown until the outbreak of the war in 1861; then went to Dunlap's Creek Academy in Pennsylvania; prepared for and entered Washington and Jefferson College in 1864 and gradua- ted in 1866.
Mr. Moreland settled in Morgantown in 1867; studied law with Messrs. Brown & Hagans, and was admitted to the Bar in 1869, and has since practiced in Monongalia and the adjoining counties. He had some official experience before coming to this State, having been Township Clerk of Dunbar, Fayette county, Pennsylvania. In West Virginia, he was elected Mayor of Morgantown for the years 1872-'73-'74-'78-'79, and several times to the Town Council. In 1874 he was appointed by the
694
PROMINENT MEN OF
Governor one of the commissioners to assess railroad property. In 1887 Judge Fleming appointed him Prosecuting Attorney for Monongalia county. In 1888 the Democrats sent him as delegate to the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis. In 1882 Governor Jackson appointed him a member of the Board of Regents of the West Virginia University, which posi- tion he still holds-his educational qualifications and natural endowments fitting him peculiarly for it. His adopted State has been decidedly the gainer by his residence and services in our midst.
CHARLES WESLEY LYNCH.
HARLES W. LYNCH was born on Brown's Creek, Har- rison county, Virginia, March 11, 1851. He is the son of James and Caroline J. Lynch; was educated in the common schools; entered the West Virginia University in March, 1869, and graduated in June, 1874; was principal of Burning Springs Graded schools in 1874-'5 ; taught classical department of Clarks- burg Graded schools from June, 1875, to 1878, then prin- cipal of same to 1882. He read law under Hon. John J. Davis, and began practice in 1882, at Clarksburg; represented Harri- son county, as a Republican, in the Legislature of 1882-'4. From 1884 to December, 1888, he was Prosecuting Attorney of the county, and declined re-nomination. During his term he was a fearless and faithful Prosecutor, collecting more fines for viola- tions of law than had been done in any one term before. He was six years a member of the Board of Examiners for the county, and by strictness raised the grade of teaching and improved the schools. He is prominent in party organizations and serves now as a member of the Congressional Committee of the First Dis- trict.
Engª by H.& C.Koevoets New York
A Heymans
695
WEST VIRGINIA.
ANTON REYMANN.
A S the name itself indicates, coupled with the typical Ger- man face, and more than typical German geniality of tem- perament and manner, one could not fail to readily guess that Anton Reymann, one of Wheeling's leading business men, is a native of the Fatherland. He was born September 15, 1837, at Gaubickelheim, near Bingen on the Rhine, Hessen Darmstadt. He came to America when not yet sixteen years of age, spent a short time at Galena, Illinois, and settled in Wheeling, Virgin- ia, in 1853. He became an apprentice in the brewing business at Beck's Brewery, April 1st, 1854, and continued the required term of four years. He spent three years in Cincinnati and St. Louis working at his trade; and the latter part of 1861 he was called back to Wheeling to take charge of the Beck Brewery, owing to the sickness and inability of Mr. Beck to carry on the business himself. After the death of Mr. Beck, in 1862, Mr. Reymann became a partner in the brewing business with Mr. Beck's widow. Later on he rented the property and continued the business himself. In a few years more, he purchased the brewery, and continued to operate it for a number of years, when he built the massive establishment in East Wheeling, and January 1st, 1880, he organized the Reymann Brewing Com- pany, of which he has been President from that time to the present. It is considered one of the largest and most success- fully managed breweries in the entire South.
For many years Mr. Reymann has been classed among the leading business men of West Virginia. He is always a mov- ing spirit in all public enterprises; invests his money liber- ally in every channel that tends to advance the interests of the public, and throws into all of his undertakings the energy for which he is noted, and which never fails to secure success. He purchased the Hornbrook Park, four miles from Wheeling, and built a railroad to it for the comfort and convenience of the people. He was for many years President of the West Virginia Exposition and State Fair Association, which has proved a mar- velous success. He has stock in a number of business enter- prises throughout the city that give employment to hundreds of people, and is also an active member of the Chamber of Com- merce.
696
PROMINENT MEN OF
In private life Mr. Reymann uses his vast wealth generously, hospitably and benevolently. Unostentatious in his charities, as in everything else, he obeys the Divine command to let not his left hand know what his right hand doeth. Nevertheless, his praises are in the mouths of many, and hundreds thank him for benefactions that no newspapers ever record. In bus- iness he has been conservative rather than speculative. His in- vestments have been judiciously made in the city of his adop- tion, and his belief in the growth and enterprise of Wheeling has been rewarded more than a hundred fold.
Mr. Reymann could have had political favors, without num- ber, if he had sought them. He has persistently refused to ac- cept office. He has never, in any sense, been a politician, and, therefore, has all to learn of the wiles and witchery of that large class of his fellow-citizens that have in the years gone by quar- tered themselves upon the public treasury. His great success in business proves that he chose wisely when he decided to let pol- itics supremely alone.
Of medium height, compactly built, erect and active, with strongly marked features, he walks and talks modestly, but with the terse decision of a man accustomed to command. He carries his fifty-two years as easily as he does the responsibility of the vast business interests in his custody. He holds his friends firmly, and is respected for his integrity, consistency and business sagacity.
Mr. Reymann is a musician of considerable attainments. For years he has been President of the Opera House Orchestra, and when his time permits he plays his instrument, the flute, at many of their exhibitions.
.
JAMES F. BROWN.
HE subject of this sketch is a son of Judge J. H. Brown, now of Denver, Colorado, and a native of Charleston, West Virginia; born March 7, 1852. He is a graduate of the West Virginia University, class of 1873. After a course of law stu- dies he began practice in July, 1875, and has since continuously engaged therein. He was for many years one of the City Coun- cilmen of Charleston, and was always actively interested in the city's improvement. In the fall of 1882 he was the Democratic
1
el L t
f
no
697
WEST VIRGINIA.
nominee for the House of Delegates at the same time his father was the Republican nominee-there being three delegates to be elected. Father and son were both elected and served in the Legislature together, but the son received over 100 votes more than the father. Mr. Brown is a lawyer of superior attain- ments, and maintains a high rank at the Charleston Bar, which for years has been regarded as perhaps the strongest in the State.
JOHN WILLIAM JOHNSON.
TI HE energetic, pushing bachelor of the 1889 House of Del- egates-as enterprising at home as he is energetic in office -was J. W. Johnson, the Delegate from Summers county. He was born near Alderson, Monroe county, Virginia, March 9, 1856, and has ever since resided there or in the adjoining county, which he represents. The son of an industrious farmer, he was trained to habits of industry and self-reliance, traits which still distinguish him. After leaving the country school of his neigh- borhood, he was two years at the Second Creek High School, after which he matriculated at Washington-Lee University at Lexington. An unfortunate failure of sight forbade his read- ing for five years, during which time he traveled extensively, and then went to farming at his present home in Summers county and is still so engaged. He also originated and carried on successfully the first canning business in that portion of the State. Mr. Johnson, as above hinted, has never married. Dur- ing 1886-'87-'88 he was General Manager of the Greenbrier Valley Industrial Exposition Association, and to his assiduous attention and efforts, we learn, is due in a great measure the advancement of the agricultural interests of his section, now beginning to be felt. He was elected as a Democrat to the Leg- islature by 86 majority. In that body he was chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Immigration-one of the most important-and also a member of the Committees on Elections and Privileges, on Education, and on Roads and Internal Nav- igation.
698
PROMINENT MEN OF
g
n
t
ALITTLE
RICHARD RANDOLPH M'MAHON, A.M.
699
WEST VIRGINIA.
RICHARD RANDOLPH McMAHON.
R ICHARD RANDOLPH McMAHON, late Deputy Second Comptroller of the Treasury, was born in Alexandria, Vir- ginia, July 30, 1852. His father was Dion Bentley McMahon, a native of Canada, who emigrated to Virginia in 1850. Dion Bentley's father, Thomas Bentley McMahon, was born in Coun- ty Clare, Ireland, and came of the family which gave to France its Marshal President. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and an officer of the English army. While he was sta- tioned in Canada his son, Dion Bentley, was born. His wife was Mary Bentley, of Scotch extraction, who died a few years after the marriage.
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.