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 55
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Col. O'Brien married Miss Catharine Gillespie, of Wheeling, in 1853. Eleven children were born to them-six girls and five boys.
Col. O'Brien is powerful in physique and is one of the clev- erest and most agreeable of Wheeling's prominent business men.
747
WEST VIRGINIA.
W. H. CURRY, M.D.
748
PROMINENT MEN OF
WILLIAM HENRY CURRY.
R. W. H. CURRY was born in Baltimore county, Mary land. His father, Kean Curry, was of Scotch descent, ancured possessed in a large measure the strong, sturdy characteristics oreco the race. He was especially noted for his benevolence, unflinch- neop Eted The d 1 one mar ing loyalty to principle, insatiable love for books, and remarka- ble powers in debate. On his mother's side he is descended from the old Pennsylvania family of Kohler, who were among the early German settlers of that State. She was a gentle, amiable woman, devoted to her family, and found her highest gratification in rearing and training their children-twelve in number-all of whom she lived to see reach man and woman- fe hood, and settled in useful pursuits. Doctor Curry inherited little of the strong physical traits of his parents, being slight F and frail from childhood. He early showed, however, a special fondness for study, and his parents indulged the bent of his mind as far as their means would allow and the nearest schools afford. These did not satisfy his thirst for knowledge, and at fifteen years of age he was working on neighboring farms to earn the means to continue his education. His savings were supplemented by some aid from his parents, and he was thus enabled to take a course of study in one of the best classical schools in Pennsylvania. At eighteen he began teaching, and continued to do so for several years, when failing health neces- sitated a change. He then began the study of medicine, at the University of Maryland, and graduated with great credit at the end of the prescribed course. The condition of his health was so impaired at this time that he gratefully accepted an offer in the Regular Army, with service on the frontier, and remained therein as Assistant Surgeon until the fall of 1866, when he resigned and entered upon private practice in the city of Baltimore. He continued to practice there until 1875, when his health again gave way and he was obliged to abandon his profession entirely. h a a I
Many, perhaps most men, would have despaired after such disheartening reverses, but he patiently set about repairing his broken health and fortune, and succeeded in a few years in re- establishing both. A small commercial venture or two, for which he had no taste, proving unsuccessful, he turned his attention to Life Insurance, which he soon found not only a
scin
Tras n
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WEST VIRGINIA.
ascinating study, but a very congenial occupation. His success vas marked from the first. The interests of his company re- uired frequent visits, as their Superintendent, to this State, and ecoming enamored with its healthfulness, the cordiality of its e'ople, and impressed more than all with the enterprise exhib- ted in the development of its vast wealth of mine and forest, he decided to make it his future home.
The high standing of his company-the New York Life-as one of the foremost financial institutions of the world, com- mands the confidence of the people everywhere, but the plans and methods of life insurance are so varied and intricate, that few even, of the many who seek its benefits, ever care to grapple with its problems, and it requires a master hand to unfold them. For such a work an enthusiastic student is indispensable.
Dr. Curry loves his work, and brings to bear upon it such an honest, intelligent comprehension of its minutest detail, in its application to the needs of everyone, that he wins as he works, and in the short space of two years has achieved a success un- paralleled in the history of Life Insurance in this State.
DANIEL WILLIAM BABB.
D ANIEL W. BABB was born in Hardy county, Virginia, September 2, 1832. From untoward circumstances in youth, his education was neglected; but he made up for the de- ficiency in personal effort afterwards, and is now a staunch friend of the free school system. At twenty-one he went West and traveled over severral Teritories; came back as far as Illinois and there traded in cattle and hogs-one of his shipments being to Canada, the first from the United States. From 1864 he was a merchant and trader in West Virginia, and is at present a farmer. He has been Assistant Assessor, also U. S. Revenue In- spector, Overseer of the Poor, Surveyor of Roads, a member of the Board of Education, and was elected to represent Grant county in the West Virginia Legislature, session of 1875. It was mainly through his efforts that Hardy county was represented in the Wheeling Convention of 1861, which restored the State to the Union.
750
PROMINENT MEN OF
A.LITTLE.
HON. CALEB BOGGESS.
751
WEST VIRGINIA.
CALEB BOGGESS.
HE Judiciary of our State never lost a more honored or more honorable jurist, nor its Bar a more able attorney, than when Caleb Boggess died, April 14, 1889. Congestion of the lungs caused his sudden demise at his home in Clarksburg, that night. One daughter, Genevieve, is all that is left to mourn her double bereavement-the mother preceding the father to a better rest only two months.
Caleb, son of Caleb Boggess, was born April 29, 1822, in Lum- berport, Harrison county, Virginia, where he resided through life. His father came from Fredericktown, Maryland, to Mo- nongalia county, Virginia, in 1800, and soon after settled in Harrison county. Young Caleb received all the advantages his father could secure him in the common schools of that day, preparatory to entering him into the Virginia Military Institute, whence he graduated in 1845, with honor and great promise. He studied law under Judge E. S. Duncan ; was admitted to the Bar in 1847, at Clarksburg, Virginia, and continued to practice law through life. For twenty years, to his death, he was chief counsel in this State for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Com- pany. His views made him averse to partisan office, only once allowing a departure when he served his people in the Virginia Convention of 1861.
Those views are better expressed by himself in the following letter, freighted with a wisdom that if heeded would keep the judicial ermine without spot or blemish :
CLARKSBURG, W. VA., Sept. 29, 1866.
Daniel Lamb, Chairman State Executive Committee :
DEAR SIR: Yours of the 28th inst., has been received, inform- ing me that the National Union Convention, which met on the 22d August, at Parkersburg, unanimously nomiated me for the office of Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and request- ing me to advise you whether I will accept the nomination.
I am not insensible to the high compliment paid me by the Convention, in selecting me for an office whose duties require so much learning and practice of so many virtues, and beg leave through you to return to its members the acknowledgments of my gratitude for their flattering opinion of my merits. But I have for twenty years been so firm in my convictions that a ju- diciary, free from and independent of all partisan political obli- gations, was indispensable to the security of constitutional lib- erty, that I have learned to regard it as a sacred duty to keep it
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PROMINENT MEN OF
free from such influences. Just in proportion as any people value constitutional liberty should they be watchful and zealous to protect their judiciary from becoming partisan or political; and I cannot think of anything which is so dangerous in its tendencies in that direction as uniting the judicial with the po- litical nominations and balloting for them at the same poll. It will be impossible, even at first, to free such elections from po- litical influences; and they are sure in the end to run into and be controlled entirely by party politics, and the courts will then become a part and parcel of the party political machinery, and no longer a safe guardian of the liberties of the people.
I cannot, therefore, without, in my own person setting an ex- ample for the abandonment of a principle so vital to civil liberty, accept in a party or political sense the nomination so flatteringly tendered me.
You will allow me to return to you my sincere thanks for the kind and complimentary terms in which you communicated to me the action of the Convention.
Most respectfully, your obedient servant, CALEB BOGGESS.
In 1848 Mr. Boggess married Miss Eliza A., daughter of Judge G. D. Camden, and located for the practice of his profes- sion in Weston shortly afterward. He soon took a leading po- sition at the Bar and has maintained it ever since. He was elected as a Union candidate to represent Lewis county in the Convention at Richmond, which passed the ordinance of seces- sion, defeating Dr. Bland, who was the secession candidate. He served his constituents faithfully in the Convention. He was one of the West Virginia delegates who returned home before adjournment. While at Richmond his residence in Weston was destroyed by fire. When the Convention adjourned he located at Clarksburg and has resided there ever since, occupying all the time the residence in which he died.
When Judge Lee died, Mr. Boggess was retained as chief counsel for West Virginia for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and was still so employed at the time of his decease.
Mr. Boggess possessed a rare legal and mathematical mind. He took delight in investigating intricate legal questions, and when he undertook a case he always mastered it thoroughly. He had a large practice in the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State, and has argued a number of important cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. He has been employed in most of the great cases which have been tried in Harrison and adjoining counties for the past thirty years.
753
WEST VIRGINIA.
HOMER A. HOLT.
AT Parkersburg, Wood County, Virginia, April 27, 1831, was born the above named jurist and legislator. He is the son of Jonathan and Eliza (Wilson) Holt, and was edu- cated, as many of our ablest citizens were, in the common and select schools of that day and vicinity.
He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1853, and practiced in Braxton and adjacent counties for twenty years. At Sutton, January 27, 1857, he married Mary A., daughter of John Byrne.
In the convention of 1872 to revise the State Constitution, he was a member from Braxton county, and served upon the Com- mittees of the Judiciary and Select on Land Titles, discharging the duties with fidelity and signal ability. He was, in 1872, un- der the Constitution he had aided in framing, elected Judge of the Eighth Circuit, serving eight years, and was then re-elected as Judge of the Tenth Circuit, serving until 1st January, 1889. He declined further re-election.
Judge Holt removed in 1874, to Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, where he continues to reside, devoting his time partly to the practice of law, but mainly to his large landed interests, in which he has been successful in amassing more than a compe- tency. Along with prominent gentlemen of Greenbrier, he is financially interested in coal lands on picturesque New River, in Fayette county, several mines of which are now operated by lessees, and others are in process of opening.
The extensive timber and valuable mineral lands of Pocahon- tas and Greenbrier counties, are inviting investments, and will enrich careful purchasers who choose to push projected railroads through that section. At this time Judge Holt is endeavoring to secure the construction of a branch line from the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad to develop the coal fields of Greenbrier county.
52
754
PROMINENT MEN OF
GEN. DAVID H. STROTHER.
755
WEST VIRGINIA.
DAVID HUNTER STROTHER.
T Park Forest, in Berkeley county, Virginia, November 18, 1792, was born John, son of Benjamin Strother. He was in the war of 1812, a Lieutenant in the Twelfth Infantry ; was in the successful enterprise against Montreal ; participated in the passage of the Long saute of the St. Lawrence, and was in command of his company at the battle of Crisler's Field, where for good conduct he was promoted and subsequently made Adjutant of the regiment. He married Elizabeth Pendleton Hunter. For 45 years he was in the Clerk's office of Berkeley, as deputy and principal. In 1843 he opened a boarding house at Berkeley Springs, and in 1848 erected a large hotel there, and died January 16, 1862, while his eldest son, David Hunter Strother was in the Union Army.
The son, the subject of this sketch, whose literary fame is al- most world-wide, as the author of magazine articles of great popularity, under the nom-de-plume of "Porte Crayon," was born at Martinsburg, September 26, 1816, and died at Charles- town, Jefferson county, March 8, 1888. In early life he was un- der the supervision and instruction of Professor Morse, the af- terwards famous inventor of telegraphy. From 1842 to 1844 he was an art student at Rome; from 1845 to 1849 he was an artist and writer in New York city. Thence he returned to his na- tive South, and amid the beautiful and picturesque scenery of his loved Virginia, began his literary career in articles for Har- per's Magazine. First came "The Virginia Canaan," illustrated with crayon, which at once won the public by their charming originality, terseness and grace. Soon Porte Crayon's name was a household word wherever the monthly found its way, from At- lantic to Pacific shores.
Then came the John Brown thunderbolt which fell upon Harper's Ferry. Porte Crayon, living near by, was on the ground within a few hours, and then and for the weeks which followed, sketched the leading events and philosophized on the social problems, which he was then compelled to consider. Vir- ginia and tradition were at his back. Before his face the ques- tion of whether all men had indeed been created free and equal, or if not, what all that declaration by his forefathers meant. The dilettante artist became a changed man. Life had assumed a more serious phase in his own home than he had yet been called
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PROMINENT MEN OF
upon to consider either in Europe or America. His mind was made up. He beheld the approach of the inevitable struggle. He was very near the border, and he organized and equipped, at his own expense, a company of his Virginia townsmen, to whom he preached the doctrine of the Union. But his efforts were useless, and when the struggle actually came, local prejudices and State pride carried his carefully drilled contingent into the Con- federate ranks, while their commander was compelled to hurry off in the night to Washington. He entered the volunteer ser- vice of the United States, and for merit, capacity and courage he was successively promoted from Captain to Adjutant, then Colo- nel of the Third West Virginia Cavalry, and finally to Brigadier General, the honors of which he deserved and wore modestly. In the busy days that followed, he found himself on the staff of General McClellan, riding hard during the day and sitting down on a battlefield or in a deserted farm house at night to write out in extenso the experiences of the day-many times seizing a lull in the battle to draw out his sketch book and put on paper the harrowing scenes of the field. This was a work which no labor or fatigue or danger ever caused him to neglect, and while his war sketches remain the most interesting relics of that period, his diary, if given to the public, would prove among the most valua- ble contributions to the history of the war.
Upon General McClellan's departure for the James, he went with Pope, and later on accompanied General Banks to New Or- leans and upon the ill-fated Red River expedition, returning la- ter to become Chief-of-Staff to his cousin, General David Hun- ter, in his campaign up the Valley.
After the war, declaring himself only in search of quiet and peace, he repaired his ruined home and sat down under the tran- quil hills and broad spreading trees of Berkeley, and was visited from time to time by his companions of the war, watching with interest the problems of readjustment. In 1877 President Hayes offered him the Consul-Generalship to Mexico, and he found life at the Mexican Capital sufficiently pleasant to devote seven years there, serving until 1885.
He was twice married : first, to Ann Doyne Wolfe, by whom he had one child, Emily; second, to Mary Elliott Hunter, by whom he had two sons. Two children, a daughter and son, sur- vive him. The daughter, Emily, by his first marriage, is the wife
Co m is
of CE
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WEST VIRGINIA.
of Hon. John Brisben Walker, once an enterprising citizen of Charleston, in the Kanawha Valley, then a brilliant journalist of Washington City, afterward a wealthy business man of Denver, Colorado, and now proprietor and editor of The Cosmopolitan magazine in New York. The son, John, by his second marriage, is an engineer by profession. While his son-in-law was a resident of the Kanawha Valley, General Strother edited the Herald, a literary and news journal, at the State Capital. Among his ra- ciest publications are " Virginia Illustrated " and "Work in Mexico." He was exceedingly modest and unpretentious in all his acts. Brave as a soldier, unassuming as a citizen, observant as a tourist, sparkling as an author, courteous and able as a diplo- mat, charming as an artist, and in the social circle he was a type of the true Virginia gentleman.
JAMES D. MOFFAT.
J AMES D. MOFFAT, D. D., is the eldest son of the late Rev. John Moffat, for many years the zealous pastor of the Sec- ond Presbyterian Church of Wheeling. He was born at New Lisbon, Ohio, in 1846, and graduated from Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in the class of 1869. He sub- sequently took the required theological course at Princeton Seminary, New Jersey, and was licensed to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in 1871. In 1873, on account of his father's failing health, he was ordained and made assistant pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Wheeling, and in 1875, when his father died, he became pastor of the church. In 1881 he was elected President of his Alma Mater, and accepted the position and assumed its duties in January, 1882, in which position, as in the pastorate, he has been eminently successful. He married Elizabeth Crangle, of Wheeling, in 1876. His two younger brothers, Thomas C. and John, are engaged in the business of merchant tailoring in Wheeling.
758
PROMINENT MEN OF
ALITTLE
WILLIAM P. EWING, M. D,
759
WEST VIRGINIA.
WILLIAM PINCKNEY EWING.
D R. WILLIAM P. EWING is the son of Rev. John D. Ewing (Presbyterian), a native of Rockingham eounty Virginia. He was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, December 3, 1821. He received a literary and scientific education at Washington College, Virginia, now Washington-Lee University ; a military training at Virginia Military Institute, and in 1846 graduated in medicine from Jefferson Medical College, Pennsylvania. He is now President of the West Virginia State Board of Health. He was formerly Professor of physiology and chemistry in the Kana- wha Military Institute. He practiced medicine in Virginia from 1846 to 1871, when he came to West Virginia and has con- tinuously practiced here since the latter year. Few men, either in social or professional circles, enjoy a greater esteem or oc- cupy a more honorable position among men of all classes. Al- though in his sixty-ninth year, he is hale and hearty and still busy taking care of his patients and attending to numerous other duties.
JOHN J. JACOB.
HE Jacob family has been noted in the Panhandle for gen- erations. John J. Jacob (Junior), was born near Clinton, Ohio county, Virginia, May 15, 1844. His father died when he was but five years of age, when his mother moved to Wheeling, where they resided for ten years, then moved back to their old home near Clinton, where Mr. Jacob has resided ever since, with the exception of three years which he spent in traveling through the West. He attended private schools at Wheeling, and afterwards was a student at the West Liberty and Morgan- town Academies. Mr. Jacob has spent the greater portion of his mature life in farming and wool growing and stock breed- ing. He has taken but little interest in politics only so far as it bears upon his business. He, however, has filled a number of responsible offices, notably a member of the West Virginia Legislature, in which body he was active and influential.
760
PROMINENT MEN OF
DAVID AYRES CUNNINGHAM.
c HE Rev. D. A. Cunningham, D. D., who for over thirteen years has been the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Wheeling, the son of Thomas and Mary (Ayres) Cunningham, was born in Wayne county, Ohio, February 5, 1830. His prima- ry education was received in the ordinary schools of the vicinity. He next began the classical course in Jefferson College, Wash- ington county, Pennsylvania, and graduated therefrom with the class of 1855. In the years 1854 to 1857 he attended Western Theological Seminary ; was licensed to preach in September, 1856, by the Presbytery of Wooster; ordained in October, 1857, by Allegheny City Presbytery, and was pastor of the church at Bridgewater from 1857 to 1864; of Scott's Church, Philadel- phia, from 1864 to 1866, and Spring Garden Church from 1866 to 1876. From the Centennial year to the present he has been pastor over the wealthy and intelligent congregation of the First church at Wheeling, West Virginia. He is one of the ablest divines within the confines of our State. In 1873 his Alma Mater, Washington and Jefferson College, conferred upon him, pro merito, the degree of Doctor of Divinity. August 26, 1858, he wedded Annie C. F., daughter of Rev. John C. Sinclair. But few ministers exert a wider and more substantial influence over their congregations than Dr. Cunningham.
JOHN BRISBEN WALKER.
J
OHN BRISBEN WALKER was born on the Monongahela river, in Pennsylvania, in 1847, a grandson of General S. G. Krepps and Major John Walker, the first Commissioners appointed for the improvement of the Western rivers. He was appointed to West Point in 1865 and in 1868 resigned to go to China under appointment from Anson Burlingame, Ambassador Extraordinary, from the Court of Pekin. Mr. Walker accom- panied Hon. J. Ross Browne, U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary, to the East, returning after a couple of years of advantageous experience and locating at Charleston, in the Kanawha Valley.
He became largely interested in various enterprises there, in- cluding the ownership of about 2,000 acres of land, embracing nearly all that portion below the Elk river, where West Charles- ton now stands, building a large mill for woodworking and en-
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WEST VIRGINIA.
gaging in other manufacturing enterprises. In 1872 he received the unanimous nomination of the Republican party for Congress in the Third West Virginia District, but was defeated. In the panic of 1873 Mr. Walker saw his property swept to the last vestige, by that terrible period.
He was offered by Murat Halsted a position to write up the mineral and manufacturing industries of the West, and prepared an interesting series of articles for the Cincinnati Commercial. Soon afterwards he was offered the managing editorship of the Washington Daily Chronicle, then the leading daily at the Na- tional Capital. For three years he remained in the journalistic field, until appointed to visit Colorado as a Commissioner of the U. S. Agricultural Department, and spent three months in exam- ining the arid country and questions of irrigation. This exam- ination resulted in an appropriation by Congress for artesian wells and other improvements, the good results from which are now showing in the general development of the arid regions of the West.
For ten years Mr. Walker remained in Colorado, building up " Berkeley Farm," which eventually became the largest alfalfa farm in the State, harvesting under Mr. Walker's personal man- agement over 3,000 tons of alfalfa per annum, and having nearly 200 miles of main and lateral ditches.
In 1888 Mr. Walker returned East and became and still con- tinues editor of The Cosmopolitan, one of the best magazines in the Union.
He married, in 1870, Emily, the daughter of General David Hunter Strother, and has a family of six sons and one daughter.
In November, 1870, Governor Stevenson appointed him a Commissioner to the convention at Indianapolis, Indiana, to be held in the interest of immigration to States there repre- sented. He was Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions at the first Ohio River Improvement Convention. At the Cen- tennial year of the University of Georgetown, D. C., in 1888, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred upon him.
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PROMINENT MEN OF
-
A. LITTLE.
JOHN B. REED, D. D.
763
WEST VIRGINIA.
JOHN BRICE REED.
B EFORE the Presbytery of West Virginia was formed, this then young minister, recently from the school of theology, came to Parkersburg, on the banks of the Ohio. He was born, the son of Parker and Jane A. (Brice) Reed, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, April 5, 1839. Educated primarily in the common schools, under the shadow and sunshine of celebrated institutions, he afterwards attended Washington College, and was graduated in the class of 1860. From thence he went to the Western Theological Seminary, at Allegheny City, and there re- ceived ministerial training, and graduated in 1863. In the meantime, April 24, 1862, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Washington. Upon leaving the Seminary, he en- tered the ministry in West Virginia, and was ordained, by the Presbytery having jurisdiction, April 30, 1864, and installed as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Parkersburg, one of the most important stations within the State. Here he remained till the year 1871, when he accepted a call to the church at Sis- tersville, Tyler county, where he served till 1882, when he be- came pastor of the church at Fairmont, Marion county. In 1888 he severed his connection with that charge and the Presby- tery, in which he had so long been a leading minister, and of which he had been Stated Clerk, and often Moderator, and re- moved from the field of his useful ministerial labors to his na- tive State, locating in Laurel Hill, Pennsylvania, and having in charge the church at Dunbar.
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