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 56
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May 12, 1864, he married Isabella J., daughter of James M. Shields, of New Alexandria, Pennsylvania.
GEORGE E. BOYD.
H ON. GEORGE E. BOYD, one of Wheeling's established at- torneys, is a native of Cumberland, Guernsey county, Ohio, where he was born December 29, 1839. He was educated at Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with honors. He is a graduate of the Cincin- nati Law School, and also of Gundry's Commercialj Col- lege. Thus thoroughly equipped he entered upon the practice of the law at Wheeling, in January, 1862, whither he had
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moved in 1850; removed to New Martinsville, Wetzel county, in the autumn of 1866, and remained there until 1871, when he returned to Wheeling. He has been a resident of Wheeling since that time, and has practiced his profession without inter- ruption to the present. He served from January, 1869, to Jan- uary, 1871, as Prosecuting Attorney of Wetzel county, four years as Judge of the Ohio County Court, and eight years Judge of the Circuit Court, composed of the counties of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall. In all of these positions Judge Boyd proved himself a faithful and competent official. Since his retirement from the Bench, January 1, 1889, he resumed practice in Wheeling, and is sustaining himself as a thoroughly informed lawyer.
WILLIAM WILLEY ARNETT.
N the front rank of criminal lawyers at the Wheeling Bar- probably unequalled in his knowledge of criminal law, cer- tainly unexcelled in its presentation to the jury-stands the sub- ject of this sketch. This is manifested by his successful defence in some of the most noted causa celebre in West Virginia and at the St. Louis Bar. Not so much as an orator, not because of rhetorical finish or grandiloquent sentences ; but in his deliber- ate, methodical presentation of the statutes, his singular power of explaining away damaging testimony, or handling the testi- fier, his convincing manner of arraying facts and law points, as a general masses his heavy and light soldiery for a victorious charge-herein is his strength and the secret of his almost_uni- versal success.
Colonel W. W. Arnett is the son of Ulysses N. and Elizabeth (nee Cunningham) Arnett-both natives of that part of Monon- galia which became Marion county, Virginia. In the latter county he was born, October 23, 1843; prepared at Fairmont Academy for Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsylvania, whence he graduated in 1860. He studied law, before and after his college term, under A. F. Haymond, Ex-Judge of the West Virginia Supreme Bench, and was admitted to practice in 1860 at Fairmont; but closed his office to enlist as private in Com- pany A, Thirty-first Virginia Infantry, directly after which he was appointed by Governor Letcher, Lieutenant-Colonel of a Battalion, which was afterwards merged into the Twenty-fifth
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Virginia. He resigned his commission, returned to the ranks of his old company, and was soon selected its Captain, and so served until 1863, when he was elected Colonel of the Twentieth Virginia Cavalry, the command of which he continued until the close of the war. Twice during the war he was elected by the " refugees and camp voters" to represent Marion county in the Virginia Legislature.
In 1865, because of the " Test Oath" in West Virginia, he re- sumed practice in Berryville, Clarke county, Virginia; in 1868 he was nominated for the State Senate from that District, but de- clined, and was immediately after nominated and elected to the Legislature of Virginia from that county. In 1872 he removed to St. Louis, Missouri, and soon established himself in a remu- nerative and important practice, his reputation as a successful criminal lawyer having preceded him. One of his first cases there, the defence and acquittal of J. H. Fore on a charge of murder, was subject of complimentary comment in public jour- nals throughout the United States, the St. Louis papers describ- ing his effort as " the most masterly in that Court since Blenner- hassett's day." Like encomiums were passed upon his success- ful defence of Madame Julia Fortmeyer in the celebrated abor- tion case, and others.
In 1875 he returned to his native State and located at Wheel- ing, at once becoming one of the prominent attorneys of West Virginia. In the injunction case, Wheeling vs. Charleston, against the removal of the State archives from the latter to the former city, he succeeded before the Supreme Court in having the Capital removed to Wheeling. He was also employed to de- fend State Auditor J. M. Bennett and Treasurer John S. Bur- dett in their celebrated impeachment case. He is still engaged in his practice at Wheeling, as also in different counties through- out the State and before the Supreme Court of West Virginia. Since his resumption of practice in West Virginia, he has been retained on the defence or prosecution of almost every important criminal case before the Courts of his section.
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HON. CHARLES T. CALDWELL.
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CHARLES THOMAS CALDWELL.
HARLES THOMAS CALDWELL, Farmer, Soldier, Law- yer, Legislator and Minister, has had a varied life, and the versatility of his genius has made him successful despite all changes. His father was brought from Southwestern Kentucky, in early childhood, to Ohio, by friends, and reared to manhood. Married and removed to Virginia. In the Spring of 184%, he removed to Letart Falls, Meigs county, Ohio, on a farm, where the son (Charles T.) was born December 23, of that year. At sixteen years of age he ran away from home and enlisted in the Union Army, in Company D, Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer In- fantry, and served as a private during the war. From the Fall of 1865 to 1867, he was a "roustabout " and deck hand on the Mississippi,"Missouri and Illinois rivers; then mate and after- wards clerk on Ohio river steamboats. He attended school six months. Afterwards clerked for Justice Cornelius McCoy, in Portsmouth, Ohio, and read law with Moore & Johnson, of that city, studying principally at night. In 1869, he went to Wirt county, West Virginia, and finished reading law with Hon. D. H. Leonard, and was admitted to the Bar in 1870. He was Clerk of the Board of Supervisors of Wirt county, Township Clerk, Mayor of Elizabeth, State Senator, representing the coun- ties of Wirt, Wood and Pleasants in the Legislature of 1872-3. He was afterwards Prosecuting Attorney of Wirt county for two terms, then removed to Parkersburg in 1877.
In 1888 Mr. Caldwell became a convert to the Christian faith, and joined the M. E. Church, South, and was licensed as a local preacher, and has devoted a great deal of time to preaching and lecturing in Ohio and West Virginia. In November, 1888, he was elected, upon the Republican ticket, Prosecuting Attorney for Wood County, and in April, 1889, was elected to the City Council of Parkersburg. In all these vocations he has been faithful and successful, and has won in the past, and is still win- ning an honorable distinction among his fellow men.
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DANIEL MAYER.
D ANIEL MAYER, M. D., was born January 6, 1837, in Nierstein, Germany. He was fairly educated and gradua- ted in a medical course at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1859. August 10, 1861, he was commissioned First Assistant Surgeon Fifth Virginia Infantry, and served until discharged, September 20, 1864, when he settled in Kanawha county ; and in October, 1864, married Addie, daughter of A. G. Walker, of that county, and began the practice of medicine. He was Supervisor and Justice in that county, Health Officer of Charleston,. and served two terms in its Council ; was Commissioner of Emigration under Governor Jacob, and is manager for West Virginia of the U. S. Equitable Life Association. After due preparation he was ad- mitted to the Bar, and began practicing law in 1867, in Kana- wha, Boone and Logan counties, and in the U. S. District Court ; was Prosecuting Attorney twice in Logan and once in Boone county, and quit the law in 1873. March 31, 1887, he was ap- pointed Director of the Hospital for the Insane, and was elected to the West Virginia Legislature of 1889, to represent Kanawha county, serving on the following Committees: Claims, Humane Institutions, Penitentiary, Immigration and Rules. He is now engaged in the practice of medicine in Charleston, and is one of the leading men in that profession in the State. Dr. Mayer possesses unusual intellectual powers, and would be a represen- tative man in any community.
WILLIAM W. MILLER.
H ON. WM. W. MILLER was born January 10, 1836, in Wheeling, Virginia; was educated at Linsly Institute, Wheeling, and Renselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York; entered the United States Navy, but resigned in 1861 to take charge of his father's foundry business in Wheeling, which he conducted until 1870. He was elected to the House of Delegates of West Virginia, and was chosen as its Speaker; was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1872; was Cap- tain of the militia company known as the Mathews Light Guards, and was elected Colonel of the First regiment of West Virginia State Troops. He also served in CityCouncil, on Board of Education, and Board of County Commissioners. Colonel Miller was an energetic, enterprising citizen. He died in Wheeling, December 13, 1881.
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AUGUSTUS POLLACK.
W TORK wins. From early in the morning until late at night, "day in and day out," a notable figure in the business circles of Wheeling may be seen seated at his desk in his office on Water street of that city.
No man in that thrifty, driving locality is more regular in his business habits or more attentive to his own and the general in- terests of the community in which he lives. Not tall, but com- pactly and well proportioned ; a full round head thickly covered with slightly gray hair and a moustache to correspond ; a strong nose; a large and finely developed forehead ; pleasant counten- ance, and in personal intercourse a courteous and dignified gentleman. His bearing is that of a man of resolute action, able to carry through important undertakings and impress his indi- viduality upon those with whom he associates. Although possessed of wealth, his life is as unostentatious as that of the humblest citizen of his adopted State.
This man is Augustus Pollack. He was born at the country home of his parents, Joseph and Bertha Pollack, on the out- skirts of Bunde in the beautiful Weser valley of Westphalia, July 5th, 1830. His father, who was chiefly devoted to agricul- tural pursuits and the importation and sale of horses and Hol- stein cattle, entered Augustus, at the age of fourteen, at the Bunde Gymnasium (College) ; and after a three years course of study, he was apprenticed at the commercial house of Edward Gerson at Soest. While there, during the revolutionary and unsettled condition of 1848, he was offered and accepted a posi- tion with Hambleton & Sons, Baltimore, Maryland. Accord- ingly, April 5, 1849, he sailed from Bremenhaven in the London bark "Margaret," arriving at Baltimore, May 18th of that year.
He started business for himself in the sale of notions and fancy goods in Baltimore in 1852. Upon the solicitations of friends he removed his business in 1854 to Wheeling, Virginia.
March 31, 1855, he married Miss Rosalie Weinberg at Balti- more. Six daughters and two sons were born to them.
In 1858-9 when the Northwestern Virginia Railroad was com- pleted, Mr. Pollack purchased property at Grafton, erected a dwelling and store house, and in connection with the business of the Adams Express Company, conducted a general store. In 1860 ne established a wholesale Notion house at Wheeling, 53
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which he continued until 1871, when he founded the Cigar and Tobacco Factory on Water street, where he still remains, and where he has employed over one hundred hands regularly in the production of "Crown Stogie" Cigars.
His Grafton buildings were tendered to the Government at the outbreak of the rebellion and acknowledged by the Secre- tary of War in the following letter :
"WAR DEPARTMENT, "WASHINGTON, June 7, 1861. S "Augustus Pollack, Esq., Wheeling, Virginia :
"DEAR SIR :- I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th ult., addressed to the President and by him referred to this department, tendering the use of your property to the service of the Government ; and in reply beg leave to return to you the thanks of the Department for the patriotic and liberal offer, and would respectfully refer you to the officer in command at or near Grafton.
"Very Respectfully, "SIMON CAMERON, "Secretary of War."
Impressed with the spirit of loyalty to his adopted Govern- ment, he encouraged the organization of the first German com- pany of Wheeling volunteers in the Union army ; enlisted him- self in the Home Guards ; contributed liberally of his means to establish a German newspaper in Wheeling, called The Patriot ; was elected President of the company that published it, and did much to encourage loyalty to the Government in those dark days in the history of the Republic.
He never sought office at the hands of the people and the only public official position he ever held was that of a member of the Board of Education of the Third Ward of Wheeling.
He has for years been a leader in every movement that had for its object the development of the business interests of his adopted city. He has been President of the German Bank and director of the Ætna Iron and Nail Company and is now director of the German Insurance Company ; Trustee of the Wheeling Female College, Trustee of the Linsly Institute, and President of the West Virginia Tobacco Company.
Mr. Pollack is thoroughly public spirited. He officiated as Chairman of the Aid movement in behalf of the widows and
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orphans of German soldiers who were slain during the Franco- Prussian war, and the large contribution forwarded by him November 5, 1870, was acknowledged by Minister George Ban- croft at Berlin, in which, among other things, he said, "all honor is given here to the generous efforts of the people of Wheeling." He was elected president of the German Peace Celebration held at Wheeling in 1871. In 1875-6 he fostered the movement to aid the establishment of the German Seminary at Milwaukee, and was elected President of the Wheeling organization. He presided at the Garfield ratification meeting at the Wheeling Opera House, July 30th, 1880, and was president of, and the leading spirit in, the movement that resulted in the mass meet- ing at the Opera House, November 20, 1880, when the Hon. A. W. Campbell was presented with a massive oil painting com- memorative of the independent position he took in the Chicago Convention of that year. He was elected president of the first Saengerfest celebrated at Wheeling, July 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 1885, and also President of the great trades display of Wheeling held August 25th, 1887. He presided at the German Memorial services, in Wheeling, commemorative of the death of Emperor William, held at the Opera House, March 22nd, 1888, and trans- mitted an engrossed copy of the resolutions adopted, to the Court at Berlin.
He was chosen umpire to adjust the differences between the Central Glass Company and its employees, and as such rendered a decision that attracted general attention and gave satisfaction to all the interests involved by reason of his large and liberal views as to the just understandings that should govern the rela- tion of employers and employees in all industrial establishments. These views were greatly strengthened by the fact that Mr. Pol- lack's administration of his own business affairs has been ex- ceptionally satisfactory to his employed labor.
He aided materially in the construction of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis, and Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling railways to Wheeling.
Mr. Pollack is in no sense a politician. It was therefore with reluctance that he accepted the honor of a unanimous nomina- tion for the position of an Elector-at-Large on the Harrison and Morton Presidential ticket for West Virginia, and contributed materially to the success of the campaign of 1888.
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His speeches in favor of a tariff for protection to American labor were of a high order of merit and were well received by his fellow-citizens.
No man in all West Virginia commands higher respect both from business associates and the working class, and no lingering prejudice overshadows his confidence in the promise and dignity of progressive tolerance.
CHARLES WELLS RUSSELL.
H JON. CHARLES W. RUSSELL was a distinguished man in Northwestern Virginia prior to the rebellion. He was a man of unusual brilliancy, as well as the possessor of solid parts and great learning. He was distinguished both in law and in politics, and possessed almost unlimited influence among the people of his section of the State. He died just as his sun had reached its noon, and left an untarnished name as a heritage to his devoted family.
Mr. Russell was born at Sistersville, Tyler county, Virginia, July 19, 1818. During his earlier years he received a common school education, and as he was growing into manhood he went to Wheeling and became a student at Linsly Institute, and later finished his general education by graduating from Jefferson College at Cannonsburgh, Pennsylvania. He subsequently studied law in the office of the late Z. Jacob, at Wheeling; and after being admitted to the Bar, practiced his profession in Wheeling, with unusual success, until the breaking out of the war in 1861. He then went South, and served two, if not three, terms in the Virginia Legislature. He was also a member of the House of Representatives in both the "Provisional" and the Permanent Congress of the Confederacy. In these Legislative and forensic bodies, as well as at the Bar, his great powers as an orator and debater were demonstrated. In these particulars, but few of the great Virginian's of his time were his equal.
At the end of the war he went to Canada, where he remained until the spring of 1866, when he settled in Baltimore, and re- sumed the practice of the law. He was becoming well estab- lished as a leading attorney at that distinguished Bar, when he died, November 22, 1867, leaving a widow and three sons.
He married Margaret, daughter of the late Henry Moore, of Wheeling.
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ALGER
HON. GEO. C. STURGISS.
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GEORGE COOKMAN STURGISS.
THE world is usually too busy to concern itself with the af- fairs of men unless they have just claims to consideration. The few that are distinguished in politics and government are those that have led in proceedings in which men of all times are interested. In Morgantown, the seat of the University of West Virginia-the Athens of our State-for many years past, the subject of this sketch has been a conspicuous citizen. Tall and of commanding presence, with vigor and grace of motion, with charming manners, and abundance of learning, with courage and power of resolute endurance,-with such equipment one could not other than occupy a leading position in county and State. Bestowing care upon all that he does-methodical in argument, abundant in information, stiffened by apt and preg- nant sentences-studiously observant of the syllogistic begin- ning, middle and end-always aptly expressed with the convinc- ing majesty of earnestness, he has been for years pointed to as a model representative man in his section of the State.
George C. Sturgiss is the son of the Rev. A. G. Sturgiss, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was born at Portland, Mahoning county, Ohio, August 16, 1842. His father married Sabra L. Miner, and their children were Joseph W., George C. and Alfred G. George C. was named for the Rev. George Cookman, a distinguished member of the Gospel who went down on the ill-fated steamer President in the year 1841. His father dying in 1845, the subject of this sketch at the age of eleven years, with a varnish brush in hand, went through parts of Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, an itinerant furniture varnisher. He went to Monongalia county, Virginia, to visit friends in 1859, located in Morgantown, attended the Monon- galia Academy for several years, and after graduation took up the study of the law. He was admitted to the Monongalia Bar, May 11, 1864, and at once entered upon the practice of his chosen profession. Being a diligent student and attentive to business, he was not long building up a lucrative practice. For a score of years he has maintained high standing at the Bar, and like all students he still continues to grow.
On the 22d of September, 1863, Mr. Sturgiss was united in marriage with Miss Sabra J., the second daughter of the late Captain Addison J. Vance of Morgantown. In 1864-65 he was
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Paymaster's Clerk, U. S. Army. In 1866, he served as the first Superintendent of Free Schools of Monongalia county, and was elected to a second term. During his administration he placed the free school system in that county on a firm basis. He served three consecutive terms in the House of Delegates of West Vir- ginia-1870, '71, '72. The writer, who was a Legislative reporter for those years, remembers him as a young man of high personal character, attentive to his duties and very able in the discharge of them. He was beyond question one of the most formidable and forceful members of those sessions. In the campaign of 1872, Mr. Sturgiss was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Monon- galia, and was re-elected to the same office in 1876, serving eight consecutive years. In 1880 the Republican State Convention nominated him by acclamation as the party's candidate for Governor of West Virginia. Although defeated he ran ahead of his ticket in many of the counties, and in that noted cam- paign he made a State reputation as a man of fine abilities and as a logical, convincing, impressive orator.
President Harrison, in April, 1889 appointed him to the re- sponsible and trying position of District Attorney of the United States for the District of West Virginia. Said office having been filled for a quarter of a century by men of a high order of legal attainments, makes it all the more trying for Mr. Sturgiss in the discharge of the duties that have fallen upon him. For six months, however he has been the Government prosecutor in the State, and it is only fair to state that he has already measured up to the high standard of his predecessors and has proved him- self equal in all respects to the requirements of the position.
Mr. Sturgiss is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and is an active worker both in Church and Sunday School. He still resides in Morgantown, and with Ex-Judge R. L. Berk- shire, his law partner, practices in Monongalia and adjoining counties. No citizen of Morgantown has taken a deeper interest or been more active in the work of developing the resources of the county. During the last few years Mr. Sturgiss has spent much time in efforts to perfect arrangements for the building of the proposed Iron Valley and Morgantown railroad.
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OLCEPEL
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JOHN C. BARR, D. D.
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JOHN CALVIN BARR.
T HIS representative of the Southern Presbyterian pulpit in West Virginia, was born November 11, 1823, in Washing- ton county, Pennsylvania. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry on the paternal side. His mother, whose maiden name was Mary Cannon, was from one of the old American families of that State. The father, John Barr, a farmer, was for many years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church, and was well known in the region in which he lived for his piety and sterling integrity.
John Calvin Barr's early education was upon the farm and in the excellent common schools, and afterwards in the halls of Jefferson College, at Canonsburg, where he graduated in the class of 1855. His ministerial course was taken in Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, ending in 1858. February 8, 1857, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ohio, and ordained in April of the next year by the same Presbytery. He came to the present limits of West Virginia as an evangelist in 1858, and spent the first year of his ministry in Pocahontas county. Alluding to it he says, "I had more success and com- fort in my work, and more money than I have ever had since."
May 10, 1859, he married Maria B., daughter of Rev. Joseph Smith, D. D., of Greensburg, Pa., an able author and divine. In the same year he was called to be co-pastor with Rev. John Mc- Elhenney, D. D., of Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, Virginia. The declining strength of the venerable pastor threw so much work upon the young assistant both in the town and country that at the end of ten years, failing health compelled him to re- sign his charge. Having in 1868 been elected principal of the Charleston Institute, the Ladies' Seminary of Kanawha, he ac- cepted the position, and ably conducted it for three years. After a year's rest from ministerial labor his health was entirely re- stored, and he began to supply the pulpit of Kanawha Presby- terian Church in Charleston, one of the oldest in South West Virginia.
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