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 69
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WEST VIRGINIA.
A. A. MILLER.
N EAR Haledon, West Virginia, lives the above named farmer and legislator. He was born at Green Sulphur Springs, Virginia, June 7, 1818; received a fair common school education; was Captain of the Virginia Militia under commis- sion from the Governor about the year 1845 ; was Magistrate in his county during the war; and served as Supervisor for Sum- mers under the first West Virginia Constitution. In the Legis- lature of 1883 he was a member of the House, giving valuable service upon the several committees to which the Speaker assigned him.
WILLIAM CROCKETT RIFFE.
W M. C. RIFFE, whose present postoffice address is Raleigh Court House, W. Va., was born May 15, 1826, in Mont- gomery county, Va. He is a farmer by occupation ; and received the education of winter schools in the locality of his birth; has been a resident of this section of the Virginias since 1844; was elected Sheriff of Raleigh county, serving the term from January, 1877, to January, 1881. He was a member of the House of Delegates, in the sessions of 1883 and of 1887, in the latter serving upon the committees of Taxation and Finance, Private Corporations, and Mines and Mining.
LUDWELL GRAHAM GAINES.
HEOPHILUS GAINES and wife Catherine, nee Stocton, were natives of Ohio. Their son, L. G. Gaines, was born at Mt. Carmel, O., Aug. 10, 1856, and has resided in West Virginia since 1867. He attended the public schools of Cincinnati, Ohio, afterwards graduated from the Law Department of Columbia College in Washington, D. C., and subsequently attended lec- tures at the University of Virginia. Previous to entering upon his collegiate course he taught in the West Virginia public schools three years, and was in the United States railway mail service eight years, but resigned in 1880. After his University course he began the practice of law in Fayette county, and was so successful a practitioner that his fellow county men elected him their Prosecuting Attorney, which position he now fills, evidently to the satisfaction of the people and his professional brethren. He is a young man of great promise.
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JOHN HINCHMAN.
S INCE his election as Ruling Elder of the Presbyterian Church, which denomination he joined in 1849, no position in camp or public life has seemed to give so much real honor to John Hinchman as the one conferred by the members of the religious organization. He was born in Monroe county, Va., October 10, 1827. In 1861 he went into service as Major of the 166th Militia Regiment of Virginia. In 1862 he volunteered into Lowery's Battery, and therein served until the close of the war. In 1872 he was elected from Monroe county, W. Va., to the House of Delegates. A recess was taken from the 21st of December to the 10th of January after, but he drew no per diem for that interval, and offered a resolution, which failed, to restore this fund to the State Treasury. Whatever others did, he never felt justified in using his part of the funds thus appropriated. In 1881 he was one of the Commissioners of the county, and served for six years as President of the Court. In that time all the bar rooms were discontinued. His efforts, his influence and his example have ever been to the uplifting of humanity to a better life. He is still a farmer and grazier of cattle near Lowell.
CHARLES MCCLURE DODRILL.
T HE grandfather of Charles McC. Dodrill was an English soldier under Lord Cornwallis, and was surrendered with his forces at Yorktown. In pioneer days the father of the sub- ject of this sketch came to that portion of Randolph county, Va., now described as Webster county, W. Va. McClure was born on the farm May 9, 1833. Early in life he joined the M. E. Church, and served faithfully eight years as one of the official members. He married Margaret E. Given, November 16, 1854. Served his county as Treasurer in 1868, then Sheriff one term, and in 1872 was President of the County Court and served eight years. In 1881 he was a member of the House of Dele- gates from the district of Webster, Clay and Nicholas counties, serving on the Committees of Elections and Privileges, Finance, and Education. He advocated and succeeded in passing a bill to add to his county a portion of Greenbrier and Nicholas ; also favored more and better roads for his section. He was Presi- dent of the Board of Education eight years.
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WEST VIRGINIA.
GEORGE DEAVER.
G EORGE DEAVER is the son of Alexander, the grandson of John, and the great grandson of John Deaver, of Ire- land, who came over with Braddock's troops in 1755, as a soldier in Col. Dunbar's command. George was born in Hampshire county, Va., November 9, 1825. His father died and left him at the age of six to the care of an uncle. Only had the benefit of schools for nine months. Wedded August 31, 1848, Lucinda Hiett. In 1855 he was elected Captain in the 114th Virginia Militia, and in 1856 Major of the regiment, and was commis- sioned by Governor Wise and ordered into active service by Governor Letcher, at the opening of the Civil war. He was elected to the House of Delegates from Hampshire, serving through the long session of 1872-3. He is a Democrat in polit- ical views, and by occupation a farmer and stock-raiser.
WILLIAM C. CLAYTON.
A MONG. the useful members of the West Virginia Senate of 1875 and of 1877 was William C. Clayton, a native of Hampshire county, Va., where he was born January 24, 1831. He was educated preparatory for college in the classical school of Dr. Wm. H. Foote, of Romney, and attended the University of Virginia during the sessions of 1846, '47 and '48. After- wards, for a number of years, he was principal of Washington Academy, in Amelia county, Va., after which he was principal of the Academy in Charlestown, W. Va. He began the prac- tice of law at Romney, Va., in 1859. In 1873 he removed to Keyser, W. Va., and in the following year was elected to the State Senate from that district. He is still pursuing the legal profession at Keyser and enjoys an important and lucrative practice.
CHARLES WILLIAMS.
HARLES WILLIAMS was born in Hardy county (now Grant), Va., December 21, 1817, and has since resided there. He was reared on his father's large cattle farm, buying and handling the stock for him until his death, 1857, since then conducting affairs himself, owning one of the best farms in the county. He served his people as Magistrate and as a member
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of the County Court; also two terms in the Virginia Senate- 1861 and '63, and one term in the West Virginia Senate-1877. Governor Jacob appointed him a Railroad Commissioner. In the Virginia Senate he was recognized as one of the most staunch, conservative and judicious members, and was placed on the Committee on Confederate Relations, one of the most responsible in the body. This committee had frequent conferences with President Jefferson Davis and the Secretary of War relative to conducting the war, and Virginia's relation to the Confederate Government in its prosecution.
While at Richmond he frequently aided needy Confederates from his section, who, returning by exchange, were landed pen- niless and often feeble from exposure and confinement. He also proved a benefactor to a number of Union men arrested and sent to Richmond as hostages, or for political offences, in several instances securing their release and furnishing means to reach their homes.
After the close of the war, he returned to his native county and diligently applied himself to improving and re-stocking his farm, that had suffered severely from raids and robberies, lying on the border between the contending armies. In this he suc- ceeded and by energy, frugality and close application rebuilt the "waste places" and took rank with the most successful agri- culturalists and graziers in this section of the State.
Mr. Williams was first called from the quiet pursuits of home life in West Virginia to public duty by Governor Jacob, who named him as one of the State Commissioners to assess railroad property. His next call to position of honor and responsibility was by the Democratic Senatorial convention of his district in 1877, when he was nominated as its candidate and elected with- out opposition. As State Senator he served his people faith- fully, efficiently and creditably ; was not noted for his “much speaking," but large experience, a fund of practical information, sound judgment and the knowledge of public affairs and men, acquired by careful study, enabled him to be one of the useful » men in the body.
Though a public spirited man and taking a lively interest in questions affecting local, State and National interests, he is in no sense a politician or office seeker, but one of the old school who believes in " the office seeking the man." When summoned
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WEST VIRGINIA.
to assume public responsibilities, it has been the spontaneous demand, suggested to those familiar with his life, his unsullied record, unwavering and incorruptible honesty, and his qualifica- tions. He is a bachelor, a man or exemplary habits, and, at the age of sixty-six, is as well preserved as many twenty years his junior. His stature is over six feet, his form remarkably erect, and altogether he is a specimen of physical manhood rarely excelled.
CHARLES MCGILL.
F ROM the families of Johns and McGill, of Monongalia, was descended Charles McGill, the member of the House of Delegates from Putnam in 1885. He was born at Hanging Rock, Ohio, May 10, 1845. His educational advantages were limited. The father died in 1864, while on the march, in an Ohio Regiment, with Sherman to the sea, leaving him to care for a family of nine. He was an Ohio river pilot from 1871 to 1874. Graduated from the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in 1876, and was physician to the County Infirmary from 1876 to 1881. Is also interested in farming and milling. He believes in organized labor and the amplest protection to American industries ; and was elected to the Legislature upon the Labor-Fusion ticket, by a majority of 271, and served upon the committee of Mines and Mining.
DAVID C. CASTO.
H E who finds an able competitor is said to be worthy of suc- cess. The nomination by a Democratic convention of Wirt county in 1886, of the above named lawyer to the State Legis- lature fairly entitles him to place among representative men. He was born August 31, 1849, near Ripley, Jackson county, Virginia. At the age of sixteen he taught school and pursued that vocation until the spring of 1870, when he entered the University of Ohio, graduating therefrom in 1874. In 1875 he was principal of the Elizabeth, Wirt county, High School, and in 1877 and 1878 of the Burning Springs Graded Schools. Dur- ing the latter year he was admitted to the bar and has since pursued the profession of law. From 1875 to 1879 he was also Superintendent of Free Schools for the county, and its Prose- cuting Attorney, for a time, to fill the unexpired term of Chas. T. Caldwell.
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ADAM GREGORY.
HE above named minister, soldier and legislator was born on Holly river, Webster county, Va., July 22, 1831. Two years thereafter his father moved to Randolph county, on Elk river, where Adam was reared in a log cabin, and received eight months' education. In 1851 he was married and settled on a farm in Webster county. In August, 1862, he volunteered into the United States service, in Upshur Battery, Company E, and next October contracted the measles in camp at Clarksburg, and was honorably discharged in April, 1863; then he was com- missioned as recruiting officer to fill up old regiments. He was elected from Webster and Pocahontas as member of the House of Delegates of 1865, then re-elected to the session of 1868. Served as County Recorder in 1865, in Clerk's office in 1867, practiced law before Magisterial and County Courts, and was licensed both to preach and practice law in 1868. In 1873, Sep- tember 16, he moved with his family to St. Paul, Howard county, Nebraska, where he still resides as an active minister in his church.
CAMERON LEWIS THOMPSON.
C APT. CAMERON L. THOMPSON was born April 22, 1842, at the Mouth of Coal, more recently christened St. Alban's, Kanawha county. His education, as that of most na- tives of the locality, was by private tutors at home, for funda- mental training; then in the Academy at Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, to round off into broader views. In April, 1861, when Virginia took position with the South, he entered the Confed- erate army, and served to the close of the contest. He enlisted as a private in the 22d Virginia Infantry, and was promoted to the rank of Captain for gallantry at Baker's Creek, Mississippi. He was captured at Vicksburg, and with General Lee, was sur- rendered at Appomattox. He is a journalist of influence and capacity, having published for years the Mountain Herald, at Hinton, Summers county. A few years ago he disposed of the Herald and now edits and manages The Advertiser, a leading Democratic newspaper published at Huntington, the seat of justice of Cabell county, and a thrifty and growing city on the banks of the Ohio.
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WEST VIRGINIA.
JAMES INSKEEP BARRICK.
HE Clerk of the Mineral Circuit Court, and Recorder and Clerk of its County Court from 1866 to 1880, was the sub- ject of this sketch, a native of that part of Hampshire which is now Mineral county, was born February 1, 1834. He received only the education of the common schools of that day, worked on the farm and in the shop, until 1856, then in a store until, in 1861, he was elected to the Wheeling Convention, which reor- ganized Virginia as a loyal State. In 1863 he was elected First Lieutenant in a Union company, but was shortly after elected to the West Virginia Legislature and served in 1863-64. He had a store at New Creek, which in 1864 was looted and burned by Gen. Rosser's Confederates, because of Mr. Barrick's Union sentiments and services. He was appointed a clerk in the Pen- sion Bureau at Washington, D. C., in 1881, but was subsequently transferred to a clerkship in the War Department, which he still held at the beginning of President Harrison's administration, serving as faithfully there as he did his State in council, or his people in his commercial relationship.
OWEN DORSEY DOWNEY.
WEN DORSEY DOWNEY was born at Brownsville, Fayette county, Pa., January 17, 1814; removed with his parents in 1824 to Allegany county, Md .; resided there twenty- eight years, engaged in mercantile business. In 1847 he served in the Maryland Legislature ; in 1852 he was appointed Lumber Inspector for the City of Baltimore ; the same year he resigned and moved to Virginia and engaged in mercantile business in Piedmont ; afterwards engaged in the hotel business in the same place. In 1861 he was a member of the May Convention to dis- cuss plans to reorganize the State. He was also a member of the June Convention, which effected the reorganization. He was a member of the West Virginia Legislature until 1865, in which year he was appointed Assessor of Internal Revenue for one of the districts of West Virginia. In 1870 he ran, on the Democratic ticket, against Hon. James C. McGrew, Republican, and was defeated. In 1887 he removed to Laramie City, Wyoming Territory, where he has been engaged in mining and other pur- suits. He was elected as a Democrat a member of the Wyoming Legislature, convening at Cheyenne, January 8, 1884.
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JOSEPH GARRISON KITCHEN.
T HE subject of this sketch was born December 5, 1842, on a farm near Shanghai, Berkeley county, Va. His father, Bethnel M. Kitchen, represented in Congress, the Second dis- trict of West Virginia, from 1867 to 1869. Joseph G. received his only education in the subscription schools of the locality. He cast his first vote for Lincoln as President. In the fall of 1861 he enlisted in the first Maryland Cavalry, and was in ser- vice for two and a half years, when he was discharged for phys- ical disability. He was detailed for a while as Chief of Scouts in Berkeley county. Served also as enrolling officer for Jeffer- son county. Is a farmer and lumber dealer by occupation, and for twenty years has resided at Jones's Spring. Was elected from Berkeley county to the present House of Delegates, 1889, and serves upon the committees of Private Corporations and Joint Stock Companies, Forfeited and Unappropriated Lands, and Immigration and Agriculture.
JOHN B. LOUGH.
J OHN B. LOUGH was born in Monongalia county, Va., October 7, 1812. He received the education usually afforded the sons of farmers. In 1853-4 he appeared first in public affairs as Delegate, along with Henry S. Coombs, to the General Assem- bly of Virginia. Upon his return he was made a Justice of the Peace and served the people of his Magisterial district in that capacity sixteen years, part of the time as President of the County Court. Although an agriculturalist and stock-grazier by preference and occupation, yet he had the partiality of a home constituency, who again called him to represent them in the Legislatures of West Virginia in 1863-4, in 1870-1, and again in 1875. In each of these sessions he was an active and useful member of the committees to which he was assigned.
ANDREW L. VANDAL.
W ITHIN the present limits of Greenbrier county, the Blue Grass section of our Mountain State, was born July 27, 1827, the subject of this sketch. His father, James, was one of the pioneers into Roane county, and in 1832 settled on a farm
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upon Spring Creek, where most of the living members of the family still reside. Abroad our State is named for its minerals and timber resources, and is seldom mentioned as agricultural in its possibilities or its attractiveness. Yet some of the finest farming land, in this or any other State of the Union, is found and may be purchased at reasonable figures, in Roane county, yet undisturbed by the whistle of a railroad locomotive. Among agricultural property the home farm of Vandal is noted for its excellent condition and magnitude. He takes a pride in it be- yond any office his people have bestowed upon him. When but a young man, with little general knowledge and experience, he served as constable, and made an excellent officer to execute magisterial decrees. In 1870 he was elected Sheriff of the county, and served two years, when the adoption of the new Constitution shortened the term; but he was re-elected in 1872, and before the expiration of the second term'resigned and turned his attention to farming. In the House of Delegates of the ses- sion of 1879 he was sent as a Delegate and served his constituency with fidelity and usefulness. In 1880 he was again elected Sheriff by a majority of nearly 1,800 votes, showing his popu- larity for the most responsible office within the county.
JOHN HANSON GOOD.
J OHN H. GOOD came on both sides of his family from early settlers in Ohio county, West Virginia. His paternal grand- father, John Good, came to Virginia from Washington county, Maryland, about the beginning of the present century. Benoni S. Good, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Ohio county, Virginia, in 1816, and lived his entire life upon the farm on which he was born. He was a man of great industry and was noted for his hospitality and integrity. J. H. Good's mother was a McMechen, daughter of the pioneer, Benjamin McMech- en, and one of a numerous family of children. His descendants. are plentiful in most every portion of the Pan-Handle, and are reliable and enterprising citizens.
John Hanson Good was born in Ohio county, Virginia, in 1844. After attending the common schools for a few years, he matric- ulated at the West Virginia University at Morgantown, where he remained about a year, and then entered Bethany College,
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HON. JOHN HANSON GOOD.
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Brooke county, from which he graduated in 1868. He after- wards attended law school at Louisville, Kentucky, and after finishing his studies, opened a law office in Wheeling. After practicing a short time he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Ohio county. In this position he acquitted himself with the greatest credit, successfully defending and maintaining the peace and dignity of the State against all comers. He was not long in taking a leading rank as a jury lawyer. Indeed, he was for years regarded by far the most eloquent advocate at the Ohio county Bar. His career as an attorney was a great success.
In early manhood Mr. Good became interested in politics. His voice was heard in every campaign. He was both attractive and powerful on the hustings. West Virginia contained but few, if any, better platform speakers than J. H. Good. He was always an ardent Democrat, and was for years the idol of his party in Ohio county. He was elected a delegate to the West Virginia Legislature, and in 1882 was the nominee of his party for a seat in the Congress of the United States. He made a brilliant cam- paign, but was defeated by General Nathan Goff. Exposures during that campaign led to ailments that would not yield to medical treatment, and the young and gifted lawyer was swept down within a few months after the close of the canvass. He had a large following of friends who were drawn close about him by his charming manners and genial nature. No West Vir- ginian had the promise of a more successful future ; but it was decreed that he should surrender his trust even before his sun had reached its noon. His widowed wife and children still reside in Wheeling.
Mr. Good was of medium stature, compactly built, of fair complexion, light hair, charming in conversation, and would be regarded everywhere as handsome. His brilliant attainments, coupled with his neat appearance, rendered him in any presence a commanding man.
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SAMUEL L. JEPSON, A.M., M.D.
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WEST VIRGINIA.
SAMUEL L. JEPSON.
S indicative of the chief characteristic of the man and his ambition, we quote a remark of Dr. Jepson, in his address as President of the Medical Society of the State of West Vir- ginia, at its twentieth annual session, at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, July, 1887: " We men of West Virginia must respond to the demand for the higher culture which is heard all over the land to-day." That one idea seems engrafted into Dr. Jepson's aim in life-" educate." No wonder, then, that we find him in the front of the prominent men of West Virginia, demand- ing, instigating and engineering the very highest development of the intellectual possibilities of our people-not only in his profes- sional curriculum, but in all the paths of letters. Busy in his professional duties, the Doctor has found time to impress his idea upon our grown and upgrowing citizens. It is no wonder, then, that we find him an active officer in several of our educa- tional institutions, and his pen-lessons in so many of the medical journals of this and the European countries.
His article, "Duality of the Chancrous Virus," in the New York Medical Journal of September, 1871, was copied in part in a medical work published in London; and the leading ar- ticle of thirty-five pages in the American Journal of Obstetrics of August, 1872, on " Sudden Death in Puerperal Cases," also received favorable notice. His " Report on Cholera in Wheel- ing in 1873," as found in volume 1, Transactions of American Health Association-which he gave as the Health Officer of Wheeling-was considered worthy of publication in the United States Government Supervising Surgeon General's Report on the cholera epidemic of 1873. In The Journal of Obstetrics, July, 1881, appears his article, " Pyo-pneumo thorax following Acute Pleuro-pneumonia in a Child," and in the same journal of Octo- ber, 1883, " Long Retention of Placenta after Abortion."
In addition to other journal articles-one of which was trans- lated and published in the Journal de Medecine, of Paris-Dr. Jepson has contributed many papers to the Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of West Virginia, among which may be named " The Relation of Ovulation to Menstruation, " Puer- peral Fever, with Treatment by Intra-uterine Irrigation," and
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" Clinical Note on Typhoid Fever," all of which are valuable to the profession.
Neither time nor space will allow the mention of more of the evidences of Dr. Jepson's industrious study as found in so many medical journals of the last few years. To have utilized time amidst his extensive practice shows that he is "practicing what he preaches "-learn and teach. A glance at his portrait accom- panying this sketch, will reveal the characteristics more clearly than cold type can portray them. And it is a singular feature of the faces of the medical men of West Virginia, as given in this book, that there is not a countenance among the whole that lacks character of the strongest type.
Samuel L. Jepson, son of John and Hannah Hunt Jepson, of England, was born near St. Clairsville, Ohio, April 7, 1842. After passing through the higher branches of the common schools, he graduated from Washington College in 1862, and then as clerk in his father's store served for three years, taking the place of a brother who enlisted in the Union army. He be- gan the study of medicine in 1865, and graduated from the Med- ical College of Ohio at Cincinnati in 1868. There, having passed a competitive examination open to all recent graduates, he was appointed Resident Physician and Surgeon of the Cincinnati Hospital, and was a member of the first corps of Resident Phys- icians of that city's new Hospital. Declining the proffered con- tinuance of service in that capacity, he removed to Wheeling in April, 1869, and has since practiced there.
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