Jonathan Taylor Mann

Jonathan Taylor Mann

     A few years ago I became intrigued by the story of Jonathan Taylor Mann and had the good fortune to be able to contact his great great grandson, Jim Mann, who shared photographs and transcriptions of Mann family letters. Today's post is due largely to his research and his generosity and I am truly grateful to him. [Please note that all images can be clicked on for larger viewing]
     Born June 21, 1821 in Danbury, New Hampshire, Jonathan T. Mann's father was a  Scottish immigrant who arrived on our shores in 1811. By the mid 1840s Jonathan had begun traveling to Virginia, buying horses for resale in New Hampshire. It was likely during one of these trips that he met Sarah Joseph Spencer of Fluvanna County. He married her in 1849 and they had two sons together--James Joseph (born 1850) and Edgar Jonathan (born 1856).

Sarah and James Joseph Mann

     Jonathan's fourteen year old brother Dana joined him in 1851 and was a member of the household for the next nineteen years. Jonathan Mann worked as a farmer and as a repairer of watches and clocks, skills also acquired by Dana. The Manns were friends and neighbors of my Row ancestors in Orange County. In the map detail shown below, the Row(e) property is seen at the upper center of the image, on both sides of the Old Turnpike (modern Rt. 20) at Mine Run. The Mann property is located just southwest of there, near Grasty's gold mine.

Map detail of Orange County, 1863

     During the turbulent years leading up to the Civil War, J.T. Mann became increasingly sympathetic to the political views of his adopted state. He became a slave owner, shown to be the owner of a ten year old girl in 1860. The raid of John Brown on Harper's Ferry in 1859 exercised a powerful effect on Jonathan, as it did on most southerners. He viewed the North-South conflict through the prism of his father's experiences in the old world. The North and the federal government came to represent to Jonathan imperial England subjugating the rights of Scotsmen (i.e., southerners). His brother Dana came to share these opinions and both took up arms against the United States, which had been the source of refuge for their father.

Captain John Sanders Row

     On April 1, 1862 J.T. Mann enlisted in Company I of the Sixth Virginia Cavalry. He was signed up by his friend Captain John Row, whose brother Dr. Elhanon Row and cousin (and my great grandfather) George Washington Estes Row also fought with the Sixth. At age forty one, Mann was old enough to be the father of many of his fellow troopers. His brother Dana joined the Second Virginia Artillery, which later became the Twenty Second Virginia Infantry Battalion.
     About the time he enlisted Jonathan moved his wife and sons to her mother's home in Fluvanna for their safety. John Row also moved his family there for a time in order to escape the ever present threat of violence in Orange. Two of Captain Row's young sons died in Fluvanna in August 1862.
     Mann and the Sixth Cavalry fought with Stonewall Jackson during the Valley Campaign. A letter he sent to Sarah on May 27, 1862 describes in cinematic detail the battle of Front Royal and its aftermath. The excerpt quoted here is one of the most dramatic depictions of a cavalry battle I have ever encountered in a private letter:

     ...After they were routed at Front Royal by the infantry and the artillery they ran up the turnpike about four or five miles and made a stand on a hill. Planted their cannon on the road, their infantry behind some houses and stone fences. Our cavalry were ordered to make a charge upon them. Our regiment which only had about 300 men in it then. The balance of them on picket, some dodging, some sick with crippled horses and about that time General Jackson rode up through the lines with his hat off at full speed or nearly so. Everyone gave him a cheer and our regiment rushed at full speed four miles to where the enemy had made a stand as before described and made a desperate charge. Ours was the fourth company from the front. We were ordered to their right in a field. They fired a volley at us as we charged up and then broke. We charged upon them at full speed about the time they broke, generally their balls went over our heads. Not a man in our company was hurt. The first in the charge were cut all to pieces. They had nine men killed and ten or twelve wounded. The captain of another company was killed. His name was Baxter [Captain George A. Baxter, Company K]. A braver man never lived. We took all the prisoners we took there and sent them off. Then charged up the turnpike towards Winchester eight miles as fast as we could get our horses along. We cut off all their wagons and took nearly all of them. A part or most of their cavalry got off. We took their artillery and arms...The pike was filled with wagons, horses, arms and munitions of war. For several miles knapsacks and everything that you could imagine belongs to war. Blankets and overcoats were strewed promiscuously in every direction. I galloped over dead bodies so covered in dirt that you could hardly tell that they were human. Dead horses scattered all along the road...The next morning we started again to attack their wagons that were said to be on their way from Strasburg to Winchester. We were formed in a line and our company were placed in advance and six of us, myself among the number, were detached as advance guard...We came in sight of new town saw down the pike towards Winchester a big smoke or dust from wagons. We halted until the regiment came up. Then we were ordered to charge upon them which we did as fast as the horses could go. Myself and three others put out. We got up to their infantry several hundred yards ahead of the others. The whole regiment charged with a tremendous yell. The enemy took fright and threw off their knapsacks and run for life. I rode up to a stone fence. There were seven blue coats hid behind the fence. I presented my pistol to them and ordered them over the fence. To my great relief they soon hopped over. I marched them back to headquarters and remained with them until the balance came up...
 
  On August 8 Jonathan T. Mann was himself captured during the Cedar Mountain campaign. The records show that as of August 15 he was on a list of prisoners "confined by Major William E. Doster." (Doster fought with the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry early in the war. Amazingly, he earned his law degree from Harvard University in 1863 and then became provost marshal of Washington, D.C. In 1865 Doster was appointed attorney for James Powell, one of the conspirators in the plot to murder Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward.) Mann was exchanged in September and rejoined his regiment.
     J.T. Mann was promoted to Lieutenant in December 1862, most likely to replace James Roach, who had resigned in order to begin his term as sheriff of Orange County. That same month Jonathan wrote a letter to Sarah, in which he mentioned John Row's wife and father and sister: I saw Mrs. Rowe. They are well. Mrs [Reynolds], Col. Rowe's daughter, is very sick. They think she cannot live but a short time. After Elizabeth Keeling Row Reynolds died, her father Elhanon raised her children.
     As a lieutenant, Jonathan T. Mann was now earning ninety dollars a month. Military life seemed to agree with him. He remained healthy and enjoyed the adventure of campaigning. In fact he gained weight and reported to his wife that he weighed 167 pounds. He wrote that his patrols were rounding up fifty Union deserters a day between Mount Jackson and Warrenton. These prisoners told him that their army was demoralized and that "they were tired of fighting for the negroes. May God send peace. No one would rejoice more than I would."
     In his last letter to Sarah, dated May 23, 1863, Jonathan described a raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania to within eight miles of Ohio, "a journey of six or seven hundred miles." Seven hundred prisoners were taken, bridges were destroyed and other mischief accomplished. Most spectacular, however was the destruction of twenty five oil wells and barges loaded with oil on the Kanawha River.
     Two weeks later Lieutenant Mann and the Sixth Cavalry were in Culpeper where they participated in the two grand cavalry reviews staged by General Jeb Stuart. They were resting from that endeavor on the morning of June 9 when troops commanded by General Alfred Pleasonton came splashing across the Rappahannock River, catching the Confederate cavalry completely by surprise. So much so, in fact, that troopers of the Sixth Cavalry had little or no time to prepare for battle, many jumping barefoot on their unsaddled mounts and then racing to the sound of gunfire. Clad only in his longjohns, Mann attacked Union forces threatening rebel artillery positions near Beverly's Ford. He was one of that morning's first casualties, shot in the face.
     Not long after the battle of Brandy Station Sarah Mann came to the battlefield and found her husband's body. It was not possible to transport him to either Fluvanna or Orange, so she buried him on the farm of a friend at the foot of Clark's Mountain. In later years attempts were made by the Manns to locate his grave, but without success. J.T. Mann's name appears, together with those other Confederates who lost their lives during the war, on the memorial on the lawn of the Orange County Court House.

Orange County Confederate memorial

     In the years following Mann's death John Row did what he could to help Sarah Mann and her boys. A number of letters written by John Row to Sarah were found in the archives of the Central Rappahannock Heritage Center and were quoted from in my piece on John Row. They give a good account of the stresses of life in Orange County during the war and its aftermath and are worth a click to here.
     Sarah Mann and her sons returned to their home in Orange in late 1865. She described what she found in a letter to her mother dated December 27:

     ...it is torn to pieces but not as much as some of my neighbors' homes. What a destruction the soldiers of both armies made in this country. Things will never be replaced as before in my time or my children's. I fear we are bound to be poor people. No help for it the whole country is ruined...Several pieces of shell went through the dwelling house but not injuring it a great deal. Broke one of my bedsteads all to pieces, but my furniture was stolen by someone I do not know who.

     Dana Mann came back to Orange and helped his sister in law get back on her feet. He finally returned to New Hampshire in 1870. Sarah Spencer Mann died on December 3, 1897 and is buried in the Rhoadesville Cemetery in Orange.

Sarah Spencer Mann

The Finleys

John Finley (1797-1866)

     The original inspiration for today's post can be found in the pages of the photo album that belonged to my great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Houston Row. Included among those portraits are four which, when I came across them four years ago,  I had no idea as to their identity or significance. Over time I was able to piece together some interesting facts, but it was not until I was recently contacted by the archivist at the Morrisson-Reeves library in Richmond, Indiana that I began to delve into the stories of these relatives of mine in earnest. It has been well worth the effort. The images of Sarah Finley Wrigley, her son Luke as a young man and her brother John Finley II are from that album. All images can be clicked on for larger viewing.
   Michael Finley (1683-1747) of County Armagh, Ireland was among the thousands of Scots-Irish immigrants who crossed the Atlantic to America in the first half of the eighteenth century. The Finleys settled in Pennsylvania in 1734, and his children lost no time in successfully establishing themselves in the new world. One of Michael's sons, John (1713-1782) is reputed to have accompanied Daniel Boone in blazing the trail into Kentucky. Another son, Samuel Finley, was a president of the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton; his great grandson was Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the telegraph.
     A third son of Michael the immigrant was William, father of Andrew Finley, who made his way south with many other Scots-Irish and came to Rockbridge County, Virginia. Andrew Finley and his wife Ann McClure had five children together. A daughter, Elizabeth, married my third great grandfather, William Houston (a cousin of General Sam Houston). Andrew's son John Finley was born in Rockbridge on January 11, 1797.
     Andrew Finley was a prosperous farmer and a merchant in the village of Brownsburg in Rockbridge. Andrew's prosperity came to an abrupt end during the War of 1812 when a cargo of his flour was captured by the British. It was a financial blow from which he did not recover. His sixteen year old son John was now forced to fend for himself, something that he proceeded to do with great skill.
     Young John Finley first went to work in the tannery of a relative in Greenbrier (West) Virginia. His abilities and ambitions far exceeded what this small opportunity afforded him. In 1816 he moved west, living for a time in Cincinnati, Ohio before settling in Richmond, Indiana in 1820.
     Richmond was but a small village when twenty three year old John Finley arrived, but it grew steadily over the years and John grew with it. He began as a justice of the peace in 1822. He was then elected to the state legislature 1828-1831. This was followed by three years as the enrolling clerk in the state senate. John Finley was elected clerk of court for Wayne County in 1837 and served until 1845. He bought a controlling interest in the town's leading newspaper, The Richmond Palladium, and was its editor and publisher 1833-1837. In 1852 John was elected mayor of Richmond and served until his death in December 1866.
     Despite these manifold accomplishments, John Finley is best known as a poet, and for one poem in particular. On January 1, 1833 he published in the Indiana Journal a poem entitled "The Hoosier's Nest." It is widely acknowledged as the first appearance in print of the word "Hoosier." Up to that point this term used to describe Indianans had sort of negative flavor, casting them as uncouth and rough. Finley's poem gave Hoosiers a more positive connotation, presenting Indianans more as self-reliant, salt of the earth types.
     John Finley married an Ohio girl named Rachel Knott, who died about the time their son William was born in 1826. John married a second time three years later, this time to Julia Hanson. Together they had four children, two of whom we will meet today.

Sarah Finley Wrigley

     John and Julia's first child, Sarah, was born March 6, 1830. Sarah began her education at age four, being taught by a private tutor. She later attended a private school at the future site of the Richmond city hall.
     Sarah Finley married Benjamin Wrigley in September 1854. It has been suggested that this was a shotgun wedding, since their first son, Roy, was born in March 1855. A second son, Luke, arrived in 1856. Sometime after Luke was born Benjamin Wrigley appears to have drifted away. The 1860 census shows that Sarah and her sons were living with her parents and her sister Julia and her brother John, with no husband in sight. Benjamin Wrigley was killed by a fall from his horse in Texas in December 1861.

John Finley II

     The same 1860 census shows that Sarah's twenty one year old brother John was employed as an auctioneer in Richmond. The following year John Finley the younger took up arms in the defense of his country by joining the 16th Indiana Infantry on April 20, 1861. Three weeks later he was promoted to second lieutenant. The 16th was organized for one year's service only, and Lieutenant Finley mustered out on May 23, 1862.
  

Major Finley in uniform (Steve Martin, Palladium-Item)

      In 1863 John Finley II organized Company A of the 69th Indiana Infantry. Soon thereafter John--now Major John Finley-- and his regiment joined General Grant's ongoing siege of Vicksburg. On May 22 Major Finley led his men in an assault upon the Confederate works there. He was gravely wounded that day. Word of his condition arrived in Richmond and his sister Sarah took immediate steps to come to his aid. Likely pulling strings with his friend the governor, the senior John Finley made arrangements for Sarah to embark with a hospital ship that was scheduled to sail to Mississippi. Once there Sarah found her brother and brought him back to Richmond to care for him. Her heroic efforts in her brother's behalf came to naught, however, and Major Finley died on August 26, 1863. His father never recovered from the loss of his son.
     By 1864 Sarah Finley Wrigley was widowed, grieving for her brother and raising her two sons. That year an opportunity came her way, and in the Finley tradition she made the most of it. The town of Richmond received from Robert Morrisson a gift of books and a library named in his honor was established. Sarah served as the town's librarian until her failing eyesight forced her to retire in 1903.

Luke Hanson Wrigley

Judge Luke Wrigley

     Sarah's older son Roy moved west to Colorado and California, but Luke Wrigley remained in Indiana. From the age of 13 Luke, like his grandfather John, had to rely on his own resources to succeed in life. He supported himself while a student by working as a janitor in a school building. For a number of years he worked at his mother's library. He earned his law degree and was admitted to the bar of the Wayne County circuit in 1879.
     Luke Wrigley set up his law practice in Albion, Indiana. In the early 1900s Albion's first public library was located at the law offices of Luke Wrigley. Luke was elected as circuit court judge in 1908 and served in that capacity until 1920.

Sarah Finley Wrigley

     During these years Sarah continued to live in Richmond with her sister, Julia, who died in 1918. It was probably then that she moved to Albion to live with Luke and his family. When America went to war Sarah, now blind, scraped lint to be made into bandages for the troops. She died at the home of Judge Wrigley in February 1920. She is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Albion, Indiana.

Postscript, May 25, 2016:

In just the past few days, a newspaper article has been published which recounts the perilous evacuation of the wounded Major Finley from the Vicksburg battlefield and his transportation back to Indiana, told in the words of his sister, Sarah. They continued to be shot at by Confederate troops as their steamer made its way north:

http://www.pal-item.com/story/news/local/2016/05/22/our-past-librarian-retrieves-wounded-brother/84582076/

Here is a screen shot from the article in the Palladium-Item:

The Alsops and the Graubes

Alpheus Atwood Alsop

     One of the great privileges I have enjoyed during my years of researching and writing about old Spotsylvania has been the unfettered access I have had to the photo archive of my cousins and fellow researchers, Kathleen and Donald Colvin. Today I am writing about two families about whom I know comparatively little and probably would not have chosen them as subjects for Spotsylvania Memory had I not come across their charming family photographs in the Colvin Collection. So please indulge me, won't you, as I share a few of them with you today. [All images in my blogs can be clicked on for larger viewing]
     Alpheus Atwood Alsop (1854-1942), known as "Allie" to friends and family, was a son of Joseph Matthew Alsop and Susan Jane Beazley. The Alsop family farm was located at the intersection of Brock and Gordon Roads, opposite Goshen Church. Joseph Matthew Alsop was, among other things, a farmer, a slave owner and a long time constable and sheriff of Spotsylvania County. His signature appears on this 1867 tax receipt to my great grandfather:

Sheriff Alsop tax receipt to George W.E. Row, 1867

     Allie Alsop assumed ownership of the family farm some time after the death of his parents. In the spring of 1897 he married Annie Bowker Pritchett, who lived just across Brock Road (Annie's younger brother Larkin Pritchett married my grandmother's sister, Cora Kent). Eleven months later Annie Alsop died suddenly at two in the morning on March 25, 1898.

Anna Graube

     Seven years would pass before Allie Alsop decided to give matrimony another try. In 1905 he married Anna Ruth Graube, the twenty eight year old daughter of Charles and Wilhelmina Graube, whose farm lay nearby. She was twenty three years younger than Allie.
     Anna Graube's parents were German immigrants who arrived in America from Saxony in 1871. Charles Graube made the trans-Atlantic voyage first, alone, a few months ahead of his wife and two daughters. Wilhelmina embarked with infants Maria and Milda, but only two would arrive in the new world. Maria died at sea.

Charles Graube

Charles Graube

Wilhelmina Graube

     Charles and Wilhelmina Graube lived in Pennsylvania for a time, where Anna was born in 1877. Two other daughters, Rosa Katherine and Elsa, were also born in Pennsylvania. The Graubes then made their way to Virginia, where they bought the farm near the Alsops. Their remaining children were born in Virginia--Fanny Meyer, John Hartman and Charles Henry.

Home of Charles and Wilhelmina Graube

Graube home on Gordon Road

     The Graube farm in Spotsylvania extended from Gordon Road east to the Bloody Angle battlefield. The first home shown above was that of Charles and Wilhelmina near the battlefield (she is sitting second from left, he is at far right). The second house was, I believe, that of their son Charles Henry Graube. Their other son John Hartman Graube moved to Ohio in 1903.
     The Graube children were, from all appearances, bright children. Their names appear often in The Daily Star in the 1880s for being on the honor roll. Rosa and Milda became seamstresses, and worked as dressmakers in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Milda, who never married, moved to Washington, DC after 1905, and continued to ply her trade there. She underwent  an unsuccessful operation during the summer of 1915 and died in March 1916. Rosa had returned to Spotsylvania and married Joseph Clarence Mitchell in 1912. Her brother John committed suicide in Ohio in 1921, a year before the death of his father. His brother Charles felt certain that John was murdered, and said as much to a reporter for The Daily Star.  John Graube's Ohio death certificate listed his cause of death "gun shot wound head, suicidal intent."

Washington Times, 3 July 1921

The Daily Star, 29 June 1921

     The remaining Graubes lived long lives. They are shown below in this photograph taken with their mother some time before 1927. Left to right they are: Fanny, Elsa, Charles, Wilhelmina, Anna and Rosa.

The Graubes

     Allie and Anna Alsop's daughter, Anna Allene, was born in 1907. She lived for 104 years. Her brother, Charles Atwood, followed in 1910. Charles would marry Anna Chandler and Allene married Howard Curtis. Below, in no particular order, are a few of the Alsop family photographs.

Allie and Anna Alsop

Allie and Anna Alsop

Allie, Charles, Allene and Anna Alsop

Charles Atwood, Allie, Anna and Allene Alsop

Anna, Allene and Allie Alsop

L-R: Dorothy Smith, Allene, Charles and Allie Alsop

     Allie passed away in 1942, Anna departed this life in 1955. They are both buried on the Alsop farm.

Graves of Allie and Anna Alsop

Shady Grove

Shady Grove Church, 1934

     Today I am presenting a couple of pictures from Shady Grove Methodist Church, established in 1841. Many members of my family, both contemporary and ancient, were baptized here, attended church here, played the piano here, listened to sermons by generations of preachers here and are laid to rest in the cemetery behind the church.
     Another photo I am very fond of is the one below, taken in 1908. In it we see some of the girls from the neighborhood during a fund raising effort for the Rosebud Missionary Society. Their names and married names, added parenthetically, are from left to right: Lillian Kellar (Pulliam), Agnes Hicks (Howard), Ruth Kent (Payne), Eva Bartleson (Pierson), Grace Bartleson (Kent), Lula Bartleson (Sothoron) and Alice Hicks (Jones). Faces at a church gathering from a time long gone. [These images can be clicked on for larger viewing.]

Rosebud Missionary Society

The Drama of Being Peter Powell

Samuel Peter Powell, 1901

     Reckless charges and recriminations. Libelous accusations. Fisticuffs on the court house lawn. Allegations of murder and arson. These elements of S.P. Powell's public life, splashed across the pages of The Daily Star and The Free Lance for more than two decades, make for some spicy reading and provide an entertaining glimpse into the bare-knuckled politics of old Spotsylvania. [Please note that all images in my blog can be clicked on for larger viewing.]
     Born on January 26, 1880, Samuel Peter Powell was the oldest of nine children born to James L. Powell, Jr. and the former Carrie Elizabeth Jones. His grandfather was James L. Powell, Sr. (1801-1870), minister of Mt. Hermon Baptist Church. Reverend Powell was a well respected member of the clergy and a successful farmer, owning twenty two slaves in 1860. (Rare was the minister in the antebellum south who perceived any contradiction between slavery and his faith).
     Peter Powell's father was an 1857 graduate of the Lexington Law School. By 1860 James L. Powell, Jr. was plying his trade as an attorney in Roane County, (West) Virginia. He enlisted as captain of Company G, Sixtieth Virginia Infantry in July 1861. He resigned his commission in March 1862 to enlist as a private in Company E, Ninth Virginia Cavalry in Spotsylvania. After the war Powell continued to practice law, served as commonwealth's attorney in Spotsylvania and was elected to the House of Delegates for the 1878 session. After the Reverend and Mrs. Powell died, the family kept the farm and continued to live there well into the twentieth century.  This section of the county is known as Belmont.

     S.P. Powell attended the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (his photograph above is from their 1901 yearbook) and earned his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1902. He then returned to Spotsylvania, where he established his law practice. In 1905 Lizzie Row, my great grandmother, asked if he would represent the interests of her children in the estate of Richard Pulliam. Written on his letterhead, Powell's replies to her inquiries were written in September 1905 and are shown here.

S.P. Powell to Lizzie Row, 8 September 1905

S.P. Powell to Lizzie Row, 25 September 1905

S.P. Powell to Lizzie Row, 25 September 1905

     As it is so common with many up and coming lawyers, Peter Powell soon began to play a role in local politics. By 1906 he was Belmont's representative on the county's Republican committee. That same year young Powell unsuccessfully challenged R.C. Blaydes for the chairmanship.
     In 1910 Powell again ran against Blaydes for the committee chairmanship, his name having been placed in nomination by former sheriff James P. Turnley. Blaydes was supported by former clerk of court JPH Crismond, who helped conduct the meeting that re-elected him. This time Peter Powell did not accept defeat gracefully and in an open letter published in The Daily Star in October 1910 he gave full vent to his frustration at what he perceived to be the corrupt and underhanded tactics of the Blaydes-Crismond faction that denied him the chairmanship. In subsequent letters Turnley and Blaydes added their two cents. Blaydes elevated the temperature of this already heated exchange by calling Powell "a whiskey drinker and dope fiend." Tensions were ratcheted up even further in vituperative exchanges between Crismond and Powell. For those of you who have not read about JPH Crismond, it is worth a click to go here, where you can get a flavor of the take-no-prisoners fight between these two adversaries.
    

JPH Crismond at Spotsylvania Court House, about 1890

     This verbal dust-up in the press, however, was small potatoes compared to the display of pugilism described in The Daily Star on April 2, 1912. The ever combative Mr. Powell and W.D. Carter were opposing attorneys arguing a case in chancery in Spotsylvania. Powell attempted to file a paper, which was disallowed by the court. Things rapidly went down hill from there. I cannot improve upon the Star's colorful account of what happened next, so I am including it in its entirety here. For old fashioned outrageousness and hilarity, this is hard to beat.

The Daily Star 2 April 1912

The Daily Star 2 April 1912

The Daily Star 2 April 1912

     S.P. Powell was elected to the House of Delegates in 1914. Not surprisingly, conflict and controversy--his constant companions, it seemed--followed him to the state house. In 1915 he presented a long list of charges of corruption against circuit judge Richard Henry Lee Chichester. These charges were answered by Chichester in The Free Lance of August 10, 1915. The House of Delegates conducted its own investigation into these allegations and voted to impeach RHL Chichester. Fortunately for the judge the Senate voted not to convict him. Ten years later he was appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court.

Samuel P. Powell, 1914

     Peter Powell was elected commonwealth's attorney in 1916 and held that position until at least 1930. He continued to fulminate in the press against the political establishment of Spotsylvania, which he called "The Ring."
     Powell remained a confirmed bachelor for the first forty years of his life. That changed in December 1920 when he married Dorothy Vaughn McCormick (1893-1969) of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She was an attorney in her own right and she may have had a moderating influence on her husband, whose diatribes in the newspapers began to appear less frequently.

     The next time the Powell name dominated the headlines of The Daily Star, it would be the result of a real tragedy and not the public pronouncements of the commonwealth's attorney. On May 17, 1924 Powell's brother, Dr. Robert Llewellen Powell, was shot to death near the family home by neighbor Charles Kendall. Young Mr. Kendall immediately fled the state by train, only to quietly return to Virginia shortly thereafter. He was arrested in Orange County and brought back to the Spotsylvania jail and was charged with first degree murder.
     Because this crime involved the brother of Peter Powell, judge RHL Chichester appointed C. O'Conor Goolrick to prosecute the case as acting commonwealth's attorney. During the sensational trial that took place August-September 1924, it was revealed that a sister of Charles Kendall had "gotten in trouble." Kendall was given a pistol by his father to ensure that the father of this trouble, Emmet Taylor, accompanied them to the court house for the strongly urged marriage. Meanwhile, the Kendall girl had consulted with Dr. Powell, who prescribed for her ergot, a drug commonly used to induce abortion. While the drug succeeded in making her sick, it did not otherwise have the desired outcome. Dr. Powell then suggested to Miss Kendall that he could send her to a place in Tennessee where they "could get rid of it." She declined his advice and ultimately the child was born.
     Testimony was also given that Dr. Powell had made improper advances on two other Kendall sisters, one of whom was married. As if the Powell-Kendall relationship were not already sufficiently complicated, it was shown that Dr. Powell and Charles Kendall had also been rivals for the affections of the wife of a local store owner.
     Three days before the shooting, Charles Kendall confronted Dr. Powell at that store, where their mutual love interest was working that day.  Powell  knocked Kendall to the ground and beat him senseless. This set the stage for the final act of this drama, when on May 17 Kendall, now armed with his pistol, accosted Dr. Powell and shot him several times as he attempted to run away. The victim lived for two hours and gave his dying declaration to his brother Peter Powell, identifying Kendall as his killer.
     Charles Kendall testified in his own behalf. He said that on the day of the shooting (his face then still bearing the marks of Powell's fists) he demanded that Dr. Powell apologize for insulting two of his sisters and giving abortion medicine to a third. "He cussed me and said he ought to smack my head off, after which he advanced upon me." Kendall said he shot in self defense, and kept shooting because he feared that Dr. Powell was trying to retrieve a gun from his car.
     During the trial hundreds of curiosity seekers thronged the grounds of the court house in hopes of catching every salacious detail. The case went to the jury on September 4, 1924. After deliberating for seventy minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
     During the 1920s Peter and Dorothy and their two daughters lived in a house with about 125 acres across from Spotsylvania Court House. On July 13, 1930 the Powell home was destroyed by fire, and a week later the outbuildings also burned. The Powells were convinced these were acts of arson and published a notice offering a reward for information. (Ironically, the office and law library of Peter's father burned in 1901).

Powell house in Spotsylvania

     The Powell family moved to Fredericksburg and settled at 307 Lewis Street. Peter and Dorothy continued their law practicies and they prepared a title abstract for Greenfield, my family's ancestral farm in Spotsylvania. I discovered those papers several years ago in the archives of the Central Rappahannock Heritage Center.
     Peter and Dorothy's daughters were well educated and became respected professionals in their own right. Catherine earned her law degree and joined the law practice of her mother. Mary was a doctor and in 1949 became the first female physician on the staff of Mary Washington Hospital.
     Samuel Peter Powell died in Fredericksburg on November 13, 1944 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. 

Photo courtesy of BillionGraves.com