| Attended Staunton Acadamy and William and Mary College, : was graduadted from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1828; studied law; was admitted tot he bar 1828 and commenced practice in Staunton; member of the State house of delegates 1836-39; elected as a Whig to the Twenty-seventh Congress March 4th 1841-March 3 1843) ; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1842 to the Twenty-eighth Congress; presidential elector on the Whig ticket of Clay and Frelinghuysen in 1844 and of Taylor and Fillmore in 1848; served as Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Fillmore from Sept. 16 1850 to March 6, 1853; member of the State senate 1857-1861; member of the state secession convention in 1861; delegate to the National Convention of Conservatives at Philadelphia in 1866; presidented credentials as a Member elect to the Thirty-ninth congress in 1865 but was not admitted; chairman of the committee of nine, which was instrumental in restoring Virginia to the Union in 1870; member of the state house of delegates from 1874 to 1877; rector of the University of Virginia from 1874 to 1882; president of the Virginia Historical Society, resumed the practice of law, died in Staunton VA. February 13, 1891; interment in Thornrose Cemeterey. |