Albemarle-Botetourt County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Glasgow, Frank Thomas 1854 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/vafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 15, 2008, 9:33 pm Author: Leonard Wilson (1916) FRANK THOMAS GLASGOW FRANK THOMAS GLASGOW, now of Lexington, Virginia, was born on November 16, 1854, in the village of Fincastle, Botetourt County, in the same State. On his father's side he is Scotch-Irish, and on his mother's he is descended from this same resolute stock in combination with that of the thrifty Germans. The Glasgows emigrating from Ulster, Ireland, made their first home in Pennsylvania, but early in the eighteenth century found their way through the Valley of Virginia to a point near Lexington, Rockbridge County, then included in the widely extended County of Augusta. Rockbridge is named after its far-famed physical feature, Natural Bridge, but it is not fanciful altogether to see in its inhabitants something of that strong sturdiness associated with rock-ribbed Aberdeen, or with the Ulster patriots. The path of the Glasgows has been followed or paralleled by the Spears family of Rockingham, one of whose members married a direct descendant of Joist Hite, the first white settler in the Valley. The parents of Frank T. Glasgow were Elizabeth Spears and her husband, William Anderson Glasgow. In the latter his friends recognized a virile and forceful lawyer and a commanding personality of robust and positive character, whom they induced to represent them in the Virginia Senate. Here, as at home, he served his fellows with a vigorous and uncompromising uprightness. Those outstanding qualities which marked his character are discernible also in Alexander McNutt, his uncle, who came from Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War to aid his Virginia relatives, and, later, also in Judge Francis T. Anderson of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Of this Judge Anderson, for whom Frank Thomas Glasgow is named, there still lives in Lexington a noted son, William A. Anderson, who by his services at the Bar, in the Constitutional Convention and as Attorney General of the State, has added luster to a family with a record already brilliant. Young Glasgow was born in that era of our country's history which was big with fateful deeds. His early boyhood spanned that period of war and struggle which must have left upon him vivid impressions and indelible memories. For most boys of that day the education of experience was radical though rich; but the education in the schools was a disturbed and disorganized process, with many changes of teachers and as many varieties of method and discipline. Young Glasgow received his preliminary education in the male academy of Fincastle, from which in due time he proceeded to Washington and Lee University. With this University his family has had many ties, chief among them at that time being the interest his father, an honored trustee, was taking in its welfare. In 1874 Frank Glasgow completed his college course by procuring his B.A. degree; but in 1877 he matriculated at the University of Virginia for the study of law. By dint of close application he completed the course then prescribed in one year, and was graduated in 1878 with the degree of Bachelor of Law. In addition to his signal achievement, equaled by his brother Robert's graduation in medicine in the same session, Frank Glasgow was successful in winning the orator's medal in the Jefferson Literary Society. This is a highly coveted honor won in successive sessions by many distinguished men, including President Wilson in 1880. In a little more than a year after his graduation, while yet a young barrister in Fincastle, he married, October 7, 1879, Miss Grace Woodson McPheeters. The marriage took place in the manse of Falling Spring Church (Rockbridge County), then occupied by her uncle, Rev. David W. Shanks, D. D. Of the union of Frank T. Glasgow and Grace Woodson McPheeters there are four children, namely: Mrs. Ellen Glasgow Landis, Rev. Samuel McPheeters Glasgow, Charles Spears Glasgow and Thomas McPheeters Glasgow. Samuel, the eldest son (an A. B. of Washington and Lee) is married—his wife was Mary Finley McIllwaine— and is now exercising his ministry in Texas. Charles, A. B. and B. L. of Washington and Lee University, is a lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Thomas, already an A. B. of Washington and Lee, is now a student of law in that institution. Mr. Glasgow remained in Fincastle from 1879 to 1885 practicing his profession with success and with an increasing reputation based upon his probity, his ability and his energy. In 1885 he found it to his advantage to move to Lexington where he has made for himself a foremost place in his profession. In the practice of the law Mr. Glasgow insists that there are two imperative principles upon which the goodwill of clients depends. These are to agree with the clients as to the fee before being retained, and to turn over to the client any moneys collected for him as soon as possible. By illustrating in his own practice these fundamental principles Mr. Glasgow has entrenched himself in the confidence of the people and at the same time increased the number of his clients. He has rendered to the State valuable service by accepting a gubernatorial appointment to the Board of State Bar Examiners, charged with examining all applicants who desire to practice law before the courts of Virginia. By his earnings and investments he is now a man of substantial fortune. It is somewhat surprising that a man of Mr. Glasgow's ability and gift as a public speaker has not entered more largely into the public life. It is true that he was a delegate to that National Democratic Convention in Chicago that first nominated William Jennings Bryan, and that, at various times, he has actively engaged in political campaigns in the Valley and in the adjoining counties; but his voice has been lifted for others, not for himself, as he has never sought public office. He preferred loyalty to his chosen profession, the law; and has been unwilling to subordinate it to public life, notwithstanding the urgency of friends that he accept positions manifestly in his reach in the State Legislature and in the National Congress. His interest in higher education has been in large measure given to Washington and Lee University, of which his father was trustee and in which his father's sons and grandsons were educated. He himself succeeded his father as trustee and has given to his Alma Mater a hearty and unselfish service. But Mr Glasgow's intelligent interest in education has not been withheld from schools of lower grade, and especially the public school system. He believes in the education of the people, but shares with many the fear that substantial training may be sacrificed to what might be termed non-essentials. It is easy to read in his family history the dominant and almost undivided strain of Presbyterianism, the form through which the subject of this sketch manifests consistently and persistently his views of vital and invigorating religion. He is in full harmony with the uncompromising type of Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism, and has worked with concentrated earnestness to further the interests of his church and of universal religion. For many years he has served as elder in his home church; and out of his long experience has drawn the conclusion that the sanest and simplest solution of the church's financial problem is to be found in the enjoined virtue of offering tithes. He was chosen to lead the memorable fight on the floor of the Birmingham General Assembly against the then movement towards union with the Northern Presbyterian Church. He has frequently rendered active service in the church courts; was once Moderator of Lexington Presbytery; and was one of the selected speakers at the "John Calvin Celebration" at the meeting of the Assembly in Savannah. This brief sketch of Mr. Glasgow's life attests that he belongs to that limited group, unhappily too scarce in any community, of simple, solid, substantial men whose lives are dominated by a passion for honesty, truth and religion. Additional Comments: Extracted from: MAKERS OF AMERICA BIOGRAPHIES OF LEADING MEN OF THOUGHT AND ACTION THE MEN WHO CONSTITUTE THE BONE AND SINEW OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND LIFE VOLUME II By LEONARD WILSON, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ASSISTED BY PROMINENT HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WRITERS Illustrated with many full page engravings B. F. JOHNSON, INC. CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A. 1916 Copyright, 1916 by B. F. Johnson, Inc. 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