James Brewer Sommerville Biography
Transcribed by <AUPQ38A@prodigy.com> (MRS GINA M REASONER), 1999
Submitted to the USGENWEB PROJECT by Mrs. Gina M. Reasoner
Please do not reproduce this information without permission of the submitter.

WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1928 - Volume 4, page 6-7 with photo

        JAMES BREWER SOMMERVILLE came to the bar of West Virginia in 1878,
and in rounding out a half century of consecutive service as a lawyer he
has been, very appropriately, during the past ten years, on the bench as a
judge of the Circuit Court of the First Judicial Circuit at Wheeling.
        Judge Sommerville was born near Bethany, Brooke County, West
Virginia, June 5, 1852, son of William M. and Margaret A. (Steele)
Sommerville, his father a native of Harrison County, West Virginia, and his
mother of Belmont County, Ohio. Judge Sommerville profited little by his
schooling until he was about fifteen years of age, when he developed a
strong taste for miscellaneous reading and his ambition was fired for a
real education. While attending public school at Bethany in the winters of
1868-69 he made rapid progress. For a year or so he worked as a farm hand,
but kept up his reading and study, and in the fall of 1871, entered the
West liberty Normal School, four miles from home. He walked back and forth
to the school every day, remaining until the close of the session in June,
1872. He then resumed farm work and road construction, taught a rural
school in the winter of 1872-73, resumed his studies in West Liberty in the
spring of 1873 and was graduated in that year. After teaching a year in
Ohio County he entered Bethany College, specialized in mathematics and
language. While a student in Bethany he was nominated by the Democratic
party of Brooke County and was elected, being the youngest member of the
House of Delegates in 1877. After his term in the Legislature he again did
farm work and and taught school in the winter, studied law as opportunity
offered, and in the fall of 1878 was admitted to the bar. He opened his
first office at Wellsburg, county seat of Brooke County, on April 1, 1879.
In the summer of 1887 he removed to Wheeling and soon was made local
counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad System. Several years later he became
solicitor and was put in charge of the legal matters effecting the company
for the state of West Virginia. He served as solicitor until he went on the
bench. He also enjoyed a very extensive and general law practice.
        Judge Sommerville has had many of the honors and responsibilities
of public life. He served on the Board of Regents of the normal schools,
the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute, and the West Virginia University, being
on the university board for nine years. In 1884 he was elected a member of
the Senate from the First District, and in the session of 1887 was the
recognized leader of the caucus forces of the Democratic party in the most
bitter and most memorable contest for a seat in the United States Senate
that has ever occurred in West Virginia. Following the death, in September,
1918, of H.C. Hervey, a judge of the First Judicial Circuit, the members of
the bar of that circuit, without regard to political considerations,
expressed their decided preference for Mr. Sommerville's appointment to the
vacancy, and Governor Cornwell responded to that request. He accordingly
went on the bench as an executive appointee, and in November, 1919, at the
ensuing general election, he was chosen, his name having been put on the
ticket of both the Republican and Democratic parties, so that he was the
unanimous choice to fill the unexpired term of Judge Hervey. In November,
1920, he was again, without his solicitation, placed on the ticket of both
parties as candidate for the full term of eight years, and was unanimously
elected to the position. His offices are in the court house at Wheeling.

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