Greenbrier County, West Virginia The Biography of Governor Samuel PRICE The Biography of Governor Samuel PRICE was submitted by Sandy Spradling, E-mail address: This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm Source: History of Greenbrier County J.R. Cole Lewisburg, WV 1917 p. 62-66 GOVERNOR SAMUEL PRICE Every public life has contributed its share to the age in which it existed. It had its class to which it belonged, the blend in character which it formed, the environment in the affairs of state which it helped to create, all of which make for the upbuilding of its own community and that of the general commonwealth at large. The State of West Virginia had its builders the same as Rome had. Out of the wilderness a production of wealth had to be created for an enterprising and intelligent race of people to make the State what it is. Of those whose life's work largely contributed towards the education and evolution of the present age of progress and enlightenment looms up the towering figure of Governor Price, a man now revered and loved by every citizen of Greenbrier county. The history of the Hon. Samuel Price as a lawyer, as a judge, as a statesman, will be written for this work by a man who was prosecuting attorney of Greenbrier county for twenty-two years, and for a number of years a partner with the Governor in the practice of law. His sketch will be found under the head of Bench and Bar. Our attempt will be a narrative of that life in its simpler form. Samuel Price, the son of Samuel and Mary Price, was born in Fauquier county, State of Virginia, on the twenty-eighth day of July, 1805. His mother, Mary Clymon, whom he resembled, was born of German parents. Her father lived to the age of 104 years. On the paternal side the descent of the Price family was from Major Morris, of Washington fame. Samuel Price, the father of the subject of this sketch, moved to Monongalia county, now Preston county, West Virginia. That was in November, 1815. In 1827, when at the age of twenty-three years, the son left the parental roof for Kentucky to study law, but after having gained his purpose returned to Virginia, where as a lawyer he continued the practice of his profession through life. He located first in Nicholas county, becoming a citizen there on November 10, 1828. At the June court of that year he was appointed prosecuting attorney. In the same year also he was appointed deputy marshal to take the census of the county. The pay was very meager but it gave him a large experience by bringing him in contact with the people. In 1831 he was made clerk, but after three years of that kind of monotonous work he resigned. In 1834 he was elected to the legislattire from Nicholas and Fayette counties. This opened a new field for observation and enabled him to form many new acquaintances, but in that same year he settled in Wheeling to practice law. In December he was appointed by the city council delegate to the legislature to procure an increase of banking capital and some loan in reference to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Associated with him for two months on that work at Richmond, Va., were Dr. Clemens and a Mr. Jacob. In 1848 Mr. Price was elected to the legislature again, but declined a re-election in 1850. In October, 1850, however, he was elected to represent his district in the Constitutional Convention, he representing the counties of Greenbrier, Pocahontas, Nicholas, Kanawha, Fayette and Raleigh, after which he was returned to the legislature, but resigned again. In 1866 C. R. Mason resigned and Mr. Price was appointed one of the directors of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad, and this position was held until all the old directors were superseded by new ones appointed by the Republican party when they got control. In 1850 he became a member of a called convention by the legislature to decide whether a member had a right to represent his slaves, giving him more authority to cast so many votes. It was called "the white basis convention," and the people were wrought up over the subject. This question was submitted to a committee to which Mr. Price was appointed because of his sound judgment. In 1837 Mr. Price moved to Lewisburg and on the fourth of February, 1861, the assembly passed an act calling a convention. To this convention Mr. Price was elected to represent Greenbrier county as a Union man, and was one of twenty-one appointed on a committee of Federal relations, of which he was made president. This convention advised against secession but the ordinance of secession was passed by the convention. With reference to this ordinance Mr. Price returned home to consult with his constituents. The question was submitted to a vote of the people and the county voted almost solid for ratification of the secession ordinance, after which Mr. Price signed the ordinance in accordance with the instructions of those whom he had been sent to Richmond to represent. This was the beginning of those troubles that followed and a time which tried men's souls. In 1862, on the twenty-third day of May, General Crook defeated General Heath in the battle at Lewisburg. A few days afterwards General Crook ordered Mr. Price to go to headquarters, and when there ordered him to take the oath of allegiance. This Mr. Price refused to do. although under threat of being sent to Camp Chase, Ohio. Mr. Price said: "I acknowledge myself to be in your power, but you and your whole army cannot compel me to take that oath." General Crook then said: "I will send you to the guard house to be kept there until I am ready to send you off." Mr. Price replied, "I do not want to go to the guard house, if I can help it. I live in town and you can easily get me." The general then said, "Give me your parole that you will not leave town without mv permission and report to me daily at 10 o'clock and you can remain at home until I send you off." General Crook sent for Mr. Price to go with the prisoners just as they were leaving for Meadow Bluff, and when Mr. Price found he was going to compel him to walk he signed a parole that he would follow next day and ride his own horse. That night Captain Read came with a half-dozen soldiers to take Mr. Price to Monroe by order of General Loring, but Mr. Price, claiming the privileges of his parole, succeeded in maintaining his rights. Nevertheless, from the time he left home until he reached Charleston, it was one continued series of insults all the way. When Mr. Price arrived in Charleston he was put in jail with the other prisoners for Camp Chase, but Dr. Patrick, Sr., having heard he was there had him released on parole to stay at the hotel and report every morning. Things continued thus for three months and a half, when General Loring drove the Federals out and released the prisoners, and the kindness of Dr. Patrick was never forgotten by Mr. Price. In 1863 Dr. Price was elected lieutenant governor of Virginia, with Gen. William Smith as governor, and served two sessions as president of the senate, until the close of the war. During the last session he received General Lee and General Morgan. After the surrender of General Lee Mr. Price was sent for to convene the legislature so that action might be taken on the new phase of things. President Lincoln had advised such a meeting with assurances that the members of the legislature should not be molested. There was a request for Mr. Price to come to Richmond with a pass from General Wetzel. Mr. Price and the carrier started immediatelv from Lewisburg, and traveled all night on horseback. They reached Covington at daylight and met the car at Jacksons river depot in time to reach Staunton that evening. Here he and a number of the members of the legislature were in consultation when they received the news of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. There was no need of Mr. Price going further and he returned home. He was not permitted to rest, however. Soon after this a squadron of about thirty cavalrymen arrested him and Mr. Caperton and took them as prisoners to Charleston. That was on June 11, 1865, after the war was over. In December, 1869, Mr. Price was elected circuit judge, but Governor Boreman said in a letter to him that he could not take the test oath and he would not commission him. His connection with the Confederacy prevented that. When a convention to amend the constitution of West Virginia was called in 1871, Mr. Price was elected as one of the delegates of the senatorial district, and by that body he was elected its president. In 1877 Mr. Caperton died and Governor Jacob appointed Mr. Price to the United States Senate, in which capacity he served until his successor was elected. These appointments to offices of honor and trust afforded him much pleasure after being persecuted so long because of his refusal to take the test oath. In 1837 Mr. Price was married to Miss Jane Stuart, a grand-daughter of Col. John Stuart, the first county clerk of Greenbrier county. In 1838 he moved to Lewisburg, and in 1854 both of them joined the Presbyterian church, and soon after this Mr. Price was made an elder. On the twenty-fifth day of February. 1884, he died, leaving a name enviable for integrity, purity and truth. Mrs. Price died in 1875. One who knew her well, said: "She was the best educated woman I have ever known." Dr. Thomas Knight said in writing of her, after her death, "Blessed with all the comforts of life, she was rich in a noble sense of the word; rich in respect and esteem of the community; rich in the consciousness of a life devoted to pure and gentle pursuits; rich in the gratitude of the distressed and needy; rich in all lovely traits of a pure Christian character, and richer still in the hope and faith of blissful immortality." Mr. Price was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, standing six feet two inches in height and having a fine head and a good face. "Prominent Men of West Virginia" gives us an estimate of the Hon. Samuel Price worthy of notice here. In that work it is stated: "He was one of the able men of Virginia when both Virginias were one. Not particularly aggressive in spirit or ambitious for distinction he nevertheless by the natural simplicity of his tastes, his habits of life and education, and better still by his enlightened sense of justice and hatred of wrong, was the jealous advocate of truth, morality and right. There was absolutely nothing in his public or private life fictitious or artificial. His success in private, as well as in his professional undertakings and his influence in public positions did not come to him by accident, but by the inherited energy and force of his mental constitu-tion. He was eminent in his profession as a lawyer, as a statesman, and as a public administrative. He did nothing from impulse; cool, deliberate, self-poised, no possible excitement could unnerve him or throw him off his balance. He was a born jurist. Theories and abstractions were foreign to his nature."