BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES O.T. TIDLER, HARRISON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Submitted by Valerie Crook (vfcrook@earthlink.net) The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 525-526 Harrison JAMES O. T. TIDLER. A legal practice extending over a period of more than twenty years has given James O. T. Tidler a first rank at the bar of Clarksburg, West Virginia. The law has been regarded by him as a high and honorable profession, not merely a vocation and source of livelihood. To its service he took a scholarship of unusual breadth to develop the excellent qualities of a brilliant mind and he is only now in the prime of manhood and rich experience, with the promise of more mature fulfillment still before him. His ancestry on both sides is of the best old Virginia stock. His paternal grandparents were John W. and Eliza- beth (Windle) Tidler. His maternal grandparents were Capt. Henry Harford and Frances (Snyder) Quaintance. The Quaintance family was prominent in the military affairs of Virginia. Capt. H. H. Quaintance was an officer and lost his two oldest sons, John and William, in the Con- federate army during the Civil war. He was the son of Col. John Quaintance. The father of the Clarksburg lawyer was George Wash- ington Tidler, a teacher, stockman and farmer. He was born in Shenandoah County, right in the heart of the beau- tiful Valley of Virginia, June 11, 1842, and died at Slate Mills, Rappahannock County, Virginia, August 28, 1910. He was strongly inclined to intellectual pursuits and attain- ments, and became well educated for a man of his day, when there were no public free schools. He was kind and accommodating to his friends and neighbors, and people from all over his section would come to him for advice and counsel, which he gave freely and without remuneration. He was regarded as the best informed man in all his community. Though not a lawyer, his knowledge of the law was mar- velous. When the Civil war began he enlisted as a Confederate soldier in Shenandoah County, Virginia, and served as a lieutenant under that famous military genius, Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson. Before the war terminated he was captured by the Federal army and was imprisoned on Rock Island in the Mississippi River, off the west coast of Illinois. The pangs of hunger and the severe case of typhoid fever which he contracted while in prison somewhat impaired his health. For a number of years he bought livestock and shipped it in carload lots to Baltimore and other Eastern markets. For many years he was justice of the peace, taught school, and was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to a position in the United States internal revenue service. In politics he was a republican, a member of the Baptist Church and was worshipful master of his Masonic Lodge. He is survived by his wife, Frances Quaintance Tidler, who was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia, April 20, 1849. After their marriage they lived on their farm at Slate Mills, Rappahannock County, Virginia. She was a beautiful and lovable woman, with strong Christian char- acter, and her teachings, her life, her loyalty and love, her devotion and willing sacrifices indelibly impressed her chil- dren and molded their characters and ambitions for the accomplishment of worthy achievements. To her five sons and two daughters living the name "Mother," will always express the highest and most typical embodiment of all that is lovable, good, noble and sublime. Their seven children are Wilbur Q., John W., James O. T., Mrs. Teresa Pearle Norris, Mrs. Ruth Thornhill, Harford S. and George W., Jr. The oldest of these, Wilbur Q. Tidler, is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. He was for about twenty years a Government official in the United States internal revenue service, and prior to that service was a teacher and farmer. Their youngest son, George W. Tidler, Jr., is a farmer and soldier. He served in the World war against Germany, and was in France pursuing the German armies when the armis- tice was signed. After that he served in the United States Army of Occupation, and was stationed near Coblenz for several months. James O. T. Tidler, of Clarksburg, was born December 31, 1876, and was reared to manhood off the Tidler home farm at Slate Mills, Rappahannock County, Virginia. His only early educational advantages were those of a country public school, but he was always a leader in his classes. At the age of eighteen years, the youngest age allowed by law, he taught school near his home in Rappahannock County, after having successfully passed the teachers examination, where he was granted a first grade certificate. Teaching three years supplied a considerable part of the fund he needed for his law course, as he sought no financial assistance from any relative or friend, but relied solely upon his .own efforts and resources. His legal education is a record of brilliant achievements. In February, 1900, he entered Richmond College Law School, now Richmond University of Virginia, and made Junior Law in less than a half session. In the fall of 1900, following, he was offered and accepted a re- sponsible position of financial trust and management in connection with the president's office, and entered the Senior Law Class, but in less than four months he went before the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia at its Richmond term on January 11, 1901, and successfully passed the most rigid bar examination, except one, ever held by that high court, and was by the Supreme Court granted license to practice law. Thirty applicants tried this examination for admission to the bar, of which number nineteen able men, most of them graduates in law, failed, and only eleven of the thirty applicants passed and obtained license to prac- tice. This examination and its results were given con- siderable space in the Richmond and other Virginia news- papers at the time, the same being, also, a matter of record in Volume 6 of the Virginia Law Register. Though being admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court under circumstances that were a splendid augury for his future, Mr. Tidler did not at that time quit school to prac- tice, as might have been expected, but preferred to continue his studies to completion and become a full-fledged graduate before beginning the practice of his chosen profession. In the early spring, however, he was stricken down with inflammatory rheumatism, to such an extent that he could move neither hand nor foot without assistance and great pain, and was for several weeks treated in a Richmond hospital. Notwithstanding this great affliction he was un- daunted in his purpose and the achievement of his ambi- tions. Leaving the hospital, though still sick and afflicted and unable to write, he stood oral examinations on all branches of law and books his class had completed during his illness, and then went to his parents home at Slate Mills, Virginia, to recover his health and strength. It was just three weeks prior to the June commencement before he was able to return from home and rejoin his class; but not- withstanding his serious illness, loss of time, and missing most important lectures of his class, he resumed his studies with such a zeal to win over all obstacles that in this three weeks period he mastered all legal subjects so com- pletely as to pass the final written examinations with such a high percentage of proficiency that he was not only graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, June 13, 1901, but was by the faculty and trustees of the college awarded the first prize as the most distinguished and hon- ored graduate of his class. In October, 1901, Mr. Tidler, then but a briefless bar- rister, with only meagre financial resources, opened a law office in Clarksburg, and since then has been eminently successful, gaining honors both as a trial lawyer and as a counselor. The same fertile brain that had distinguished him soon lifted him out of poverty and obscurity and made him a prominent man of affairs of Clarksburg, where he acquired valuable real estate holdings, being now the owner of a number of houses and lots in the City of Clarksburg and lands in the State of Virginia. He is a republican voter, but neither as a matter of necessity nor from inclina- tion has he sought any public office or diversion in politics. He was, however, associate member of the Legal Advisory Board during the World war in 1917-18, and rendered valu- able patriotic service without remuneration. Mr. Tidler is, also prominent in fraternal circles, being at present dictator (presiding officer) of Clarksburg Lodge No. 52, Loyal Order of Moose, which has a membership of about a thousand men. For several years he was state treasurer of West Virginia, of the Patriotic Order Sons- of America. He is a member of the Baptist Church. On October 12, 1910, Mr. Tidler married Miss Anna Martha Wickes, of New Market, Shenandoah County, Vir- ginia, where she was born September 10, 1885, daughter of Giles William and Mary Lizzie (Crim) Wickes. Her father was born February 12, 1854, and still survives. Her mother was born April 3, 1858, and died April 24, 1893. Her paternal grandfather Wickes was born in 1827 and died in 1867. He married Wilmuth Ann Kipps, who was born in 1827 and died in 1905. Mrs. Tidler's paternal great- grandparents were William (1795-1852), and Mary Wickes (1797-1871), while her maternal grandparents were David Crim (1822-1860), and Martha Jane (Windle) Crim (1828- 1874). The latter's parents were Washington (1802-1882), and Charlotte Glenn, Windle (1806-1891). Mrs. Tidler is a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. and Mrs. Tidler have two very promising children, the older, Hazel, born June 23, 1913, and the younger, James, born July 29, 1920.