Nicholas County, West Virginia Biography of FLEMING N. ALDERSON This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: ********************************************** ***The submitter does not have a connection*** ********to the subject of this sketch.******** ********************************************** 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 The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II, pg. 628-629 Nicholas FLEMING N. ALDERSON. Both in the profession of law and as an influential figure in connection with public affairs in his native state Captain Alderson is well up- holding the high prestige of the family name, his father having long been one of the influential citizens and leading members of the bar of West Virginia and having repre- sented this commonwealth in the Congress of the United States. Captain Alderson, one of the representative lawyers of Nicholas County, with offices both at Summersville, the county seat, and at Richwood, where he maintains his resi- dence, was born in this county on the 8th of January, 1884, and is a son of Hon. John Duffy Alderson and Eugenia A. (Rader) Alderson. John D. Alderson was born at Sum- mersville, this county, November 29, 1854, a son of Joseph A. Alderson and a great-grandson of Col. George Alderson, a pioneer and influential citizen of Monroe County, where the town of Alderson was named in his honor, the Alder- son family having been founded in Virginia in the Colonial era of our national history. Joseph A. Alderson was a university graduate and was graduated also in a law school. He was long engaged in the practice of law at Summers- ville, and served as prosecuting attorney of Nicholas County, which then included Webster County. He was a mem- ber of the Virginia Senate during the Civil war, one of the incidental results of this conflict having been the creation of the new state of West Virginia. Hon. John Duffy Alderson, whose death occurred at Rich- wood December 2, 1910, was a mere youth when he became actively identified with political affairs, as a vigorous ad- vocate of the principles of the democratic party. He was appointed a page at the West Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1872, later served as doorkeeper for the State Senate, of which he subsequently became clerk, and as an able lawyer he gave effective service as prosecuting attorney of Nicholas County. In 1888 he received the democratic nomination for representative of the Third Congressional District of West Virginia in the Congress of the United States, to which he was elected and in which, by re-election, he served two consecutive terms. He then resumed the practice of his profession at Summersville, and in connection with public affairs he subsequently served as a member of the House of Delegates of the State Legislature. He was one of the strong, upright, broad- minded citizens of West Virginia, held an inviolable place in popular confidence and esteem and achieved high stand- ing in his profession. To the public schools of Summersville Capt. Fleming Newman Alderson is indebted for his earlier educational discipline, which was supplemented by his attending St. Vincents College and the West Virginia University, and in the law department of the latter he was graduated in 1907. On the 8th of October of that year he was admitted to the bar of his native state, and for several years thereafter he was associated in practice with his father, with head- quarters at Summersville and with a law business that extended into the courts of counties adjacent to Nicholas County. He finally established an office at Richwood, and in this city he now maintains his residence and profes- sional headquarters, the while his distinct achievement marks him as one of the representative members of the bar of this section of the state. During the legislative session of 1911 Captain Alderson represented Nicholas County in the Lower House of the State Legislature, at which session he had the act passed establishing the Nicholas County High School at Summersville. In 1913 he was appointed assistant United States district attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, an office of which he continued the incumbent three years. His retire- ment prior to the expiration of his term of four years resulted from his having been, in 1916, made the democratic nominee for representative of his district in the United States Congress, his defeat being compassed by normal political exigencies. As military aide to Governor Corn- well of West Virginia in connection with the nation's participation in the World war he was appointed chief of the Department of Military Censors and Enrollment, with the rank of captain, and in this important position he gave most loyal and effective service. He and his wife are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and he is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the church of this denomination in his home city. In the Masonic fraternity Captain Alderson is affiliated with Sum- mersville Lodge No. 76, A. F. and A. M.; Richwood Chap- ter No. 37, R. A. M.; Sutton Commandery No. 16, Knights Templar; Ben-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine in the City of Charleston; and the Consistory of the Scottish Rite in the City of Wheeling. On the 8th of June, 1921, was solemnized the marriage of Captain Alderson and Miss Rebecca M. Wigton, of LaGrange, Indiana. Mrs. Alderson graduated from the conservatory of music at Oberlin College, Ohio, and prior to her marriage had been supervisor of music in the public schools of Richwood. She is a popular figure in connec- tion with the representative social and cultural activities of Richwood, and is the gracious chatelaine of one of the attractive and hospitable homes of this city. Captain Alderson is attorney for the First National Bank of Richwood and the Nicholas County Bank at Summers- ville, besides being similarly retained by a number of im- portant industrial and commercial corporations in this sec- tion of the state. He is a stockholder and director of the Nicholas Hardware & Furniture Company at Richwood, and is vice president and secretary of the Tioga Coal Com- pany.