Wood County, West Virginia    Biography of William E. STEVENSON

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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 432

    WILLIAM E. STEVENSON,  who was governor of West Virginia from 1869 to
1871, was born at Warren in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, March 18, 1821.  
Oldest in a family of nine children, he achieved conspicuous success after a strenuous 
struggle with the circumstances of near poverty.  When he was about ten years of age he was
apprenticed to a cabinet maker in Pittsburgh, and eventually became one of 
the skilled workmen in that city.  After working hours he attended local debating clubs, 
thus improving his education and laying the basis of a training for public life.  
In 1856 he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and participated in the 
session which resulted in the election of Simon Cameron to the United States Senate.
    Before his term expired he left Pennsylvania, and in the spring of 1857 
bought a farm at Valley Mills in Wood County in what is now West Virginia.  Though busy 
with his farm work, his natural gifts for leadership soon attracted attention, and in the 
national crisis that arrived in 1860 he proved one of the clearest voices in the behalf of the 
union of the states in this section of Virginia.  About this time the charge was made against him 
that he was circulating an incendiary document, "Helper's Impending Crisis" a copy of 
which he had in his library and had loaned to neighbors by request.  The charge was brought 
to the attention of the Grand Jury, and he was indicted in the County Court at 
Parkersburg. The excitement was intense.  His life was threatened, and he was advised to leave 
the state until the excitement had abated. He promptly went to Parkersburg, accompanied 
by a large crowd of his neighbors, many of whom were opposed to him politically, 
but were prompted by the ties of strong friendship, and demanded a trial.  Amid the 
confusion that attended such excitement the trial was postponed, and it remains postponed to 
this day.  In the canvass of 1860, upon the question of secession, he took an active part, 
speaking in Wood and surrounding counties, and laboring with untiring zeal for the Union 
cause. There are three men whose eloquence and ceaseless labors contributed largely 
to the vote which that section of the state gave against secession; Governors Stevenson 
and Boreman, and the late John Jay Jackson, all of whom are now dead.
    In the formation of the new state he took an active and conspicuous part, 
being a member of the convention of November 26, 1861, to frame a constitution for 
the then proposed state.  Delegate Stevenson by his excellent sense and sagacious 
judgment contributed materially to the success of the convention and afterward to the 
ratification of the constitution by the people.  He was next elected a member of the State 
Senate, serving therein from July, 1863, to the close of 1868.  During the last three years 
of his legislative term he was president of the Senate. In 1868 he was elected governor of the 
state for the term beginning March 4, 1869, and occupied that position upon the first 
removal of the capitol to Charleston, serving half his term in Wheeling and half in 
Charleston.  He was re-nominated in 1870, but was defeated in the election by the Hon. John J. 
Jacob.  He was the third republican governor of the state, being preceded by Governors 
Boreman, and Farnsworth.  Soon after he retired from the governor's chair he became 
associated with O. G. Scofield in the publication of the State Journal of Parkersburg.  He was 
active in its management until the sale of the Journal in January, 1882.  In the meantime, 
in 1880, he had removed from his farm to Parkersburg.  In 1881 he was made receiver of 
the West Virginia Oil and Oil Land Company and held that office until a few days 
before * his death.
    As governor he has been described as a man of liberal as well as vigorous 
progressive views, seeking to encourage projects of internal improvement and industrial 
enterprise, and was particularly interested in creating a real public school system for 
the state, and much of West Virginia's enviable progress in educational affairs goes back to 
the influences set in motion by Governor Stevenson.  His administration also 
promoted an era of good feeling.  He was a great friend of the public schools, and the first 
high school established in the City of Parkersburg, West Virginia.
    Quoting from an intimate biography:   "The prominent characteristics of 
Governor Stevenson were a strong will, unerring judgment, a large fund of humor, keen 
knowledge of human nature, rigid devotion to that which he believed to be right, and an 
integrity of character that riches dared not attempt to bribe and power could not corrupt. 
 In all our intercourse with men we have never met with a character more beautiful in 
simplicity and gentleness and more thoroughly honest than his.  His was a singularly 
well-balanced mind, and his great personal dignity of character as well as his kindness of heart 
caused him to hold in respect the worth and dignity of other men from whose opinions he 
differed, and also brought about a consideration for the worth of the opinions themselves.  
His scholarship was wide and profound, though the result of laborious, thorough 
and systematic reading, rather than of extensive academic training.  So wide 
indeed was his range that he was equally at home in the scientific principles of farming, in 
those of law and government, or in those of literature and art.  As a writer he was 
forcible, truthful, systematic, humorous, sure of his points and he never wandered from his 
theme. His fund of humor was large, and he seldom made a speech whose appeal was not made 
stronger by that peculiarly human touch.
    In 1842 he married Sara Clothworthy, a native of Philadelphia.  His son 
Orlando married Flora V. Baker, and their daughter, Carrye A., is the wife of Horatio 
W. Russell of Parkersburg.