Orsino Augustine Jabez Vaughan (1819-1876), Orsino Ellick Jones (1829-1907)

    A newspaper publisher and state senator from New Hampshire, the plentifully named Orsino Augustine Jabez Vaughan was born on March 11, 1819, in Hanover, New Hampshire, one of fourteen children born to Silas and Polly Ingalls Vaughan. Little information could be found on Orsino's early life and schooling, except notice of his working in a wool mill where he learned the trade of dyer. Vaughan was admitted to the Connecticut state bar in 1846 and first entered into public office in 1851 when he was named as register of probate for Gilmanton County, serving until 1857. 
  Vaughan married in 1849 to Julia Cogswell of Gilmanton, who died three years following their marriage. In 1855 he remarried to Laconia resident Mary Elizabeth Parker, with whom he had six children, who are listed as follows: Grace Anna (birth date unknown), Walter P. (born 1856), William A. (1859-1866), Charles Woodward (born 1862), Mary Alice (born 1869), and Edward (1872-1879).
   In 1857 O.A.J. Vaughan relocated to Laconia, New Hampshire and eight years later was elected to the New Hampshire State Senate from Laconia, defeating Charles Hackett by a vote of 3,933 to 3, 593. Vaughan served one term (1866-68) and during his term took the reins as publisher and editor of the Laconia Democrat continuing in this position until his death. This term also saw Vaughan have an honorary degree conferred upon him from Dartmouth University. 
  A member of the New Hampshire State Democratic Committee during the 1860s and 70s, Vaughan was named as clerk of courts for Belknap County in 1874, and later took on an additional post as police justice for Laconia. He died in Laconia on April 30, 1876, aged 57, and was subsequently memorialized by the Bradford, Vermont Opinion as a "genial and social man in everyday life". Vaughan was survived by four children and his wife Mary and was interred at the Union Cemetery in Laconia.

Vaughan's obituary from the Bradford Vermont Opinion, May 6, 1876.

Portrait from Hatch's Illustrated History of Jamestown, Chautauqua County, New York, 1900.

   Another "Orsino" who made his name known in public life is Orsino Ellick Jones, who, as luck would have it, was a lifelong resident of my home county of Chautauqua, New York. A distinguished local figure who gained notoriety through business, civic affairs, and philanthropy, Jones's political claim to fame rests on his service as a Republican Presidential Elector for New York in 1880.

  The son of Chautauqua County pioneer Capt. Ellick Jones (1800-1866) and Louisa Walkup Jones, Orsino Ellick "Sine" Jones was born on November 8, 1829, in the town of Ellicott and married in the mid-1850s to Louise A. Howard (1832-1887). The couple would later have one son, Charles Howard Jones (1857-1905). 

    As a young man in Jamestown Orsino Jones became active in the village's volunteer fire department, eventually serving as its chief. By the 1870s he had established his name in Jamestown's business community, serving as President of the Jamestown Cane Seat Chair Company in 1872, being a founder of the Chautauqua Lake Railway, and was the director of the Jamestown Street Railway Company. Long active in Republican Party circles in Western New York, Jones was an alternate delegate to the 2nd Republican National Convention, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency in 1860. A member of the Republican State Committee for four years, in 1880 Jones served as a Presidential Elector for New York. Described as being of the "Stalwart faction" of the Republican Party, Jones is mentioned in Volume 13 of the 1891 Chautauquan as being:

"Prominent in party politics. His hand was in every public movement of the city of Jamestown and the county of Chautauqua. He was a  hail-fellow-well-met-among men on 'Change, in social life and political movements. He was a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. He was General Grant's friend, whether he was coming to a Sunday school Assembly or camp meeting or to preside over the nation."

    Following his service as an elector Jones continued his interests in the growth of Jamestown, serving as a Civil Service Commissioner for the city, and in May of 1886 was selected as one of ten committee members who drew up the charter for the city of Jamestown. As a well-known man of means, Orsino Jones' name was connected to several charitable and philanthropic endeavors in Chautauqua County, including donating 67 acres of land on the border of Chautauqua Lake to be used as a park. Jones would later bequeath further property to the city of Jamestown in 1906 that would eventually become the home to the O.E. Jones Memorial Hospital (pictured below.) Erected at the cost of $100,000, the hospital's cornerstone was laid in 1909 (two years following Jones' death) and it still stands today, although it is now known as an extension of Jamestown's WCA Hospital. 

O.E. Jones General Hospital, a postcard circa 1915.

   After many years of being prominent in Jamestown public life, Orsino E. Jones died at age 77 on January 25, 1907. He had been predeceased by his wife Louisa in 1887 and son Charles in 1905, and all three are interred at the Lakeview Cemetery in Jamestown under an impressive grave marker (photographs below.) Jones was memorialized in Down's History of Chautauqua County as having been:

" A native son of Jamestown, and no man in the city had a wider experience or more varied life. He was a man of strong physique, regular, temperate habits and a tireless worker........He did much for the material advancement of Jamestown and gave liberally towards the public institutions and charities."

From the Westfield Republican, January 30, 1907.

Buried in the Jones plot are Orsino, his wife Louisa and their son Charles Howard.

Orsino Ellick Jones, 1829-1907.

Person Colby Cheney (1828-1901), Person Davis (1819-1894)

From the Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men, published in 1882.

   Prominent in New Hampshire state politics during the mid and late 19th century, Person Colby Cheney can lay claim to being one of the oddest named men ever to serve as Governor of the "Granite State". During a career in public service that lasted over forty years, Cheney occupied several political offices, including stints as a state representative, state railroad commissioner, mayor, Governor, U.S. Senator, and Minister to Switzerland.
   Person Colby Cheney was born in Holderness, New Hampshire on February 25, 1828, the sixth-born son of Moses and Abigail (Morrison) Cheney, both prominent in New England abolitionist circles. At age seven he moved with his family to the town of Peterborough and received his education in the Peterborough and Hancock Academies. Cheney continued his schooling at Parsonfield Seminary in Maine and in 1845 took over the management of his father's paper manufacturing business in Peterborough. In 1850 Cheney married his first wife, S. Anna Moore, who died in January 1858. A year following her death Cheney remarried to Sarah White Keith on June 29, 1859, and later had one daughter, Agnes Keith Cheney (1869-1952).
   Throughout the late 1840s and 1850s, Cheney continued to be active in the paper manufacturing industry, opening a second paper mill in Peterborough in 1853. In that same year, he was elected to his first political office, as one of Peterborough's representatives in the New Hampshire state legislature. He was returned to this office the following year and after serving two terms returned to his earlier business pursuits. In 1862 he entered military service as a quartermaster in the Thirteenth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers. His stint in the military lasted about a year when he became seriously ill and remained bedridden for three months. Cheney was later honorably discharged in August 1863. 
   Following recuperation, Cheney returned to political life, becoming New Hampshire State Railroad Commissioner in 1864. He served three years in this post, and during his term of service moved to the city of Manchester, and there continued his business interests. Within a few years of his removal, Cheney had "attracted attention to him as a man highly fitted for public honors, but as pre-eminently capable of commanding them at the hands of the people." In 1871, Cheney was nominated for Mayor of Manchester and later won the election "by a larger majority than any candidate had received since 1863."As mayor of Manchester Cheney was instrumental in introducing the first fire alarm telegraph system in the city, and after serving one term refused to be a candidate for reelection. 

                              Cheney around the time he was elected Governor of New Hampshire.


   After leaving the Mayor's office Cheney was chosen as President of the People's Bank of Manchester, serving in this post for over a decade. Cheney's political profile received a significant boost in 1875 when he was chosen to be the Republican candidate for Governor of New Hampshire. In the 1875 election, the Republican party had secured a successful majority in the state legislature, which in turn decided that year's gubernatorial contest in favor of Cheney. The 1882 Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men noted that Cheney "brought to the office of Governor a patriotic love for the state and a solicitude for her good name, a clear insight, great executive ability, thorough business habits, and personal dignity, urbanity and tact of the highest order." He was reelected as Governor in 1876 and served another term that concluded in 1877. 
   Following his governorship, Cheney returned to business life in Manchester, later obtaining a charter to erect a pulp mill in his old city of Peterborough. Cheney reemerged on the political scene in the mid-1880s when he was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the unexpired term of Austin Franklin Pike, who had died in office in October 1886. He served in the Senate from November of 1886 to June of 1887, when a successor, William Eaton Chandler, was elected. In 1888 Cheney was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated Benjamin Harrison for President, and in that same year began a lengthy tenure on the Republican National Committee, holding his seat until 1900. 
   Following his service as an RNC delegate, Cheney's name was floated as a possible successor to outgoing Secretary of War Redfield Proctor, who had resigned after being named to a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate in 1891. The news of Cheney's possible appointment to the cabinet appeared in papers as far away as Minnesota, but in the end proved to be just speculation, as Virginia politician Stephen Benton Elkins was named as Secretary. The accompanying article on Cheney's possible appointment to the war department appeared in the New Ulm Weekly Review in August 1891.

   In December 1892 President Benjamin Harrison named Cheney as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Switzerland. He served in this position until June of 1893 and then returned to the United States. In the twilight of his life, Cheney maintained extensive business holdings throughout Manchester and served as a trustee for Bates College, as well as holding the directorship of the Home Market Club. In April 1901 Cheney's wife of over forty years died at age 72. Person Cheney survived his wife Sarah by only two months, dying at the home of his daughter Agnes in Dover, New Hampshire on June 19, 1901. He was 73 years old and was subsequently buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery in his native city of Manchester. His daughter Agnes Cheney Fish survived him, dying on March 4, 1952, at age 83.

                                 A pair of portraits of ex-Governor Cheney and his wife Sarah.

  In a recent discovery (June 28, 2013), another politician with the unusual name "Person" has been located in the vast annals of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives. Read on to find out more!!

   Prominent in the business and political affairs of Somerville, Massachusetts, Person Davis served a short term in the Massachusetts General Court from 1880-1881. Born on June 1, 1819, in Princeton, Massachusetts, Davis moved to the Somerville area in 1850 and over the next four decades built up a reputation as one of Somerville's foremost merchants. He was employed as a grain dealer with the Davis and Taylor Co. in Boston for many years and gained his first taste of political life in 1872 when he was elected as an alderman for Somerville's fourth ward. In 1879 he was elected from the county of Middlesex to the Massachusetts State House of Representatives and during his terms (1880-81) held a seat on the house committee on Street Railways.

  Person Davis died in Somerville in 1894 at age 75. Despite being virtually forgotten today, Person Davis received the honor of having Davis Square in Somerville named after him in 1883. His expansive 10-acre estate made up part of what is now modern-day Davis Square and is now home to many different restaurants, coffee houses, art galleries, and other businesses. The area was even designated as "one of the 15 hippest places to live" in a 1997 edition of the Utne Reader. One can only wonder what Mr. Davis would have thought of this!!

Person Davis, from the "Representative Men of Somerville".

Hurieosco Austill (1841-1912)

    A state senator, businessman and military figure from Alabama, Hurieosco Austill was born in Mobile on February 16, 1841, being the son of Colonel Jeremiah (1794-1881) and Margaret Eads Austill (1805-1890). Huriesoco attended the University of Alabama during his youth and after graduating from this institution in the class of 1861 enlisted in the Confederate Army's First Alabama Battery of Artillery. During his military service Austill rose from second lieutenant to Captain, and after receiving a minor injury in battle was captured at Fort Morgan. He was subsequently held as a prisoner of war until the close of the hostilities.
    After the war's conclusion Austill returned home to Mobile and recuperated before beginning the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1868 and shortly thereafter entered upon practice in Mobile, operating here until his death forty years later. Austill married in December 1873 to Aurora Roberta Ervin (1853-1928) and later became the father to three children, Margaret (born 1874), Robert Ervin (born 1878), Jennie Fee (born 1882), Hurieosco Jr. (born 1884), Aileen (born 1888) and Jere (born 1890).
   Beginning in 1874 Austill served a six year term as the Chancellor of the Southern Division of Alabama. In 1880 he made his first entry into politics, being elected as one of Mobile's representatives to the Alabama General Assembly. He served two years in the lower house of the legislature before being elected to the Alabama state Senate in 1882, again representing Mobile. His term in the senate concluded in 1886.
   Following the conclusion of his senate term in 1886 Austill spent the remainder of his life engaged in railroad work, being one of the founders of the Mobile and West Alabama Railroad. He would later serve as the president of the Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City Railroad for a time. Austill died on July 3, 1912 at age 71 and was subsequently interred at the Spring Hill Graveyard in Mobile, Alabama. The rare portrait of him shown above was taken at the Alabama Division of United Confederate Veterans meeting that was held in Macon, Georgia around 1910. 
   As with many of the individuals that will eventually be posted here,  it is unknown where Austill's unique first name originated from.

Sophronius Stocking Landt (1842-1926)

From the Watertown, Wisconsin News, January 23, 1895.

   This curiously named man is Sophronius Stocking Landt, a soldier, teacher, and one-term member of the Wisconsin state assembly. He was born in the small village of Aztalan, Wisconsin on November 1, 1842, being the son of Frederick and Anna Edwards Landt. The Landt family would remove from Aztalan to Big Spring, Wisconsin when their son was seven, and Sophronius would reside in that town until the late 1870s.
   Sophronius received his education in the common schools of Adams County and later began attending the Brunson Institute in Point Bluff. Landt eventually left his studies at the aforementioned institute in 1861, signing on for military service in Company D of the Tenth Wisconsin Infantry. His service extended until November 1864, and the 1895 Wisconsin Blue Book notes that Landt participated in many major engagements during the course of the war, including Stone River, Lookout Mountain, Perryville, Chickamauga, and the siege of Atlanta in 1864. 
   Landt was mustered out of service in November 1864 and in September of the following year married Margaret "Maggie" Wilber (1843-1917), with whom he had five children. In the decades following his military service, Landt moved to the town of Friendship, where he engaged in farming and teaching. He held local political office as township clerk and later relocated to Packwaukee, where he partnered in a mercantile firm with B.E. Willer. In 1886 he was elected as the Treasurer of Adams County, serving in this post until 1892. In 1889 Landt was selected by then-Wisconsin Governor William D. Hoard as Wisconsin's delegate to the Farmer's National Congress that was to be held in Montgomery, Alabama.

                                                                        Sophronius S. Landt

   In November 1894 the citizens of Adams and Marquette county elected Sophronius S. Landt to the Wisconsin State Assembly, besting Democratic nominee William Risk by a vote of 2416 to that of 1139. During his term (which extended from 1895-97) Landt served on the committees on Agriculture and Labor & Manufacture. Following his time in state government Landt was named as Superintendent of Schools at Sparta, Wisconsin (holding that post for four years), and in 1897 was hit with allegations of stealing, extending from his time as Adams County Treasurer. In October of that year, Landt was arrested on charges of an "alleged shortage of $900 in accounts" by then Adams County sheriff Harry Barrett and was subsequently taken to Adams County.

  Following his arrest, Landt asked to be "relieved" of his position as superintendent, and explained that he had "receipts from the county in full for the settlement of all balances found against him." The Adams County board launched an investigation that extended through most of November, and by November 22 he had been found innocent of the charges leveled against him. In a Marinette Eagle column published November 22nd, the charges of malfeasance had been an attempt to injure Landt politically, and had been orchestrated by "his political enemies."

From the Wisconsin State Journal, Nov. 22, 1897.

  With the charges dismissed by the Adams County district attorney and county board, Landt returned to his duties as Sparta school superintendent, continuing in that post into April 1899. Following a stint as superintendent of the Waupun state prison farm, Landt and his wife removed to Herman, Minnesota in 1911, where he became manager of a creamery, according to his obituary published in the Waukesha Daily Freeman. He died in Herman on October 12, 1926, at the age of 83. He was preceded in death by his wife Maggie in 1917, and both were interred at the Big Spring Cemetery in Big Spring, Wisconsin. Interestingly, Landt kept a diary of his life that extended from his Civil War service until his death, and the results of this diary were published in book form under the title Your Country Calls, decades after his death. 

                       Landt's obituary from the Waukesha Freeman, published on Oct. 16. 1926.

Hieronymus Englemann (1844-1918)

The home of Hieronymus Englemann in Warren Township, Michigan.

    A member of the Michigan State Legislature for one term in the late 1880s, Hieronymus Englemann was a native of Germany before his relocation to the United States whilst still a child. Born in the province of Baden, Wurttemburg, on September 29, 1844, Hieronymus Engelmann was the second of two sons born to Baden natives Jakob and Charitas Anselm Engelmann. The Engelmann family immigrated to the United States when Hieronymus was three and established a home in Macomb County, Michigan. The family's last name has a variation in spelling, being given as both  "Englemann" and "Engelmann".
   Little could be found on Englemann's early years in Michigan. During the Civil War he enlisted as a member of Company I in the Third Michigan Infantry, and after returning home from military service began attending college in Milwaukee for about four years. In 1872 he took an extended trip through Europe to improve his health, traveling "through Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, France and England." Englemann married in the mid-1870s to Margaret Hassett, with whom he would have one daughter, Agnes Rose Englemann (1876-1942), later a resident of Grosse Point, Michigan.
   Hieronymus Englemann first entered public service in 1875, when he was appointed as Center Line, Michigan's postmaster, the inaugural holder of that post. He would serve in this capacity for nearly a decade and in 1884 ran for a seat in the Michigan State House of Representatives on the Fusion Party ticket.  He would go on to defeat Republican candidate Alexander Grant by a vote of 1428 to 1230, and upon his victory resigned the office of postmaster to "become an eligible member of the house"
   As one of two representatives from Macomb County, Englemann served in the legislature from 1885-1887 and held a seat on the house committees on Horticulture and the State Library. Following the conclusion of his term in 1887 little could be found on the remainder of Englemann's life. He died on March 6, 1918, at age 74 and was interred under a small headstone at the St. Clement Cemetery in Center Line, Michigan. No photograph or portrait of Mr. Englemann could be found to post at the time of this writing. 

You Can Help!

  I am currently seeking more information (as well as a possible photograph of) Hieronymus Englemann. As there is a dearth of information online in regard to this curiously named man, I'd like to take this time to plead for help on finding further details on him. If any reader or historian wants an interesting historical project to fill their time with, see what you can locate on this very obscure Michigan politician!

Eugenius Aristides Nisbet (1803-1871), Eugenius Wilson Davis (1832-1925)

                                                                              Portrait courtesy of Find-a-Grave.

    A U.S. Representative from Georgia and member of that state's supreme court, the uniquely named Eugenius Aristides Nisbet was born on December 7, 1803, in Greene County, the son of James and Penelope Cooper Nisbet. As a youth Eugenius attended the Powleton Academy in Hancock County and later went on to attend the University of Georgia at Athens, graduating from there in 1821. Following his graduation, he began the study of law in Litchfield, Connecticut, and after returning home applied to the Georgia state legislature to admit him to the state bar by a special action (as he was under 21 years of age). The legislature would grant Nisbet's request and soon afterward commenced the practice of law at Madison, Georgia.
  In 1824 Nisbet married Amanda Melvin Fitzgerald Battle, with whom he had twelve children over twenty-three years. Three years after his marriage, Nisbet was elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives, serving until 1830. In the last year of his assembly term, Nisbet was elected to his first term in the state senate and would serve a total of seven years in that body.
   Eugenius A. Nisbet moved to Macon, Georgia in 1836, and in that same year launched a candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives. He would lose that election but made a second congressional run in 1838, this time winning with a total of 31,841 votes. Nisbet would win reelection to the House in March of 1841 and served until October 12th of that year, when he resigned, citing "a growing distaste of political life."

                                                          Nisbet after his congressional service.

   After he resigned from Congress, Nisbet returned to the practice of law and in 1845 was named as one of the first three judges on the newly established Georgia State Supreme Court. His judicial service concluded in 1853 and at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 sided with the Confederacy. Nisbet became a member of Georgia's secession convention, and is remarked as having "drew the original resolutions dissolving the state of Georgia with the American Union". He would briefly serve in the Confederate Provisional legislature and in 1861  launched a campaign for Governor of Georgia, being defeated by incumbent Governor (and later Senator) Joseph Emerson Brown (1821-1894), garnering 32,802 votes to Brown's 46, 493.
   In one of his last acts of public service, Nisbet served as a trustee of his Alma mater (the University of Georgia at Athens) from 1864 until he died in Macon, Georgia on March 18, 1871. He was preceded in death by his wife Amanda, who had died aged 60 in May 1865. Both were interred at the Rose Hill Cemetery, located in Macon, Georgia.

   In a short addendum to this article, in December 2011 another politician was discovered that has the given name Eugenius. That man is Eugenius Wilson Davis, an Indiana resident who served two terms in his state's house of representatives from La Porte County.
   Davis was born in Monongalia County, West Virginia on December 20, 1832, being the son of Caleb and Sarah Wagner Davis. The Davis family removed to Indiana in the year following his birth, and here young Eugenius attended school in a log cabin during the wintertime. He would spend his adolescence studying to become a teacher, as well as working on the family farm. Davis's teaching career would extend into the 1850s and over the course of his life grew to be a very prominent landowner in Indiana, and at the time of his death is recorded as being the owner of several hundred acres of land in Galena Township.
   Davis married in LaPorte County in 1853 to Betsey Ann Barnes (1835-1918), a native of Onondaga County, New York. The couple were wed for over sixty years and had three children born to their union, Arthur C. (killed in a woodworking accident in 1896), Frances E. (birthdate unknown), and a child that died in infancy.
   It was in 1881 that Davis first entered the field of politics, winning election to the Indiana State House of Representatives. He served two terms in the state house, the last of which concluded in 1885. Following his time in state government, Davis became active in banking, and in 1915 was named as the President of the LaPorte Savings Bank. He served as its head until his retirement in 1919 at age 87. Eugenius Davis enjoyed his retirement for nearly six more years, dying at age 92 on April 22, 1925,  He was survived by his wife Betsey and was later interred at the Pine Lake Cemetery in LaPorte.

Anaximander Warner (1784-1843)

                              Warner's name as it appeared in the "Officers of Washington County, Ohio."


   This obscure individual is Anaximander (also spelled Anaxamander) Warner, an early citizen of Washington County, Ohio. He was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts on November 3, 1784, being the son of Thomas and Huldah Lazell Warner. The main reason Warner is included here on the site is his service as an Associate Justice on the Washington County Court of Common Pleas. His tenure on that court lasted for six years (1824-1830) and is in all likelihood the only public office he held. 
  Warner married in 1810 in Marietta, Ohio to Lucretia Porter and the couple would later become parents to an impressive number of offspring, 16 children in all!! They are listed as follows: Sara Porter (born 1811), Arthur Wellesley (1813-1887), Jackson (born 1815), Putnam Porter (born 1816), Ebenezer (1818-1911), Thomas White (1819-1849), John Mayberry (1821), Lucretia (born 1822), Mary Zipporah (1826-1919), Robert Raikes (1829-1830), Olivia C. (born 1831), Clarina Elizabeth (1832-1898), Dudley Woodbridge (born 1834), Daniel Woodbridge (born 1834),  Lucretia M. (born 1836) and Lyman Beecher Warner (1838-1918).
   Little else is known about Anaximander Warner, other than his judgeship and his service as a Masonic Grand Master in Marietta, Ohio. It is known that Warner died May 31, 1843 in Washington County at the age of 59, a burial location for him being unknown at this time.

Xenophon Overton Pindall (1873-1935), Xenophon Pierce Wilfley (1871-1931), Xenophon Cassius Wheeler (1904-1993), Xenophon Jacob Pindall (1835-1905), Xenophon Wheeler (1835-1914), Xenophon Ryland (1844-1920)

From the 1909 Arkansas Office of the Secretary of State Report.

   An unusually named Arkansas political figure, Xenophon Overton "X.O." Pindall served terms in both houses of the Arkansas legislature and reached his highest degree of political notoriety in 1907 when he took office as Governor of Arkansas. A native of Missouri, Xenophon Overton Pindall was born on August 21, 1873, in the town Middle Grove, the son of Lebbeus Aaron (1834-1915) and Elnorah Snell Pindall. An oddly named figure in his own right, Lebbeus A. Pindall also attained political prominence, serving two terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives from Desha County. As an adolescent X.O. Pindall attended both the Missouri Military Academy and the Central College of Missouri. In 1896 he earned his law degree from the University of Arkansas and soon after established his practice in his new home state.
  In December 1902 Pindall married in Desha County to Mae Quilling, to who he was wed until his death. The couple would remain childless. In the same year as his marriage, Pindall won election to the Arkansas State House of Representatives from Desha County and would win a second term in November 1904. The 1905-07 session saw Pindall named to the following committees: the Judiciary, Levees, the Militia, Rules, and the State Capitol.

  In early 1906 Pindall announced his candidacy for state Attorney General but lost out at the polls in that year's Democratic primary. Not one to let a loss get the best of him, he later became a candidate for the Arkansas State Senate in 1906 and was elected, taking his seat in early 1907. Early in his tenure, Pindall introduced legislation that established the McGee school district in Desha County, as well as a bill to organize a drainage district in the Laconia Circle area of Desha County.

  Fate intervened in the life of X.O. Pindall in February 1907, when incumbent Governor John Sebastian Little suffered a nervous breakdown one month after being inaugurated. He would resign shortly thereafter and the president of the senate, John Isaac Moore, succeeded to the post of acting Arkansas governor. Moore's time as governor concluded with the end of the legislative session that May, and following Moore's ascension to the governorship, Pindall had been elected as Senate President. By virtue of that office, Pindall became Governor of the state.

From the 1903 Arkansas legislature composite photograph.

  Although technically acting governor from 1907-09, Pindall managed to create a lasting piece of legislation during his time in office, that being the creation of the Ozark National Forest. He is also mentioned in the 1995 edition of the Governors of Arkansas: Essays in Political Biography as taking "special pride in the enactment of a pure food and drug law, the imposition of a franchise tax on foreign corporations, and the passage of a measure designed to prevent price discrimination".  
   Pindall's short tenure in office concluded in 1909 and he soon returned to his previous career as a criminal attorney in Little Rock. He reemerged on the political scene in 1912 when he launched another candidacy for state attorney general, but would lose out in the Democratic primary that March.

  The life of this oddly named Arkansas governor came to end in unusual circumstances on January 2, 1935, when Pindall fell from a railroad embankment while taking a walk near the Arkansas River. He subsequently struck his head on a pile of rocks during the course of the fall and then landed in "a steam exhaust pool near a power plant." Pindall was 61 years of age at the time of his death and was interred at the Rose Lawn Memorial Park in Little Rock following his death. His wife Mae survived him by nearly forty years, dying at age 94 in March 1972 in Little Rock. Far from a forgotten figure in Arkansas history, Pindall's brick law office in Arkansas City was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

                    This article on Pindall's death was featured in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 1935.

From the Monroe City Democrat, June 14, 1918.

   A Missouri-based attorney, Xenophon Pierce Wilfley served as an interim U.S. Senator from that state in 1918. He was born near Mexico, Missouri on March 18, 1871, the son of James Franklin (1835-1886) and Sarah Rebecca (Pindall) Wilfley (1840-1921). In an intriguing tidbit, Sarah Pindall Wilfley's brother was none other than Lebbeus Aaron Pindall, the father of the previously profiled Xenophon Overton Pindall. This marks the first instance of curiously named cousins being profiled here, and it's fascinating that two "Xenophons" from the same family were elected to political office around the same period! Wilfley would receive his unusual first name in honor of his mother's brother, Xenophon Jacob Pindall (1835-1905), a Confederate lieutenant colonel. Xenophon J. Pindall would attain political prominence of his own in Arkansas, serving as Desha County Judge in the late 1870s and was elected to one term in the state senate in 1876.
  Descended from a family with roots in the United States dating back to the mid-17th century, Wilfley's formative years were spent on his family's farm in Audrain County, and at age three was afflicted with rheumatism. This disease was later compounded by "necrosis of the bone", with Wilfley's legs being "seriously affected by his early sicknesses." During his childhood, he was shuffled between various physicians in the hope of curing the disease and would find relief after being taken to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where the therapeutic waters "arrested the dread disease." Following his stay in Hot Springs, young Xenophon "throve immensely" and was able to abandon the crutches he'd previously been forced to use. Wilfley's battle with rheumatism was given an extensive mention in the Monroe City Democrat and the Ripley County Democrat after he'd entered the U.S. Senate.
   Xenophon Wilfley's early education was obtained at a school located on his family's farm and also attended a district school. At age sixteen he enrolled at Clarksburg College and at age nineteen began study at the Central College in Fayette, where he excelled at debating. After graduating Wilfley returned to Central College to teach mathematics for a year and also taught at the Sedalia High School. Desiring to pursue a career in law, Wilfley entered the Washington University Law School in St. Louis, where he earned his degree to practice law in 1899. He entered practice in St. Louis that same year and for a time practiced law with his brother Lebbeus Redman Wilfley.

From the Mexico Weekly Ledger, May 2, 1918.

   Xenophon Wilfley married in Missouri in October 1908 to Rosamund Guthrie (1885-1980). The couple were wed until Xenophon died in 1931 and had two daughters, Mary Ellen (born ca. 1913) and Rosamund Wilfley Neilson (1920-2006).
  A confirmed non-office holder for a good majority of his life, Wilfley entered politics in 1917 when he became the Chairman of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, serving one year in that post. The next year Wilfley was appointed by Governor Frederick Gardner to the U.S. Senate, this vacant seat being occasioned by the death of three-term Missouri senator William Joel Stone (1848-1918). Despite having virtually no experience in politics, Wilfley's ascension to the senate was widely lauded in newspapers of the period, with the Mexico Weekly Ledger remarking:

"Mr. Wilfley's appointment is acceptable to the people of the state because he is a clean, able, vigorous young man, unhampered by the friendships and enmities of office holding or the traditions of practical politics...he has won an enviable place at the bar by force of character and a high order of ability. He, therefore, represents not only St. Louis, but Missouri as well."

  Wilfley took his seat on April 30, 1918, and served until November 5 of that same year. During his brief tenure, Wilfley chaired the Committee on Industrial Expositions and in August 1918 entered the Democratic state primary in a bid to keep his senate year. On August 6th Wilfley was defeated by former Governor Joseph W. Folk, who polled 107,690 votes to Wilfley's 80,009. Folk would go on to lose the general election that November to Republican Selden Pratt Spencer, a former circuit judge.
  After leaving the senate, Wilfley returned to his law practice and served as President of the Missouri State Bar Association in 1925. He died in St. Louis on May 4, 1931, at age 59. He was survived by his wife and daughters and was interred at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Bel-Noir, Missouri. In an addendum to this article, Xenophon Wilfley's brother Lebbeus Redman Wilfley (1866-1926) will also be profiled here at a future date, as he served as Attorney General of the Philippines (when it was under U.S. jurisdiction), and as a judge.

                             Wilfley as he appeared in a 1918 edition of the Ogden Times newspaper. 

From the Burlington Free Press, August 26, 1993.

  Long an agricultural leader in Chittenden County, Vermont, Xenophon Cassius Wheeler had political involvement beginning in the 1930s with his election to the Vermont House of Representatives, where he served for one term. Born in Fairfax, Vermont on December 24, 1904, Xenophon Cassius "Xen" Wheeler was the son of William and Fanny Wheeler. His youth was spent on the family's 165-acre farm, and is noted in a 1982 edition of the Rutland Daily Herald as having "hulled milk from Bolton to Richmond." 

  In the early 1920s, Wheeler left Vermont for a brief residency in Oregon, where he worked in lumber camps and farmed. He returned to Vermont in 1927, and in November 1932 married  Irene York (1902-1994). The couple's sixty-one-year marriage produced two daughters, Barbara and Doris. Through the succeeding years, Wheeler built up a reputation as a leading Chittenden County farmer, owning and operating three dairy farms, keeping thousands of laying hens, and also grew potatoes. In addition to his farms, Wheeler established Richmond Farm Supply in Richmond, a store that sold hardware, grains, fertilizer, and John Deer farming products. A seventy-five-year veteran of the Vermont Farm Bureau, Wheeler's long career was highlighted in his 1993 Burlington Free Press obituary, which remarked:

"He was widely respected for his business acumen and much sought after by local dairymen for his advice, counsel, and encouragement."

  Active in local politics in the town of Bolton, Wheeler served that town for 21 years as its selectman and was a justice of the peace. In November 1934 he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives and during the 1935-37 session sat as a member of the committee on Claims.

Xenophon and Irene Wheeler, from the Rutland Daily Herald, November 7, 1982.

  In the years following his term Wheeler continued to improve his farm and enjoyed his favorite pastimes, hunting and fishing. Later, he took up golf, and in 1984 undertook an extensive project: transforming his 140-acre farm into a golf course. The project, when completed, became home to the 18-hole West Bolton Golf Course. Wheeler further solidified his name in the Bolton community when he established the Wheeler Scholarship Fund, and shortly before his death n 1993 helped complete Wheeler Field in Bolton, which became home to Little League baseball games.

  After decades of service to the Chittenden County community, Xenophon C. Wheeler died at his West Bolton home on August 24, 1993, aged 89. He was survived by his wife Irene, who, following here death in 1994 was interred alongside him at the West Bolton Cemetery.

Xenophon J. Pindall, from the 1877 Arkansas state senate composite photo.

  Briefly mentioned in the preceding profile, Xenophon Jacob Pindall was the uncle of both Xenophon O. Pindall and Xenophon P. Wilfley, and attained political distinction of his own, serving as a state senator and judge. The son of Evan Shelby and Drusilla (Barker) Pindall, Xenophon J. Pindall was born in Monongalia County, Virginia on August 13, 1835. 

  Pindall's education was obtained at the Laurel Point School, located on his family's plantation. Prior to his teens he had developed an interest in stock raising and dealing on his family's farm, a pastime that occasionally interfered with his studies. The Pindall family left Virginia for Missouri in 1853 and settled in Monroe County. Here Pindall began reading law in 1855, and in 1858 was admitted to the state bar. He began practice in Monroe County and later moved his firm to the town of Bloomington, where he remained until 1861. 

  At the outbreak of the Civil War Pindall sided with Confederacy and enlisted in the 2nd Brigade, Missouri State Guard. He would see action under General Sterling Price at the Battle of Oak Hill and was subsequently elected as second lieutenant in Poindexter's Company. Following Price's invasion of Lexington, Kentucky in September 1861 Pindall was made Lieutenant Colonel and was later mustered out in May 1862. He re-enlisted in the Confederate Army shortly thereafter and was made major and quartermaster in the brigade under John Sappington Marmaduke, where he served until the war's conclusion.

  Desiring to return to practicing law, Pindall relocated to Desha County, Arkansas in 1866 and, after settling in the town of Napoleon, formed a partnership with his younger brother Lebbeus (1834-1885). Xenophon J. Pindall married in August 1868 to Sinah Anna Mariah Hootsell (1839-1899), to whom he was wed for thirty years. The couple had six children.

  In 1872 Pindall was elected as one of Desha County's representatives to the Arkansas state legislature and served in the session of 1873-74. During his term, he chaired the judiciary committee and resigned in July 1874, having been elected as a delegate to the state constitutional convention. 1874 proved to be an important year for Pindall, and in the latter part of that year was elected to the state senate from the 15th senatorial district. He would serve two terms in that body (1875-79), and chaired both the finance and judiciary committees.

  Xenophon J. Pindall continued his political rise in October 1878 when he was elected as a judge for Arkansas's 11th judicial circuit. He served a four-year term and by 1884 had removed back to Mexico, Missouri, where in March 1885 served as a delegate to the city democratic convention. For two years he operated a joint law practice with local judge W.H. Kennan, and following the death of his brother Lebbeus returned to Arkansas to tend to his brother's estate. Widowed in 1899, Pindall remained in Dumas, Arkansas until his death on April 13, 1905, at age 69. He was later returned to Missouri for burial at the Elmwood Cemetery in Mexico.

From the History of Hamilton County and Chattanooga, Tennessee, Vol. 1, 1931.

  Another recent discovery (as of January 2012) is Xenophon Wheeler, a prominent Tennessee attorney. Wheeler was born in Licking County, Ohio on February 19, 1835, the son of Salmon and Gillian Wheeler. Following study at Oberlin College Wheeler attended Yale University, where he earned his degree in 1860.
   After graduating Yale Wheeler studied law in New York City and in October 1861 enlisted in the Union Army in Ohio. He served with distinction with the 67th Reg., Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was seriously wounded at the Battle of Winchester, Virginia in March 1862. After a period of recuperation, he raised a company of men and reenlisted in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry's 129th Regiment, with which he served through the remainder of the war. 
  Having been admitted to practice law in Ohio during his recuperation from battle, Wheeler married in 1863 to Amanda Elizabeth Knowlton, who predeceased him in 1887. He and his wife relocated to Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1865, and after establishing roots in that city joined the law firm of Stanley and Henderson. Wheeler's name would later be added to the firm's title, and following its dissolve entered into a partnership with attorney W.S. Wilson, which continued into the 1890s.  
  Xenophon Wheeler entered the political life of his adopted home state in 1878 when he received the Republican nomination for U.S. Representative from Tennessee's 3rd congressional district. He would go down to defeat in the November general election, losing out to two-term Democratic incumbent George Gibbs Dibrell (1822-1888). Despite this loss, Wheeler rebounded politically the next year when he was appointed as United States District Attorney for Tennessee's Eastern District, serving in that capacity until 1883. After leaving office he'd be elected president of the Tennessee State Bar Association in 1884, serving until 1885.
   Xenophon Wheeler is noted as having a profound impact on the development of Chattanooga as a municipality. A founding organizer of the Chattanooga State Bank, he became a prime mover behind the creation of the first library in the city and served as its inaugural president. In addition to his civic doings in Chattanooga, Wheeler served a twenty-one-year stint as trustee of the University of Tennessee (1892-1913). Widowed in 1887, he remarried to Elizabeth Whitman Brown in 1890, who survived him upon his death on January 31, 1914.

   Next up is Missouri resident Xenophon Ryland, who served as a Democratic Presidential elector and probate judge for that state. Little could be found on Mr. Ryland except the following. He was born in Lexington, Missouri on June 1, 1844, the son of John and Elizabeth (Buford) Ryland. He attended college at the Old Masonic College in Lexington and served with the Union Army during the Civil War.

  A prominent Mason in Missouri, Ryland entered the order at an early age and served as Master of the Lafayette Lodge No. 32 in 1869 and 1870. He was accorded numerous honors by the Masonic fraternity during his life, including being named as Most Excellent Grand High Priest in 1873 and later as a Grand High Priest of Missouri. He married in 1866 to Caroline Foster Ford (1841-1900), to whom he was wed for over thirty years. The couple had seven children.

  Ryland's political claim to fame rests on his service as a Democratic Presidential Elector for Missouri in 1880. Two years later he was appointed as Probate Judge of Lafayette County and was elected to two further terms on the bench. His later years were spent in church work as a Presbyterian minister, having been ordained by the Southern Presbyterian Church of Missouri in 1892.

  Widowed in 1900, Ryland remarried in 1907 to Effie Lee Mason, who survived him upon his death in Higginsville, Missouri on October 26, 1920. He was interred alongside his first wife Caroline at the Machpelah Cemetery in Lexington.