From the Virginia House of Delegates composite, 1934-35.
Another curiously named Virginia state delegate discovered recently, Squire Merriman Chitwood represented the counties of Franklin, Bedford, and Lloyd in the state house of delegates for six consecutive terms, and had earlier held local political office, being a justice of the peace and school board chairman. Born in Rocky Mount, Virginia on September 14, 1868, Squire Merriman Chitwood was the son of Henry Clay and Gillie Anne Divers Chitwood. A student in the Franklin County public schools, Chitwood would later attend the Hale Academy in that county.
For a five year period, Chitwood followed a teaching career in Franklin County and in June 1906 married to Blanche English, who predeceased him in 1931. The couple was childless, and two years after his wife's death remarried to Wilhelmina Jones (1899-1982), who was thirty years his junior. Despite their substantial age gap, the couple had one son, Squire Merriman Jr., who died in infancy in 1938. One should also note that Chitwood became a father for the first time at age 70!
Beginning in 1904 Squire Chitwood worked for the U.S. Postal service as a rural letter carrier, continuing along that route until 1917. During this employ, he operated a farm in Franklin County as well as a mercantile store, "meeting with a well-merited measure of success" in both. Active in church work, Chitwood was for many years a Sunday school teacher and a church board member in the local Christian church.
Prior to his election to the legislature, Chitwood occupied several local political offices, being a delegate to multiple Democratic state conventions, a justice of the peace, and chairman of the Franklin County school board. First elected to the state house of delegates in November 1931, Chitwood's service in the 1932-34 session saw him named to the committees on Enrolled Bills, Immigration, Schools and Colleges, and General Laws.
From the 1938-39 Virginia House of Delegates composite.
Proving to be popular with his constituency, Squire M. Chitwood would subsequently win reelection to five further terms in the legislature in 1933, 1935, 1937, 1939, and 1941. In his final years in the legislature, Chitwood chaired the house committee on Enrolled Bills and from 1940-44 was chairman of the General Laws committee. Chitwood died in Rocky Mount on March 2, 1951, aged 82, and was survived by his second wife Wilhelmina. Both were interred at the High Street Cemetery in Rocky Mount.
from the Bar and Bench of Ramsey County, St. Paul Dispatch Souvenir Edition, 1892.
Another "Squire" who made his name known through public service is Squire Littell Pierce, a Buckeye State native who was elected to the post of Prosecuting Attorney for two different counties, those being in Indiana and Minnesota. Born in Trenton, Ohio on March 6, 1832, Pierce studied at Furmen's Seminary in Hamilton, Ohio, and, after deciding upon a career as an attorney began reading law in the office of M.B. Chadwick in Eaton, Ohio. Admitted to practice in 1853, Pierce left the state of his birth for a new life in Indiana and soon settled into practice in Wabash County.
Squire Pierce made his first foray into politics in 1854, serving as a delegate to that year's Democratic congressional convention held in Marion. That same year saw Pierce elected as prosecuting attorney for Wabash County, serving in that capacity for an indeterminate length of time. Just twenty-two years old at the time of his election, Pierce would marry the following year to Mary J. Adams, to whom he was wed until her death in 1899. The couple had at least seven children, including a daughter, Nina, recorded as the first white child to be born in Wasioja, Minnesota. Following Mary Pierce's death, Squire remarried later that year to Alice Bunker (1854-1925), who survived him.
Pierce's stay in Indiana proved to be shortlived, and in the year after his marriage, he and his wife moved to Dodge County, Minnesota. Settling in the town of Wasioja, Pierce established a law practice and in the late 1850s was elected Judge of Probate for Dodge County. Pierce is recorded as having turned down that office but did return to political service in 1860 when he was elected to the first of two terms as Prosecuting Attorney for Dodge County. He would refuse nomination for a third term in office and later lived in Mantorville, where for a period he was involved in newspaper work, being editor and publisher of the Mantorville Express.
Squire L. Pierce in old age.
In 1872 Squire and Mary Pierce removed to St. Paul, Minnesota, where Pierce practiced law until ill health necessitated his retirement in 1900. For three years, he resided in Wood Falls, Minnesota, and in 1904 returned to Dodge County, where he emerged from retirement to again take up a law practice. Pierce died in Wasioja on September 12, 1918, aged 86, and was buried alongside his first wife at the Oakland Cemetery in St. Paul.
No comments:
Post a Comment