Mayo Smith Purple (1860-1942), Mayo Cabell Brown (1874-1936)

From the East Hampton News, February 12, 1937.

  The name would be Mayo Purple. If that name conjured up images of a large jar of purple mayonnaise, you are not alone! Possessing a name that's guaranteed to give you a case of the giggles, Mayo Smith Purple served his first term in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1885 and is recorded as the youngest man to serve in that session of the legislature. Purple would be returned to government service nearly 50 years later for another stint in the legislature, this time serving four consecutive terms. The son of John Percival and Marian (Markham) Purple, Mayo Smith Purple was born on July 28, 1860, in Haddam Neck, Connecticut.

  Purple's early life saw him attain a limited education. He attended the East Greenwich Academy in Rhode Island until age thirteen and was later briefly tutored at the Wesleyan Univerity in Middletown. He would leave his studies behind to work on his family's farm, "dropping corn and hoeing corn" and later took employment at the Tibbals Company general store in Cobalt, Connecticut. After attaining maturity Purple and a fellow worker, Harvey Brainerd purchased the store and continued operations under the name Brainerd and Purple. After purchasing his partner's interest, Purple entered the lumber industry, selling lumber to brickyards in Haverstraw, Rockland County, New York. This business later foundered when an employee absconded with $6,000 worth of lumber, forcing Purple out of business.

   In the mid-1890s Purple joined the Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Co. of East Hampton, a bell foundry that still exists today. Purple's first years with the company saw him as a chore boy, tending a smelting furnace on company property. He would serve with that business for over three decades and following a stint as company secretary "assisted in the reorganization" of the Gong Bell Manufacturing Company, a bell and toy manufacturer also located in East Hampton. Purple would subsequently serve as that company's president for over two decades, and in addition to the above offices held the presidency of the Watrous Manufacturing Company, was the manager and treasurer of the East Hampton Bell Company, and in the mid-1920s served as the treasurer of the Bevins and Wilcox Line Company.

  Mayo S. Purple married in April 1883 to Gettine Louise Arnold (1861-1935), a resident of Haddam Neck. The couple's fifty-one-year marriage saw the births of four sons, Nelson Arnold (died in infancy), Norman William (1887-1946), Ansel Arnold (1892-1967), and Nathaniel Markham (1903-1987).

From the East Hampton News, October 2, 1942.

  One year after his marriage Mayo Purple made his first foray into Connecticut politics, winning election to the state house of representatives in November 1884. Taking his seat at the start of the 1885-86 session, Purple is acknowledged as the youngest man to serve in that session, being just 24 years old at the time of his election. This term saw him sit on the committee on the Sale of Lands and was also acting postmaster of Cobalt, Connecticut during his term. One should also note that Purple had some oddly named company during this session, his fellow representatives being Eleazur Bingham Kingsbury, Peleg Sherman Barber, and Victory Clark Beers (1832-1920), the last named being profiled on this site in July 2011.

  After leaving office in 1886 Purple returned to his earlier mentioned business dealings and through the succeeding years held several local political posts, serving as a registrar of voters for Chatham in 1899 and in 1919 served as East Haddam's commissioner for the superior court for Middlesex County. In November 1932 Purple won a second term in the Connecticut legislature, 48 years after his first. Garnering 684 votes on election day, Purple served on the committee on Manufactures during the 1933-35 session and was elected as a Democrat, having quit the Republican party after fifty years in July 1932. In a small write-up on his change of political faith featured in the East Hampton News, Purple remarked that

"He had been dissatisfied with the actions and policies of the Republican Town committee for some time and that it was only a ''square deal'' for himself to quit the party."

From the East Hampton News, July 15, 1932.

  In November 1934 Purple won a third term in the statehouse and was elected to his fourth term in 1936. The 1937-38 term saw him as the dean of the house, being the oldest man serving in that session, and this session also saw him come out as one of four Democrats opposed to President Franklin Roosevelt's court-packing plan. Purple won his fifth and last house term in 1938 and during the 1939-40 term sat on the committees on Humane Institutions and Public Health and Safety.

  After leaving office in 1940 Mayo Purple followed his favorite leisure activities (hunting and fishing) until health concerns forced him to become housebound. He celebrated his 81st birthday in July 1941 (being honored on the front page of the East Hampton News) and kept up to date with town affairs via newspapers, radio, and friends. Mayo Smith Purple died at his East Hampton home on September 29, 1942, aged 82. His wife Gettine had predeceased him in 1937 and he was later interred alongside her at the Lakeview Cemetery in East Hampton.  

From the East Hampton News, July 25, 1941.

From the 1919 Virginia House of Delegates composite.

   Another "Mayo" that made his name known in politics is Mayo Cabell Brown, a two-term member of the Virginia House of Delegates from Lynchburg. Born on February 17, 1874, in Nelson County, Virginia, Mayo Cabell Brown was the son of Robert Lawrence and Margaret Balwin (Cabell) Brown. Brown's early education took place in Osage City, Kansas, a private school in Charles Town, Virginia, and the Episcopal High School in Alexandria.

  After deciding upon a career in law, Brown studied at the University of Virginia, earning his law degree in the class of 1904. Soon afterward he opened a law practice and prior to his legislative service was the chairman of the Lynchburg draft board during World War I. Brown entered the political life of his state in 1919 when he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates to fill a vacancy occasioned by the death of sitting representative Preston H. Bailey. Brown's first term in the legislature saw him named to the committees on Claims; Finance; Military and Police; and Special, Private, and Local Legislation. He was returned to the statehouse for a second term, and from 1922-23 served on the committees on Militia and Police, and Moral and Social Welfare.

  Little is known of Brown's life following his legislative service, except that he remained a lifelong bachelor and by 1928 was serving a prison term for embezzlement! The particulars of the case as reported in the Roanoke World News note that:

"Brown, acting as an attorney for the Y.M.C.A., was entrusted with a check for $2,275.30 payable to him to settle a judgement against the association in a a suit for an automobile accident. It was charged that Brown used the funds for his personal uses."

 The events surrounding Brown's alleged malfeasance continued to snowball through 1928, with an order to revoke his law license being handed down by Judge Frank Christian of the Lynchburg Corporation Court. In June Brown (by then disbarred)  was indicted by a grand jury, and on June 12, 1928, pleaded guilty to embezzlement in the Lynchburg corporation court. He was handed a five-year prison sentence and was shortly thereafter taken to a Richmond prison to serve out his term.

From the Norfolk Ledger Star, June 12, 1928.

  No newspaper reports could be found detailing Brown's time in jail. He died sometime in 1936 and was later interred at the Riverside Cemetery in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Woodville Carthon Haythe (1905-1956)

Portrait from the West Virginia Blue Book, 1934.

   West Virginia attorney and state delegate Woodville Carthon Haythe is another Mountain State political figure who lacked length of years, dying at age 50 in 1956 following a business trip to Ohio. During his short life, Haythe rose to become a leading attorney in Charleston and in addition to his political doings was a veteran of WWII, serving two tours with the U.S. Marine Corps. Born on June 4, 1905, in Hinton, West Virginia, Woodville C. Haythe was the son of Woodville Vincent and Cora Lee (Mitchell) Haythe. 

   A student in the public schools of Summers County, Haythe would go on to study at the Concord State Teachers College as well as Washington and Lee University. Following his graduation from Washington and Lee in 1927 Haythe earned two law degrees from the University of Alabama (1930) and West Virginia University in 1931. In the last-named year, Haythe married to Alabama native Elizabeth Rousseau Bright (birthdate unknown), to whom he was wed until his death in 1956. The couple had no children.

  In 1932 Haythe began the practice of law in Hinton and in 1934 launched his candidacy for the West Virginia House of Delegates as a Democrat. He would defeat Republican nominee F.A. Martin that November by a vote of 3,932 to 2,834 and during the 1935-36 session sat on the house committees on Elections and Privileges, the Executive Offices and the Library, Judiciary, Railroads, and State Boundaries. Following his one term in the legislature Haythe unsuccessfully sought a seat in the state senate (running in the 1936 Democratic primary) and in December 1936 was selected as "West Virginia counsel" for the Legal Aid Service of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America. W. Carthon Haythe reentered the political field in 1938 when he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for state senator from the 10th senatorial district.  Unfortunately, his candidacy wouldn't advance past the primary season, losing out to Republican nominee William M. LaFon by nearly two-thousand votes. 

  After the dawn of American involvement in World War II Haythe signed on for service, and despite being well over thirty years of age at the time of his enlistment distinguished himself in the Marine Corps, serving two tours of duty in "the South Pacific and Far East theaters". Following his return from service, W. Carthon Haythe recommenced with his law practice and is also acknowledged as having been "instrumental in the organization of the first Marine Corps League" in the city of Charleston. 

Haythe as he appeared in the 1927 Washington and Lee Calyx yearbook.

   Political office would again beckon to Haythe in 1952 and in that year's Democratic primary entered into the race for state attorney general. He would lose out on primary election day in May, polling 95,367 votes to winning candidate  Chauncey H. Browning's total of 176,748. Browning (who had served as acting attorney general since the resignation of William C. Marland in January 1952) would later be succeeded by John G. Fox (1923-1992), who won election as attorney general in November of that year.

   Haythe continued to reside and practice law in Charleston until his death following a business trip to Warren, Ohio in 1956. While returning home, Haythe suffered a heart attack while driving, but managed to drive himself to a hospital in Gallipolis, Ohio, where he later died. Just fifty years old at the time of his passing, Haythe was survived by his wife and was later interred at the Sunset Memorial Park in South Charleston, West Virginia.

Kreider Henry Stover (1873-1928)

Portrait from the History of West Virginia, Old and New, 1923.

   We continue our month-long trek through West Virginia and today focus on the life of Kreider Henry Stover, a longtime railway official in that state. In addition to a lengthy service as an agent for both the West Maryland Railway and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Stover served one term in his state's house of delegates, and in 1922 was an unsuccessful aspirant for the U.S. House of Representatives from West Virginia's 2nd congressional district. A native of the Keystone State, Kreider Henry Stover was born in Coburn, Pennsylvania on July 12, 1873, the son of George Washington and Malinda (Kreider) Stover. Stover's early life was spent on his family's farm and in the late 1880s attended the Palatinate College in Myerstown, Pennsylvania.

  Kreider Stover first entered the workforce at age seventeen, accepting an office post in the A. Pardee & Company, a coal mining outfit in Luzerne County. He remained in their employ until his resignation in 1893, whereafter he returned to his studies, enrolling at the Franklin Marshall College in Lancaster. He would leave school in 1896 to begin a career in railroad work, first joining the Pennsylvania Railway Company, with which he was affiliated with until 1900. Kreider Stover married in Coburn, Pennsylvania on September 28, 1898, to Bertha Young (1876-1923), to who he was wed for nearly twenty-five years. The couple had no children of their own, but would later adopt a son, Allen Graham Stover (1910-1958).

  In 1900 Kreider Stover and his wife left Pennsylvania for West Virginia, and, seeing lucrative opportunities in that state's lumber industry, Stover sought out work in that field, eventually becoming the manager for the Hosterman Lumber Company in Pocahontas County. He remained here until 1904, and during his residency in that county served as a delegate to the Republican County Convention of 1902 and was named as U.S. Postmaster at Collins in March 1903. Following his removal to Elkins, West Virginia in 1904 Stover continued his rise through the ranks of the lumber business, founding the Stover Lumber Company. His time in Elkins also saw him publish the West Virginia Lumberman and National Wholesaler newsletter, and from 1904 to 1908 held the presidency of the West Virginia Sawmill Association.

  In 1908, Stover resumed railroad work, joining the Western Maryland Railway Company as its agent at Rolling Creek Junction. Stover would subsequently be posted in several other West Virginia towns during his decade-long tenure with that railway and held additional posts, including telegrapher, operator, and yardmaster. In the late 1910s Stover resettled in Mineral County, West Virginia, and in November 1918 was elected as a Republican to the state house of delegates, defeating Democrat J.O. Lantz by a vote of 1,429 to 527. During the 1919-21 session, Stover chaired the committee on Labor and held seats on the committees on Railroads, and Printing and Contingent Expenses. Remarked as having had an "unusual record of useful service" during his one term in office, Stover introduced the bill that would become the West Virginia Child Labor Law and supported both prohibition and the right for women to vote.

  Towards the end of his legislative term, Stover resigned from the Western Maryland Railway and in 1920 entered into the post of agent for the Baltimore and Ohio Railway at Keyser. He returned to political life in 1922 when he announced that he'd be seeking the nomination for U.S. Representative from West Virginia's 2nd congressional district. In that year's primary season Stover's candidacy (along with his previous experience in the legislature and railroading) were touted in the Railroad Telegrapher, which noted:

"Brother Stover is a member of the O.R.T. and has proven his ability, faithfulness and integrity as a member of the State Legislature. He is no "new hand" at the job of fighting labor's battles, and fighting them ably and well. His experience and ability fit him for the office of Congressman, and his well-known fealty to the cause of the people; his fearlessness and knowledge prove that when you elect him he will serve YOU and not your enemies....If Wall Street desires representation in Congress, let Wall Street vote for Mr. Bower. If you want to be represented vote for Brother Stover, and get all your friends and acquaintences to do likewise."

From the Baltimore and Ohio Magazine, April 1922.

   Stover's opponent in the 1922 primary was George Meade Bowers (1863-1925), the three-term Republican incumbent. On primary election day in August of that year, it was Bowers who won out in the vote count, polling over 8,000 votes, nearly five thousand more than Stover. Despite his primary victory, Bowers would go on to lose the general election that November to Democrat Robert E.L. Allen, a former city judge in Morgantown.
   Following his congressional defeat, Stover would be elected as the Mayor of Keyser, West Virginia (serving from 1925-27), and maintained memberships in the Masonic Order and the Knights of Pythias. Widowed in 1923, Kreider Henry Stover died on July 20, 1928, at the Hoffman Hospital in Keyser, eight days following his 55th birthday. His Mineral Daily news obituary lists a short bout of blood poisoning as his cause of death, and he was later interred alongside his wife Bertha at the Queens Meadow Point Cemetery in Keyser.

From the Mineral Daily News, July 21, 1928.

Eskridge Hampton Morton (1866-1940)

Portrait from the 1937 West Virginia Blue Book.

  A leading political figure in Webster County, West Virginia for the better part of four decades, Eskridge Hampton Morton began his political ascent early in his life, winning election as county school superintendent at the age of just 23. In the succeeding decades, Morton won election as county prosecuting attorney, served two terms in the state house of delegates, two terms in the state senate, was a delegate to the 1912 Democratic National Convention from West Virginia, and in 1908 and 1922 was an unsuccessful candidate for the offices of state attorney general and U.S. Representative from West Virginia. 

   The story of this now obscure West Virginian begins with his birth on a Webster County farm on June 16, 1866, the son of George Washington and Hannah (Kyer) Morton. Young Eskridge attended schools local to his home county of Webster and, after deciding to pursue a law degree, enrolled at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown. Graduating with his bachelor of laws degree in the class of 1891, Morton would return to Webster Springs to establish a law practice, forming a partnership with William C. Wooddell that would extend "throughout both men's lives." Morton married on December 24, 1890, to Mary McCray (1870-1947). The couple's near five-decade marriage would produce several children, including Ernest (born 1892, Meta (1894-1911), Mayme Edith (1896-1994), Abbie Dale, Mary Vivian, Eskridge McCray (1903-1984) and Nancy.

  "E.H." Morton (as most sources of the period refer to him) first entered the political life of his state in 1889 when he was elected as county superintendent of schools. He would serve one term in that post and in 1892 advanced to the post of Webster County prosecuting attorney, serving from 1893-97. At the conclusion of his term Morton was selected to serve as assistant prosecuting attorney for the neighboring county of Nicholas (serving until 1902) and during his service pulled political double duty, as he had been named as Sergeant-at-Arms for the West Virginia House of Delegates for the 1899 session.

  Following his stint as house sergeant-at-arms, Eskridge Morton set his sights on a house seat for himself, and in the 1902 election year was elected as a representative from Webster County. Serving during the session of 1903-04, Morton left office after one term and returned to his law practice, being retained as an attorney for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. 

From the Men of West Virginia, Vol. II, 1903.

  In August 1908 Eskridge Morton returned to the political forum when he received the Democratic nomination for West Virginia state attorney general. Opposing Morton in that year's contest was Republican William Gustavus Conley (1866-1940), a newspaper editor and former mayor of Kingwood. When the votes were tallied in November 1908 it was Conley who emerged triumphant, defeating Morton by a vote of 135,389 to 113,823. Conley continued to serve as attorney general until 1913, and in 1929 won election as Governor of West Virginia, holding that post until 1933.

  Despite his defeat in the race for attorney general, Morton refused to let a loss get the best of him, and in 1912 served as part of the West Virginia delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore that saw Woodrow Wilson nominated for the Presidency. In 1914 Morton entered into the race for state senator from West Virginia's 10th senatorial district and that November won election to that body, handily defeating his opponent, E.A. Barnes, by a vote of 7,694 to 262. During the 1915-19 session Morton would on the committees on Education; Forfeited, Delinquent and Unappropriated Lands; the Judiciary; Privileges and Elections; Public Printing; and Roads and Navigation.

  In November 1918 Morton won his second term in the Senate, defeating oddly named Republican nominee Otho Hunter Kee by a vote of 6,390 to 5,355. This term (1919-23) saw Morton named to four new Senate committees, those being Federal Relations, Forestry and Conservation, Insurance, and Virginia Debt.

Portrait from the 1919 West Virginia Blue Book.

  Towards the end of his second Senate term in 1922, Eskridge Morton was selected by then Governor Ephraim Morgan as the chairman of the West Virginia Code Commission, a body responsible for modifying the West Virginia law code. In that same year, Morton launched a candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives from his state's 3rd congressional district. His opponent that year was three-term incumbent Republican Stuart Felix Reed (1866-1935), a former member of the West Virginia Senate in the late 1890s. On November 7, 1922, Reed eked out a narrow win over Morton, garnering 32,066 votes to his opponent's 31, 382.

  Following this congressional loss, Morton returned to his law practice in Webster County, and in 1936 was returned to government service when he was elected to the house of delegates for a second term, thirty-two years following the conclusion of his first term in that body. Seventy years old at the time of his election, Morton's final term in the legislature saw him named to the committees on Arts, Science and General Improvements; the Judiciary; Medicine and Sanitation; Roads, and chaired the committee on Railroads. Morton wasn't a candidate for reelection in 1939 and for the remainder of his life practiced law in Webster County, dying there in 1940 at age 74. He was survived by his wife Mary, who, following her death in 1947, was interred alongside him at the Blacks Chapel Cemetery in Camden-on-Gauley, West Virginia. Far from a forgotten figure in Webster County, Morton's massive red-brick mansion in Webster Springs (erected in 1912) was added to the National Register of Historic Places in April 1986.

One of many portraits located of Eskridge H. Morton (from the 1922 West Virginia Blue Book).