Ohio County, West Virginia - Biography of William P. Hubbard

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Submitted by Valerie Crook.


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 621-623
Ohio

WILLIAM PALLISTER HUBBARD. The recent death of Hon.
William P. Hubbard of Wheeling makes appropriate a re-
view not only of his notable career but of his father and
grandfather.   These citizens, constituting three genera-
tions, afforded a splendid succession of abilities and serv-
ices that are linked with the fundamental history of
Wheeling and in many respects with the history of West
Virginia as a whole.

Dana Hubbard, the pioneer settler of Wheeling, came
of a long line of sturdy New Englanders, a descendant in
the sixth generation from William Hubbard, who arrived
in Plymouth. Massachusetts, in 1630, and for six years was
a member of the General Court of the Colony. His son
William was one of the early graduates of Harvard College
and a minister and historian. The next three generations
were represented by John Hubbard, Rev. John Hubbard, of
Connecticut, and Maj. Gen. John Hubbard. Dana Hub-
bard, son of General Hubbard. moved with his family from
Connecticut in 1815 to Pittsburgh. In 1819 he came with
his family down the river in a flatboat, and the family
remained on the boat while he was building a log cabin at
Wheeling. From that time forward an important share of
Wheeling's industrial enterprise originated in the impulse
and management of Dana Hubbard. He built in 1827 the
first saw mill and the first grist mill at Wheeling, and later
set up the first steam saw mill in Western Virginia. Dana
Hubbard lived for some years on a farm in Ohio County.
He died October 16, 1852. His wife, Asenath Dorman,
died April 23, 1878.

His oldest son, Chester Dorman Hubbard, was not only
a leader in the industrial and financial affairs of Wheeling
but exercised a great influence in the formative shaping
and development of the new state of West Virginia. He
was born in Connecticut, November 25, 1814, acquired his
early education at Wheeling, worked around his father's
mills and later entered Wesleyan University at Middletown,
Connecticut, where he graduated valedictorian of his class
in 1840. He soon returned to Wheeling to assist his father
in business, and continued the management of the lumber
mills and related industries until 1852. In that year he and
others established the Bank of Wheeling, of which he
became president, and later for many years, until his death,
he was president of the German Bank of Wheeling. His
was one of the most important influences in making and
developing Wheeling as an important center of the iron
and steel industry. C. D. Hubbard & Company in 1859
leased the Crescent Iron Mills, and later he was an or-
ganizer of the Wheeling Tin Company and for twenty years
was secretary of the Wheeling Iron & Nail Company. He
was among the promoters and builders of the Pittsburg,
Wheeling & Kentucky Railroad in 1873, becoming president
of the road in 1874.

A brief statement of his public record is all that is
necessary to indicate the great influence he exercised for
many years. He was elected and served as a member of
the Virginia House of Delegates in 1852-53. He was a
member of the State Convention of 1861 and strenuously
opposed the ordinance of secession. At the beginning of
the war he promoted the organization of military com-
panies for home defense and these companies proved the
nucleus of some of the first Union regiments raised in
Western Virginia. He was a member of the Wheeling
Convention of May 13th, and also the convention of June
11, 1861. He was a member of the first State Senate of
the new state, and subsequently represented the First
District in Thirty-ninth and Fortieth congresses. Chester
D. Hubbard was for many years a trustee of Linsly
Institute at Wheeling and also one of the founders in
1848 of the Wheeling Female Seminary and later presi-
dent of the trustees of the Wheeling Female Seminary and
later president of the trustees of the Wheeling Female
College.

Chester D. Hubbard died August 23, 1891. September
29, 1842, he married Miss Sarah Pallister, who was born
in England in 1S20 and was brought to the United States
when a child. Chester D. Hubbard and wife had five chil-
dren: William Pallister, Dana List. Chester Russell. Julia
A., who became the wife of W. H. Tyler, and Anna G., who
married Joseph C. Brady.

The late William Pallister Hubbard, though he chose
the profession of law rather than banking or industry.
had the broad and comprehensive spirit of the man of
affairs which distinguished his father. He was born at
Wheeling December 24. 1843. and was granted seventy-
eight years in which to achieve his destiny and service, pass-
ing away December 5. 1921.  He was educated in the
public schools of Wheeling, in Linsly Institute, in his
father's alma mater, Wesleyan University, Middletown,
Connecticut, where he graduated A. B. in 1863. In 1866
Weslevan conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree.
Following his college career he read law at Wheeling, was
admitted to the bar, and during the closing months of the
Civil war served as a lieutenant in the Third West Virginia
Cavalry. He was in active practice as a lawyer at Wheel-
ing for nearly forty years. From 1865 to 1870 he was
clerk of the House of Delegates, served as a member of
the House of Delegates in 1881-82, was chairman of the
commission to revise the text laws of the state in 1901-03,
and in 1906 was elected by the First West Virginia Dis-
trict to Congress and served two terms, retiring in March,
1911.  He was a delegate to the National Republican
Convention in 1888 and in the same vear on the state
ticket for attorney general. In 1912 he was a delegate
to the National Convention, and proved a strenuous sup-
porter of Roosevelt in that campaign. Mr. Hubbard had
put his business affairs in order a number of years before
his death, and that left him leisure, with the blessing of
good health, to attend to many public and charitable
interests. He was a leader in the Liberty Loan and Bed
Cross campaigns during the World war.  He and his
brother Chester Hubbard donated a valuable tract of
ground in South Wheeling to be used for playground
purposes.

May 21, 1868, Mr. Hubbard married Miss Anna E.
Chamberlin of Louisiana. He survived her about twenty
years. The children born to their marriage were: Julia
P. now deceased, who was the wife of William I. Kelly;
Nelson C., his father's successor as a member of the Wheel-
ing bar; Miss Alma R., Louise P., Mrs. W. E. Hudson,
of Staunton, Virginia; and Sarah P., who died in infancy.

It is men most prominent in the affairs of Wheeling
over a long period of years who can best appreciate
and value the character and services of the late Mr.
Hubbard. As a lawyer his portrait is presented in resolu-
tions by the Ohio County Bar Association in the follow-
ing words: "He was a lawyer in the broadest sense, and
above that a law giver. Whether in the making of laws
or giving them the proper interpretations, the ground
whereon he stood, to him was holy ground. He was a
statesman; recognized as a leader among statemen; easily
chief in West Virginia; called before the Cabinet, and
advised with President Roosevelt. In the practice of the
law he walked with those whose final declaration was the
law, and he walked their equal - often their counsellor.
In all his varied activities - local, state, and national - he
was a leader among men, public spirited and generous,
always for the right, because above all he was an honest
man."

But for the tribute that passes current without depre-
ciation on account of its source, and because the writer
spoke with discrimination derived from intimate knowledge,
the best that can be appended as a final estimate on the
life and character of the late Mr. Hubbard was the
editorial in the Wheeling Intelligencer, quoted herewith:

"Death at any time brings a shock to loved ones and
to friends, but death that comes in the fullness of years
to one who has finished his work well; who has lived a
useful and honorable life; who has enjoyed the price-
less privilege of seeing his children grow up around him
in strength and honor, comes not as a tragedy, but as the
seal upon a finished work, a crown of glory.

"Such was the death of Hon. William Pallister Hub-
bard, who passed away at his home near Elm Grove yes-
terday morning.

"Mr. Hubbard was born in Wheeling and lived far
more than the allotted years of three score and ten in
this community. It would have been difficult to find in
our citizenship a man whose personality through so many
years had been so closely associated with the public, the
civic and the industrial development of Wheeling and
its immediate section. The name of Hubbard is stamped
upon our public places. The imprint of his life will long
be felt in numberless organizations and activities having
to do with the industry and the business conditions and
the social and civic life of this community.

"William P. Hubbard was more than a citizen of Wheel-
ing.  He was a citizen of West Virginia and of the
American Republic.  More than that he was a world
citizen, and through the long years of his useful activities
he gave many and varied evidences of his profound inter-
est in all things that made for the welfare of humanity.
In short space it is impossible to sum up and to estimate
the value of Mr. Hubbard's contribution to his city. his
state, and his nation. When that contribution is rightly
valued it will be found to be splendid not to say monu-
mental.

"Mr. Hubbard's most important public work was un-
doubtedly in the commission created by the State of West
Virginia in 1903 for the purpose of studying the tax laws
then existent in the state, and suggesting reforms there-
to. Mr. Hubbard took his duty most seriously, and the
report of the commission finally made was largely the
product of his brain and his hand.  Later, in a most
memorable campaign of public education. Mr. Hubbard by
his writing and his speaking largely effected a change in
the public mind in the matter of taxation, which has since
been reflected in most of the tax legislation in West
Virginia. The power of the influences set in motion at
that time is still felt in this state today. Later, as a mem-
ber of Congress and in private life, as a profound student
of public question, Mr. Hubbard took a prominent part in
shaping the policy and influencing the thought of the
citizenship of this state.

"Admitted to the bar in his early youth, he soon took a
leading place as a practitioner, and in the course of time
came to be regarded as easily the first lawyer in West Vir-
ginia. His grasp of difficult questions and his profound
knowledge underlying the principles of law commanded
the admiration and wonder of the members of his own pro-
fession who were associated with him, and at the time of
his voluntary retirement from active practice it is
fair to say that he had no superiors and few, if any,
equals in the general practice of the law, not only in
this state but even in the country at large.

"During recent years Mr. Hubbard had voluntarily re-
frained from much active employment, preferring to devote
himself to his books, to the study of literature and history
and to the intimate association of a few warm friends.
Nevertheless, he was fortunate in continuing to enjoy good
health, and his mind was so broad and so liberal that all
good causes appealed to him and found in him sympathetic
support. The charities and the public institutions of this
community shared liberally his bounty and the civic con-
ditions of the city and the state commanded his thought-
ful attention. It is hard to realize that one so full of
strength and vigor only a few days ago could so easily
have slipped away, but death undoubtedly came to him
as he would have willed it himself."