Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/115

 CHARLES JAMES FAULKNER

, of Martinsburg, was born in Martinsburg, Berkeley County, W. Va., September 21, 1847; accompanied his father, who was minister to France in 1859; attended noted schools in Paris and Switzerland; returned to the United States in August, 1861, and after the arrest of his father he immediately went South; in 1862, at the age of fifteen, he entered the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington; served with the cadets in the battle of New Market; served as aid to Gen. J. C. Breckinridge, and afterwards to Gen. Henry A. Wise, surrendering with Gen. Wise at Appomattox; on his return to Boydville, his home was in Martinsburg; he studied under the direction of his father until October, 1866, when he entered the University of Virginia, graduating in June, 1868; was admitted to the bar in September, 1868; was made grand master of the Masonic Grand Lodge in 1879; in October, 1880, was elected judge of the thirteenth judicial circuit, composed of the counties of Jefferson, Morgan, and Berkeley; was elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat, to succeed Johnson N. Camden, and took his seat March 4, 1887; was reëlected in 1893; was permanent chairman of the Democratic State convention of West Virginia in 1888, and was both temporary and permanent chairman of the Democratic State convention of 1892; was chairman of the Democratic congressional campaign committee in 1894 and 1896; appointed a member of the joint commission of the two Houses to investigate the question of the price of railway mail transportation and postal-car service, and all sources of revenue and expenditures of the Post-Office Department, under act approved June 13, 1898; appointed a member of the International Joint High Commission of the United States and Great Britain for the adjustment of differences in respect to the Dominion of Canada, on September 19, 1898. His term of service will expire March 3, 1899.