Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/188

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\1RG1.\IA BIOGRAPHY

account of his wounded arm and was shot in the leg in this duel. He predicted the collapse of the Confederacy and died three days before it occurred. Frederick S. Dan- iel has printed privately a volume containing his brother's leading articles during the war. together with a memoir.

Aylett, Patrick Henry, was born in King William county, Virginia, j\Iay 9. 1825, son of John Philip Aylett, Esq., and his wife, Judith Page (Waller) Aylett. His grand- mother, Elizabeth Henry, was the youngest daughter of Patrick Henry ; he attended Rumford Academy, Washington College at Lexington, \'irginia, the University of Vir- ginia, which he entered in 1844, and re- mained one session in the academic depart- ment, then entered Harvard College, where he was graduated in law in 1846; he began the practice of law in Richmond, in the fall of 1847, but the death of his father, who left him his executor with a large estate, in- duced him to return to Alontville, the old home in King William county ; there he practiced his profession until 1853, when he returned to Richmond, where he spent the remainder of his life ; upon the establishment of the "Richmond Examiner,"' in 1847, ^^ became a contributor to its editorial columns, and in all of his editorial work seemed influenced by the responsible posi- tion which the editor of a leading paper oc- cupied ; he was appointed In' President Buchanan as a member of the board of visitors to the United States Military Acad- emy at West Point, and was subsequently appointed by the same President, without his solicitation. United States district attor- ney for the eastern district of Virginia ; this position he held at the outbreak of the civil

\\ar. and was immediately reappointed by- President Davis as Confederate States dis- trict attorney; as a writer in the field of lit- ciature, he was as gifted as in politics and law; he married, February 23, 1853, Emily -A. Rutherfoord, daughter of the Hon. John Kutherfoord, of Richmond; his death, in common with so many other distinguished citizens of Virginia, occurred in the dreadful calamity, when the floor of the supreme court room in the state capitol gave way, i\pril 2"/, 1870; in all the sorrow of that affliction the death of no man was more sin- cerely mourned and was a greater loss to state and family than was that of Mr. .\y- Ictt ; he w"as survived by his wife and three daughters: Airs, ^^'illiam L. Royal, Mrs. John Enders, Mrs. Thomas Boiling, all of Richmond, \ irginia.

Puryear, Bennett, born in Mecklenburg county, \'irginia, July 23, 1826, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Puryear. He was graduated in 1847 from Randolph-AIacon College, taught one year in Alabama, then v/as a student at the University of Virginia. In 1850 he was made a tutor in Richmond College, and the next year professor of natural science. The college was closed during the civil war. and was reopened in 1866, when Professor Puryear resumed his chair, later became the first chairman of the faculty, and was re-elected for seventeen consecutive years. Then, after an interval of four years, he was again chosen, and btld the ofifice continuously until July. 1895.

Morris, Charles, born at Taylor's Creek, Hanover county. Virginia. April 27, 1826. On both sides of his family he was descended from English and ^^'elsh settlers in the colonv of \'irginia, several of them having