Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/195

 TROMINENT PERSONS

i6i

hood, then the University of Virginia, which he entered in 1846 and where he re- mained until 1850; then taught a classical school in Charlottesville, Virginia, for sev- eral years ; in 1852 was elected professor of Greek in what was then Washington Col- lege, a chair which he held for forty years : after Gen. Lee's death, the college was called Washington and Lee University ; Professor White was regarded by his students with the greatest affection ; he was a staunch Presbyterian, inheriting his love from his Scotch-Irish ancestor. Dr. William S. White, one of the able men of the Presby- terian church in this country; Professor White died April 29, 1893, ^'^d is buried in Lexington, Virginia.

Tucker, St. George, son of Henry St. George Tucker, president of the Virginia supreme court of appeals, and Anne Evelina Jiunter, his wife, daughter of Moses and Anne Stephen, his wife, daughter of Gen. Adam Stephen, was born January 5, 1828. He studied at the University of Virginia in 1843-44-45, and took law at William and Mary College under his uncle. Judge Na- thaniel Beverley Tucker. He practiced law, and in 1851-52 was clerk of the senate of Virginia and in 1853 became clerk of the house of delegates. He inherited a taste for letters from his father and grandfather, and iii 1857 recited a poem before the literary society of Washington College, and in 1859 a poem at William and Mary College on the one hundred and sixty-sixth anniversary of the foundation. In the former year ap- peared his most considerable effort in prose romance "Hamford, a Tale of Bacon's Re- bellion." This met with much success, and after the war it was issued under a new viR-n

title "The Devoted Bride," by a Philadel- phia publishing firm. After the election of Lincoln in i860, Mr. Tucker took grounds for secession, and wrote his war song "The Southern Cross." He had resigned the clerkship of the house of delegates, and opened a school in Ashland for the instruc- tion of youths, but when the war opened he raised a company the "Ashland Grays" which was incorporated with the Fifteenth Virginia Regiment under Col. Tom Au- gust. He was made lieutenant-colonel, and saw service around Williamsburg, but his constitution w-as undermined from exposure and he returned to Charlottesville, where he died January 24, 1863. He married Eliza- beth Gilmer, daughter of Gov. Thomas Wai- ker Gilmer. He is credited with having been one of the wittiest and most gifted men in Virginia.

Hotchkiss. Jed, was born at \\'indsor, Broome county, Virginia, New York, No- vember 30, 1828, a son of Stiles Hotchkiss and Lydia Beecher, his wife ; and a direct descendant of Samuel Hotchkiss, of Scotch ancestry, who settled at New Haven, Con- iiecticut. in 1642, and one of whose de- scendants migrated to the Susquehanna val- ley in New York state, near the borders of Pennsylvania, purchased an extensive tract of land, and laid out the village of Windsor. Mr. Hotchkiss led the healthy, happy life of the country lad. The hours which were i:ot spent in attendance at school or acad- emy, or in outdoor work in connection with botany and geology, of both of which stud- ies he was especially fond, were spent in the performance of such lighter tasks of farm labor as were consistent with his growing strength. In the winter of 1846-47. in asso-