Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/20

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

seventeenth century (q. v. I, 346). He is a very happy and popular speaker and is distinguished for his genial and affable manners.

Montague, Andrew Jackson, born in Campbell county. \'irginia. October 3, 1802, son of Judge Robert Latane Montague (q. v.). He was educated at private schools and by private tutors in Middlesex county, and in early youth developed a taste for the best of English literature— historical, bio- graphical, poetical. After a year in the grammar school of William and Mary Col- lege. Wiliianij-burg, he entered Richmond College, at Richmond, Virginia, and in due time was graduated from several of the schools of that institution, and having achiev- ed much distinction as an orator and debater ii; the literary societies. He served as a pri- >ate tutor from 1882 to 1884, and displayed such ability as to give promise of a high place in the educational field, had he seen proper to engage in it permanently. In the summer of 1S84 he became a law student in the University of Virginia, under Professor John B. Minor, took the regular course in the following session, and in 1885 was grad- uated with the B. L. degree. He then enter- ed u]K>n practice in Danville, Virginia, and soon took a prom.inent place at the bar. He took an enthusiastic interest in politics, and in the campaign of 1892 he attracted the ad- miring attention of Mr. Cleveland, who, on c««ming to the presidency in the following year, appointed him United States district attorney for the western district of Virginia. In 1897 he was elected attorney-general of the state, and therefore resigned the district attorneyship. His services in this new
 * M>Hition. during his four year term, were

conspicuously creditable, and a factor in his further advancement. In 1901 he was th.e Democratic nominee for governor, over several distinguished competitors, and in the ensuing campaign he delivered many able speeches, and was elected by a large major- ity. During his four year term, he won general commendation as a most useful and progressive executive. In large measure, to him is due a deeply awakened interest in the public school system, and its substan- tial development. It was largely through his instrumentality that the primary plan for the nomination of United States sena- tors was adopted. Retiring from the guber- natorial chair in 1906, Mr. Montague re- sumed the practice of his profession, in Richmond, and in May, of the same year, President Roosevelt selected him as one of the six delegates from the United States to the Third International Conference of .Xmerican States, in Rio de Janeiro, July 21, 1906. Mr. Montague is well read in sociolog>' and political economy, and in 1905 he received from Brown University, Rhode Island, the degree of LL. D. He was mar- ried, December 11, 1889, to Elizabeth Lynne Hoskins, of Middlesex county. In 191 3 he succeeded John Lamb in congress from the Richmond district and is the pres- ent incumbent.

Swanson, Claude Augustus, born March 31, 1862, at Swansonville, Pittsylvania county, son of John Muse Swanson and Catherine Pritchett, his wife. His father was a highly respected merchant and manu- facturer of tobacco in Pittsylvania county, who suffered a reverse and lost all his prop- erty in the panic of 1876. The subject of this sketch was put early to school and