Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/288

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

by the Southern Presbyterian University in 1883. President Cleveland tendered him the office of assistant secretary of agriculture for the United States, in 1893, but he de- clined ; he is ex-officio member of the Vir- ginia Board of Agriculture, and his agricul- tural reports and papers on agricultural subjects are of great value in scientific Circles. He retired from his active duties at ihe college (now called the Virginia Poly- technic Institute) at the end of the session of 1906-07. Dr. McBryde married, Novem- ber 18, 1863, Cora, daughter of Dr. James I'.olton, of Richmond, Virginia.

Wilson, William Lyne, born in Jefferson county, Virginia, May 3, 1843, son of Ben- jamin and Mary (Lyne) Wilson; educated at Charlestovvn Academy, and was gradu- ated from Columbian College, D. C, in i860, and subsequently studied in the University of Virginia. He served in the Confederate army as a private in the Twelfth Virginia Cavalry. After the war he was professor of Latin in Columbian College, from 1865 to 1&71, but resigned his position on the over- throw of the lawyers' test oath in West Vir- ginia, and for eleven years practiced law at Charlestown. He was a delegate in 1880 to the national Democratic convention in Cin- cinnati, and the same year was an elector-at- large for the state on the Hancock ticket ; chosen president of the West Virginia Uni- versity, and entered upon the office, Septem- ber 4, 1882, but resigned it the following )-ear, having been chosen a Democratic member of the forty-eighth congress; he served in that and each successive congress until the fifty-fourth, when he was defeated : he was chairman of the committee on w-iys and means of the fiftv-third congress, and

rarried through the house of representatives the measure repealing the purchasing clause of the Sherman law, and also the tariff bill which bears his name; Columbian Univer- sity conferred upon him the degree of LL. 1). in 1883, and he received the same honor from Hampden Sidney College in Virginia, the University of Mississippi, Tulane Uni- versity, Central College of Missouri, and the West X'irginia University ; in 1890 he was offered the presidency of the University of Missouri, but did not accept it; he served six years as one of the regents of the Smith- sonian Institution ; was permanent presi- dent of the Democratic national convention at Chicago, 1892; his name was frequently mentioned as United States senator from his state, and he was frequently urged to accept the speakership of the house of representa- tives ; in 1895 was made postmaster-gen- eral in President Cleveland's cabinet, and on the expiration of his term was elected president of Washington and Lee Univer- .fity : died at Lexington, Virginia, October 17, 1900.

Miller, Polk, born in Prince Edward county, Virginia, August 2, 1844, a son of Giles A. Miller and his wife, Jane Anthony Webster, the former for some terms a mem- ber of the state legislature. He was edu- cated in private schools, and in 1863 enlisted as a private in the Richmond Howitzers, and served till the end of the war. After the war he kejjt a drug store, and finally became the manager and chief proprietor of two large concerns of that nature. Pos- sessing a fine voice, and fondness for the banjo, he gave a number of private amateur entertainment? illustrating plantatio'i life, 'i'hese were so enthusiastically received.