Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/31

 JUDGES SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS

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and its people from the destructive results of the war. In the great "capitol disaster" ill Richmond, he was among those who were in the court room, and went down with the falling floors. He was extricated, as was believed, without serious injury, but his sys- tem had been severely shocked, and he sought a brief rest. In 1872 he was elected by the legislature to the supreme court of appeals, to succeed the Hon. William T Joynes, and, after much hesitation, he ac- cepted, at the cost of considerable pecuniary sacrifice. His judicial career was short, his death occurring, at his home. October 10. 1876. "He exhibited a learning and grasp of intellect which placed him in the front rank of tlie great jurists who had adorned 'ihe Virgniia bench."

Christian, Joseph, born in Middlesex count}', \"irginia, July 10, 1828, oldest son of Richard Allen Christian, M. D., and Eliza- beth Steptoe, his wife. He was educated at Columbian College, Washington, U. C. (now Columbian University) ; studied law at Staunton, Virginia.; was admitted to the bar al the age of twenty-one ; practiced his pro- fession in Middlesex and adjoining counties. He was elected to the state senate in 1858, at the age of thirty years, and served as senator during the war. He was an old-line Whig in politics, and one of the electors on the Bell and Everett ticket in i860. He was opposed to secession, until Lincoln called on the south for her pro rata share of troops, and he spoke against secession on many occasions, his chief opponent being the Hon. Beverley Douglass. He was elected circuit judge in 1866, at the age of thirty-eight, for the circuit composed of the counties of Mid- dlesex, Gloucester, Mathews, James City,

Warwick, New Kent, Charles City and Hen- rico. He moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 1869, and formed a partnership in law with the Hon. ^\■illiam T. Joynes, of Petersburg, \'irginia. They practiced together for eight months, when both were elected to the bench of the supreme court of appeals of Virginia for a term of twelve years from Ji'.nuary i, 1870. He was forty-one years of age at the time of his election, and forty- two the following July. At the death of Judge R. C. L. Moncure, he was made presi- dent of that court, and served on the bench o*^ that court for twelve years. He was de- feated by the Readjuster party, and resumed the practice of law in 1882, and continued W practice his profession until incapacitated by ill health. He died at Richmond, Vir- ginia, May 29, 1905.

Staples, Waller R., born in Patrick county, \ irginia, in the year 1826, son of Abram Staples. He began his collegiate education at the University of North Carolina, where he sj)ent two years, then entered the Col- lege of William and Mary, W^illiamsburg, Virginia, from which he was graduated in 1845. Having attained his majority, he re- moved to Montgomery county, Virginia, where he began the practice of law in the office of the Hon. William Ballard Preston, secretary of the navy under the administra- tion of President Taylor. In 1853-54 he was a member of the state legislature, and was a Whig presidential elector in 1856 and i860. He was one of the four delegates sent by the Virginia convention of 1861 to repre- sent the state in the Confederate provisional congress at Montgomery, Alabama, till Feb- ruary 22, 1862. On that day, the new Con- federate congress came into existence, and