Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/38

 VIRGIXIA BIOGRAPHY

aiul Ijccamc the legal representative of sev- eral railroad, mining and manufacturing companies. From .\pril. 1901, to April i, 1903. he was ihc managing receiver of the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Company, and vice-president of the Virginia & South- western Railroad Company. Mis first pub- lic position was that of commonwealth at- ttrney for Montgomery county, to which he was appointed in 1870, and held for a period of seven years, through consecutive elections, and in 1877 he was elected to the state senate. In October, 1900, he was ap- l>ointed, by Gov. J. Hoge Tyler, a judge of the supreme court of appeals, and held the olTice to February 22, 1901, when the legis- lature failed to return him to the ofhce. In 1903 he was elected to the state senate, for the second time. He held high rank both as a legislator and jurist, and his mind was 01 the highest order. He married Sue Shanks, and had five children.

Whittle, Stafford Gorman, Ixirn at ■A\'tX)dstock." the family home, in Meck- lenburg county, Virginia, December 5, 1849. son of Commodore William Conway Whittle and Elizabeth Beverley Sinclair, l)is wife. The father was a commodore in the United Stales and Confederate States navies, and the mother was a daughter of Commodore Arthur Sinclair, of the United States navy. The son. Stafford G. Whittle, in early years took instructions in schools ill the city o£ Norfolk, but upon the break- ing out of the civil war he returned to his native county, and there continued his edu- cation. He was subsequently under the care of a tutor at his father's home in huchanan. Botetourt county, and the in- Mniclion was supplemented by a course of

study at the Chatham Male Institute, in Pittsylvania county. .\t the age of eigh- teen, he entered Washington College, under the presidency of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The following year (1868) he studied law at the l.'niversity of Virginia, under Professor iobn L!. Minor. In 1891 he was admitted lo the bar, and entered upon law practice in Henry county, and was soon employed ii' most of the important litigation in the counties of the district. After ten years practice, he was appointed, February i, i88i. by Gov. F. W. M. Holliday, judge of the fourth judicial circuit, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge Benjamin Green. The Democratic caucus of the succeeding legislature nominated him for the unexpired term, but he was defeated by the Readjuster legislature, and retired from the bench in March, 18S2. In 1H85 he was elected to the position by the Democratic legislature, for a full eight year term, and at its expiration was re-elected lor another term, without opposition. Upon the death of John Randolph Tucker, Judge Whittle was unanimously chosen to suc- ceed him as law professor at W'ashington and Lee University, wdiich honor he de- clined. In iQfio, he was called upon to sit with President Judge James Keith, and Judges B. R. Wellford, Jr., and Henry E. Blair, as a special court of appeals in the Peyton's administrate)r t.v. Stuart case, in- volving the entire properly of the White Sulphur Springs. WHien the Lynchburg judicial circuit was abolished, that city and Campbell county were attached to Judge Whittle's circuit, upon the unanimous peti- tion of their bars ; his circuit, by this ad- dition, becoming the largest in the state. On February 12, 1901, he was elected, by