Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/409

 PROMINENT PERSONS

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Yancey, a major in the war of 1812, and a friend of Thomas Jefferson, who lived 011 the adjoining farm. Lucy E. Davis was a descendant of Henry Davis, who was a first cousin of Major-General Emmet Rodes. of the Confederate States army. Robert iJiavis Yancey attended school in Lynch- burg, and then entered the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, graduated in 1875. He entered the law department of the Univer- sity of Virgmia in the fall of 1875, studied un^ler Professor John B. Minor and Ste- phen O. Southall, graduated in 1877, and began practice in Lynchburg. He was mayor of the city, 1890-1894; common- wealth's attorney, 1894, six terms of two years each, and in 1906 was again elected for a term of four years. He served many years in the state body of the National Guard, held many non-commissioned a.id commissioned posts, for seven years was a captain, and in 1887-89, under Governors Charles T. O'Ferrall and Fitz Hugh Lee, was colonel in command of all the state troops, sent to the coal fields to preser\ e order during the strikes.

Gordon, Armistead Churchill, born in Al- bemarle county, Virginia, December 20, 1855, son of George Loyall Gordon and Mary Long Daniel, his wife. On his father's side he is descended from John Gordon, who about 1738 came from the North of Ireland to Middlesex county, Virginia, and engaged largely in the exporting of tobacco. His paternal grandfather was Gen. William F. Gordon, of Albemarle county, Virginia, who, when in the congress of the United States, originated the federal independent treasury system ; and who, as delegate from Albemarle, in the Virginia house of dele-

gates, had charge of Mr. Jefferson's bill to establish the University of Virginia. His maternal ancestors are the Stiths, Ran- dolphs, and Bassetts of Virginia, and the Longs and Daniels of North Carolina; his mother's great-grandfather, Col. Nicholas Long, of Halifax, North Carolina, having been commissary-general of that state dur- ing the revolutionary war, and his mother's father. Judge Joseph J. Daniel, having been for years on the supreme court of that state. His paternal ancestor, Col. Reuben Lindsay, o: Albemarle county, \'irginia, served with the Marquis de Lafayette during the revo- lutionary war. His father was killed in action at the battle of Malvern Hill, one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war. His early education was obtained at the private school of Warrenton, North Carolina, known as Dugger's Academy. He after- wards was taught in the Charlottesville In- stitute by Major Horace W. Jones, from v/hich he entered the University of \'ir- guiia in 1873, where he remained for two sessions studying the academic branches. After leaving the University he taught a private school in Charlottesville for several years, during which time he read law, tak- ing three summer courses at the University of Virginia under Professor John B. Minor. In the fall of 1879 he began the practice of his profession in Staunton, Virginia. He v.'as mayor of the city of Staunton, common- wealth's attorney for the city of Staunton and the county of Augusta, city attorney of Staunton, president of the Chamber of Com- merce, chairman of the city and county Democratic committees, and member of the board of visitors of the university, of which board he is at this time the rector; was a member of the board of visitors of William