Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/421

 PROMINENT PERSONS

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by Jeremiah Morton, a pronounced seces- sionist, but when secession was an accom- plished fact, he became an ardent supporter ot the southern cause, and all his four sons entered the Confederate army.

Parks, Marshall, born in Norfolk, Vir- ginia, November 8. 1820, son of Marshall Parks, a famous steamboat owner, and Martha Boush, his wife. He left school ai the age of fifteen to accompany his father to his grist and lumber mills in North Caro- Ima, and before he had attained his majcr- ity was postmaster and major of militia. After his father's death, he gave himself largely to steamboat enterprises, and built an iron steam vessel, the Albciiuvlc. which v/as famous in its day. In 1842 he was given command of the Genu, built at Nor- folk, by the government, and which he sailed by bay, rivers and canals, from tlic Atlantic coast to Oswego, on Lake Ontario, in the first trip made by a steam vessel bi- Iween the Atlantic and Great Lakes. He was the author of the method of ferrying railroad cars across rivers and bays, en specially constructed boats with iron rails set upon the deck. He was also the origi nator of the Albemarle and Chesapeake canal — the first in which steam dredges were used in construction, in place of ordi- nary picks and shovels — and he was presi- dent of the operating company for upwards of twenty-five years. In 1861, after the se- cession of Virginia, he was made state pro- visional commodore, and charged with the removal of more than three thousand pieces of artillery from the Norfolk navy yard to a place of safety. He was then appointed a special commissioner of North Carolina to create a navy, and was well along with

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the construction of several gunboats, when he was ordered to turn them over to the (. onfederate government, and he delivered them to Gens. Gwinn and Huger, at Nor- folk. His years forbade heavy responsibili- ties, and from that time on his service to the Confederacy was in an advisory capacity orily. After the war, he busied himself with railroad, steamboat and canal enterprises ; served one term in the legislature ; and un- der President Cleveland's administration, v,as for four years a supervising inspector o^ steamboats. He married, in 1853. Sophia Jackson.

Crenshaw, William G., born in Richmond, \'irginia, July 7. 1824. son of Spotswood Dabney Crenshaw and Winifred Graves, his wife, daughter of Isaac Graves. He was a man of great ability, and at the age of thirty-seven years was senior member of Oenshaw & Company, whose business ex- tended over a large part of the world, much of their foreign trade being carried on in \ essels built and owned by himself and his brothers. When Virginia seceded, he for- sook his business and recruited a company of artillery, providing its guns and equip- ment at his own expense, and which be- came famous as "Crenshaw's Battery.'' He bore a gallant part in every engagement from Mechanicsville to Sharpsburg, in 1863, when he was sent to Europe as a confiden- tial commercial agent for the Confederate government, a position which he held mitil the end of the war. He was remarl ably successful in his mission, not only shipping to the southern ports great quantities of ord- nance, ammunition, clothing, provisions, etc.. but also securing the building ot ves- sels for their transporting them, as well a;