Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/428

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

sliulieil law under Judge Tucker, of Win- chester, practiced for some years, and then removed to Louisville, Kentucky. In 1842 ht returned to Virginia and settled in Alex- ai dria : at various times was a member of the legislature and of the city council, and city attorney. He opposed secession, but c;ist his fortunes with his state when she left the L'nion. He married .Sarah Gosnell Vowell, daughter of John C. Vowell, of .Alexandria. He died May 10, 1877.

Mason, Emily Virginia, daughter of Gen. Thomson Mason, was born in 1815. Dur- ing the civil war she served as military hos- pital nurse. At the close of the war in 1865 she collected and arranged "Southern Poems of the War." For fifteen years she lived in Paris, where her charm of manner and intellectual attainments made her the leader of the American circle. She wrote a life of Gen. Lee.

Washington, Col. John Augustine, born at "Rlakeley," Jefiferson county, Virginia, May 3, 1820, son of John Augustine Wash- ington and Jane Charlotte Blackburn, his wife, daughter of Captain Richard Scott and Judith (Ball) Blackburn. He inher- ited the "Mount Vernon" estate by will of his great uncle, Hon. Bushrod Wash- ington, and resided there until he sold it to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Asso- ciation in i860, and removed to "Wave- land," Fauquier county. He entered the Confederate army as aide-de-camp to Gen. Robert E. Lee, with the rank of lieutenant- colonel, and was killed September 13, 1861, at Cheat Mountain, while scouting. He married, in 1842, Eleanor Love Selden.

Gait, Alexander, born at Norfolk, \'ir- ginia. June 26, 1827, son of Alexander Gait,

and grandson of James Gait, superintend- ent of the Eastern State Hospital at Wil- liamsburg. He received his literary edu- cation in his native city. He early de- veloped a taste and aptitude for art, and went to Italy to prepare as a sculptor, and made rapid progress, soon opening his own studio in Florence, where much of his work \'. as jierformed. He made frequent visits home, and in 1854, while in \'irginia, was commissioned by the legislature to make a siatue of Thomas Jefferson for the Univer- sity of Virginia. His creation, carved in his studio in Florence, was of surpassing beauty and dignity, and was placed in the rotunda of the library of the university shortly be- fore the beginning of the civil war. At the time of the great fire of October 27, 1895, the statue was saved by being carried out b\ a number of the professors and students, and was restored to its proper place in the new library building. Air. Gait returned home about the time the war began and took up his residence in Richmond, where he opened a studio. He was a hearty supporter ci the Confederacy and he rendered valuable aid to the new government in the engineer- ing department. He came to an untimely end, dying at the early age of thirty-six years, from smallpox contracted on a visit to Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson's camp to pre- pare for making a statue of that great com- mander. Among his best known works, other than that of Thomas Jefiferson, previ- ously mentioned, is a bust of Chief Justice Rutledge. in the United States supreme court room in Washington City ; and the ideal figures of "The Spirit of the South," "Hope," ".Aurora," "Sappho," "Psyche" and "Bacchante."