Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/362

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

ginia, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws, class of 1912. He then returned to Suffolk, was admitted to the Nansemond county bar, and began practice among those who had known him from boyhood. This often severe test has been successfully with- stood and his practice is most satisfactory. A Democrat in politics, he has taken active and leading interest in municipal affairs, heading the borough ticket of his party in 1914, as candidate for mayor. Fie is a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church.

Goldsbcrough McDowell Serpell. A well known civil engineer, railroad manager, lum- ber magnate and successful man, Mr. Ser- pell, a native of Maryland, was for many years a resident of Connellsville, Pennsyl- vania, and later of the city of Norfolk, Vir- ginia, where he died January 13, 1912, in his seventy-fourth year.

This branch of the Serpell family sprang from Richard Serpell. of Cornwall. England, whose son. Richard, emigrated to America, settling in the Dominion of Canada. He married Christine Coad. of Lickeard. Eng- land, and left issue, including a son, Rich- ard (2j, born in 1808, died in 1878. He came to the United States, settling in Prince George county, Maryland, and there fol- lowed his profession of civil engineer, serv- ing in the commissary department of the Confederacy during the war between the states. He was a man of high standing, a devoted churchman and church worker. He married, in 1834. Jane Parron Deakins, daughter of Captain Leonard Deakins, who in 1776 commanded a company in the First Maryland Battalion of the "Flying Camp" under Colonel Charles Greenberry Griffith. Captain Deakins was born in 1736, and died in 1824. Children of Richard (2) Serpell: Anne Maria L(niise. born June i. 1836; Goldsborough McDowell, of whom further; Olivia Mary, born May 3, 1840; Maria Emma, born January 8, 1844; Florence Helen, born December 8, 1845 '> John Rogers, born October 7, 1847; Richard (3), born March 28, 1849; Clifton, born October 16, 1 85 1 ; George MacCleod, born December 26.

1854-

Goldsborough McDowell Serpell. eldest son of Richard (2) and Jane Parron (Dea- kins) Serpell. was born in Prince George county, Maryland, December 23, 1837, his boyhood days being spent in the vicinity of

historic Blandensburg, not far from Wash- ington. He obtained a good education and became a civil engineer, working and study- ing under his father, and later attending technical schools. When war broke out in 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate army, in Company B. First Maryland Cavalry, serv- ing with honor until the war closed. He was once arrested as a spy and narrowly escaped execution, escaping confinement in Point Lookout after his transfer from a Washington prison. At the close of the war Mr. Serpell went to Kentucky, where he was employed in the engineering corps, con- structing the Louisville & Nashville rail- road. In 1870 he became resident engineer of the Pittsburgh & Connellsville railroad, then building its line across the Alleghenies to Cumberland, Maryland. He made his headquarters at Ohiopyle. Pennsylvania, first reaching that town in 1870 with his bride, driving over the Old National Pike by way of Farmington. In 11872 the road was completed, and Mr. Serpell became its chief engineer, wnth. headquarters at Con- nellsville. Fayette county. Pennsylvania. In 1880 Edward K. Hyndman resigned as general superintendent of the Pittsburgh & Connellsville railroad (now the Baltimore & Ohio railway), and Mr. Serpell succeeded him in that office. About two years later, seeing the great opportunities that lay in developing the lumber resources of the South, Mr. Serpell resigned his position of general superintendent, and located in Nor- folk, where with others he organized the Tunis-Serpell Lumber Company, and began converting into lumber the pine timber tract the company secured in Northeastern North Carolina. The company erected large mills in Norfolk, but in order to get their product from forest to mill it was necessary to build thirty miles of railroad. This w^as done, the line being known as the Norfolk & North Carolina railroad. Later the line was con- tinued twenty miles to a junction with the Atlantic Coast Line, eventually becoming a part of that system. Mr. Serpell was presi- dent of the Norfolk & North Carolina rail- road, and after its merging with the Atlan- tic Coast Line became general superintend- ent of the latter system. His lumber inter- ests were very extensive, but only consti- tuted a portion of his business interests. He was connected with other lines of com- mercial activity, with banks and real estate