Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/37

 \IK(i.\lA P.IOGRAi'HY

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v>ritten for his children, and many verses. Ill his latter years he lost his sight, which to a man of his scholarly attainments was a crushing blow, but no one ever heard a murmur of complaint over his affliction. In a letter written to a friend just before his death, he said: "From childhood to youth, from manhood to old age. I have been con- tinually blessed in every phase of my life." In some verses composed after his affliction. he says :

Father of light, though 'reft of outward sense, Thou give.st me faith and hope, sweet recompense; Through the dark valley whicii must soon be trod, These lights divine will lead me home to God.

Dr. Edmund B. Addison married Eliza D. Bowie, born in Maryland, where she died in the prime of her womanhood, aged thirty- eight years, in 1846. Six of their ten chil- dren are living: Walter Dulany, of Califor- nia; Edmund Brice Jr.. of further mention; Catherine, of Washington. D. C. ; Alary, of Washington, D. C. ; Charles G., of Prince George's county, Maryland ; Thomas D. of P'airfax county, Virginia.

(VII) Edmund Brice (2) Addison, third son of Dr. Edmund Brice (i) and Eliza D. (Bowie) Addison, was born in Prince George's county, Maryland, May 25, 1834. He was educated in Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, D. C, and under the teach- ing of his scholarly, honored father. He be- gan business life as a commission merchant in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1861 he located in Richmond. Virginia, where during the entire war period he was attached to the arsenal, in the employ of the Confederate government. After the war he entered mer- cantile business in Richmond, became junior of the firm of Allison & Addison, and in 1895 became associated with the Virginia-Caro- lina Chemical Company, of which corpor- ation he is first vice-president. He has led an active business life, has been associated with many Richmond enterprises of the past and present, and stands high in the commer- cial world. He was one of the trustees of the old Mutual Assurance Society of Vir- ginia, is now vice-president of the \'irginia Fire and Alarine Insurance Company, direc tor of the National State and City Bank, director of the Virginia Trust Company, and has other interests of scarcely less import- ance, in addition to his holdings in the Vir- ginia-Carolina Chemical Company, one of

the largest concerns of its kind in the south. He adheres to the religious faith of his dis- tinguished forbears, and is a communicant of St. James' Protestant Episcopal Church, of Richmond.

Edmund Brice Addison Jr. married, Octo- ber 21, 1859, in Alexandria, Virginia, Emily Crockford, born in New Jersey, of English parentage, daughter of John and Ellen Crockford. who came to New Jersey from England when young. John Crockford, a civil engineer. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Addison : Nellie, widow of Robert G. Ren- nolds ; John A., of Ashland. Virginia; Wal- ter Edmund, of Lynchburg, X'irginia ; James A., connected with the Richmond Savings I'ank; Eliza, married John H. Lyons, of Richmond, \'irginia ; William Meade, cash- ier of the First National Bank of Richmond ; Emily, married David Gray Langhorne ; Edmund Brice (3). died aged one year.

■ George Walter Stevens. Coming upon the active battlefield of life at the beginning of the period of wonderful national pros- }>erity that followed the unhappy war be- tween the states, Mr. Stevens has been a part of that development, and an important factor in its continuance. For fifty years identified with the railway service of the country, he has risen from a lowly to a conspicuous place among the veteran rail- road men of the nation. Beginning at the age jif thirteen years as messenger boy in the office of the station agent of the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad Company at L'tica, Ohio, he rose through merit and loyalty from plane to plane of greater responsibility, until he reached the president's chair, which he now most capably fills. No favored child of fortune, but the builder of his own for- tunes. Mr. Stevens has won every step for- ward bv proving his ability in each posi- tion occupied, thereby winning the entire confidence of higher officials through whom promotion must come. His career is not only an example, but an incentive to the American youth, proving as it does the pos- sibilities this country opens to the ambiti- ous, clean lixing, right-minded, young man. George Walter Stevens was born at Utica, Licking county. Ohio, June 29. 185 1, son of James Smith Stevens, a prominent mer- chant, and his wife. Julia Ann ( Penn) Stevens. He is of English ancestry, his paternal forbears settling in Connecticut in