Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/89

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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him and declined'), and last, though by no means least, the controlling power in di- recting the policies of a great daily paper, of which he was sole owner.

And it must be remembered that this takes no account of his almost numberless municipal and county activities, or of his "social duties," which last were enormous to a man of his genial temperament, and wide acquaintance, to whom open-handed hospitality was an instinct and an inheri- tance, and who was never happier than when he could gather about him under his own roof-tree kinsmen and comrades and friends. His fondness for entertaining amounted, indeed, well-nigh to a passion. At "Eagle Point" especially, whither he would steal away at times from the inces- sant demands of business for a week or ten days, his unbounded hospitality recalled to more than one of his guests of a past gen- eration those palmy ante-bellum days, when V^irginia squires, descendants of the men, who "rode with Spotswood round the land, and Raleigh round the seas," still kept bright in our "Old Dominion" by song and hunt and open board the brave traditions of Yorkshire and of Devon.

Though an ardent "churchman," and, be- yond question, the most influential layman of his communion in the diocese, he was absolutely free from anything savoring of ecclesiastical narrowness or sectarian preju- dice. No Baptist nor Presbyterian, nor Methodist, no Jew^ nor Gentile (be his creed what it might), no Salvation Army "cap- tain" nor negro evangelist, ever came to him in vain, seeking aid to further the cause of the Master. Not only did he eagerly open his purse to them. but. in some unaccount- able fashion, he found the time to listen patiently to their plans, to discuss these plans minutely, and to give them freely of the rich stores of his experience as a man of affairs. When the Union Seminary (Pres- byterian) was moving from Hampden-Sid- iiey to Richmond, he was one of the most liberal subscribers to the fund necessary for the undertaking, and his last appearance in public (ten days before his death, when he was so ill that he could scarcely stand) was to urge upon his fellow-citizens the comple- tion of the endowment fund for the "Greater Richmond College" (Baptist), to which he himself had made an almost princely con- tribution.

Of all the secular organizations which claimed his active interest and service, the chief in his affections w^as our Historical Society, which was the .constant recipient of his lavish benefactions and of which he was for so many years the efficient presi- dent. It was largely through his influence that Mrs. Stewart, of "Brook Hill," and her daughters made to the society the muni- ficent donation of a permanent home (the old residence of General Robert E. Lee), and it is an open secret that, had he lived, lit- purposed to erect a fire-proof annex to the "Society House" as a secure repository for our manuscript treasures.

Scarcely less keen, however, was his in- terest in the affairs of our sister society, the "Association for the Preservation of Vir- ginia Antiquities," to whose members it must prove a grateful, if mournful, reflection that one of the last of his many benefactions was made to them, when he and his wife presented to the association a superb bronze statue (to be unveiled soon on Jamestown Island) of his pet hero, the virtual founder of Virginia — the man of blood and iron. "John Smith of Willoughbie juxta Alford in the Countie of Lincolne."

Paramount, indeed, of all earthly sensi- bilities (save love of family), was his de* votion to his mother-state. It was no ab- stract sentiment, but the passionate personal loyalty that a Hielander of the eighteenth century felt for the chief of his clan, and, from boyhood to gracious age, burned with a deep and steady glow. He was saturated with her history and traditions. In the mo- ments of leisure that came to him, he never tired of reading or discussing some book dealing with her genesis and development, and in his noble library at "Laburnum" is to be found a priceless collection of "Virgini- ana." which, in point of completeness and rareness, stands unrivalled of any collection, public or private, in America.

His intimates will long recall how the color would steal into his cheek and the fire kindle in his luminous eye, as some eloquent speaker would recount the pre-eminent part that Virginia played in establishing the new nation and in shaping its destinies for years after — how breathlessly he hung upon the glowing periods portraying the instant read- iness of her people — down through all the centuries, whether under Nathaniel Bacon or under Robert Lee, to attest by their blood