Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/361

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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sity of Virginia. As a member of the con- stitutional convention of 1829-30 he was the author of the compromise provision for rep- resentation known as the "Mixed Basis," which was adopted by the convention. In 1829 he was appointed by Governor Wil- liam B. Giles, brigadier-general of the Third Brigade, Second Division, Virginia troops. In 1840 he was appointed major-general of the Second Division. While a member of congress he proposed what is known as the sub-treasury plan for the management of the funds, which was afterwards adopted. He married (first) Alary Robinson Rootes, a daughter of Thomas Reade Rootes, of Fed- eral Hill, Fredericksburg, Virginia, by whom he had no children. Fie married (sec- ond; Elizabeth Lindsay, daughter of Colo- nel Reuben Lindsay, of Albemarle. By this marriage he had eight sons and three daugh- ters who lived to maturity. Six of the sons were soldiers in the Confederate army dur- ing the civil war, among these being: George Loyall, of further mention ; and Cap- tain Charles Henry Gordon, his twin brother, of Fauquier county, Virginia, at one time a lieutenant in the Black Horse Company, later on the stafif of General Bev- erly Robertson.

George Loyall Gordon, son of General William Fitzhugh and Elizabeth (Lindsay) Gordon, studied at the University of Vir- ginia, practiced law, and edited the Alex- andria "Sentinel." He served in the Con- federate army as a member of the "Edge- combe Guards," from North Carolina, and was killed while adjutant of the Fifteenth North Carolina Regiment, at Malvern 11 ill, July I, 1862, falling the nearest man to the enemy's guns. Mr. Gordon married Mary Long Daniel, who died at "Longwood," the lamily residence in Louisa, February, 1876, who was a woman of much amiability and brilliant mind, and inspired her children with a love of literature and a desire to ex- cel in life. She was the eldest daughter of Judge Joseph J. Daniel, of the Virginia fam- ily of that name, and a son of Lewis Daniel, of "Burncourt," Halifax county, North Car- olina. Judge Daniel died while in office as judge of the supreme court of his native state, January, 1848. Prior to his election to this office, he had been a judge of the superior court of law and equity, and served as a member of the North Carolina house of commons, and as a delegate from Halifax county in the state constitutional

convention. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon had five children, of whom three attained maturity : Armistead Churchill, of whom further ; James Lindsay Gordon, a lawyer of Char- lottesville, Virginia, and later of New York, where he died in his forty-fifth year, No- vember 30, 1904, a former state senator of Virginia, later assistant district attorney and assistant corporation counsel of New York, and noted for his oratorical powers and his success as a trial court advocate ; Mary Long Gordon, married Dr. Richard H. Lewis, of Raleigh, North Carolina, secre- tary of the state board of health of that state, and died in Raleigh, August 13, 1895, of typhoid fever.

Armistead Churchill Gordon, LL. D., son of George Loyall and Mary Long (Daniel) Gordon, was born at "Edgeworth," Albe- marle county, Virginia, December 20, 1855, and lived in the country until he settled at Staunton in 1879. His early years were spent with his parents at "Longwood," the years of the war between the states, on a cotton plantation in North Carolina, and when he returned to Virginia in 1868 he lived near Charlottesville, with an uncle, Mason Gordon. He was a student at the Charlottesville Institute, under the late Major Florace W. Jones, and at the age of seventeen j-ears became a state student in the academic department of the University of Virginia. After a thorough course of modern and ancient languages and of mathematics he was graduated, then spent four years in teaching school in Charlottes- ville. At first he was associated with Major Jones in the conduct of the Charlottesville Institute, became his successor, and asso- ciate principal of the high school of Char- lottesville, a ])ublic graded school. In 1877 he was a student in the summer law school of the University of Virginia, and again in 1878 and 1879, and read law privately in the intervals of teaching school.

In October, 1879, Mr. Gordon commenced the practice of law in Staunton, Virginia, and at the same time taught Greek and Ger- man one year in a classical school in Staun- ton, conducted by Henry L. Hoover. In 1883 he formed a law partnership with the late Meade F. White, who was for many years commonwealth attorney of Augusta county. This partnership continued until January i, 1891, during a portion of which time the firm of White & Gordon had the unique experience of representing, the one