Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/660

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

i8, 1648, and William Baldwin six hundred acres in York county, October 26, 1652. I'here was a John Baldwin, a freeman, who came in the ship Tiger to Virginia, in 1622, and John Baldwin received a land grant. Oc- tober ID, 1656. It is thus apparent that the family has been identified with the Old Dominion from the beginning of its history.

William Baldwin, a soldier of the war of 1812, lived in Nottoway county. Virginia, where he was a planter, and died soon after the close of that war. He had several plan- tations and engaged extensively in the pro- duction of tobacco, and was a large slave- holder. His wife was a ^liss Brackett.

William Brackett Baldwin, son of Wil- liam Baldwin, was born in 1S08 in Notto- way county. Virginia, and was a planter in Amelia, Nottoway and Chesterfield counties. He held civil office under the Confederate government, and though too old for service in the active army was a member of the re- serves, and helped guard Goodes Bridge during Wilson's raid. He was a member of the Baptist church. He married (first) Maria L. Pettus, and they were the par- ents of five sons and four daughters. Two of the sons died in infancy, and the other three were all soldiers in the Confederate army. William Edward was a member of the Twent3'-first Virginia Regiment, serv- ing in Jackson's corps. The others were George Washington and Thomas Macon. The last named was killed at Drewry's Bluff- William B. Baldwin married (second) in February. 1865, Jemima Vernon Fowlkes, who was born in Lunenburg county, and re- moved with her parents to Nottoway county. She was a daughter of William Sims and Jemima (Walton) Fowlkes, and granddaughter of Hiram Fowlkes, of Notto- wav county. She died at the birth of her only child. Frank Vernon Baldwin.

Frank Vernon Baldwin was educated in Richmond, whither he went at the age of nine years to attend school. At the age of about fourteen years he entered the office of Colonel William C. Knight, secretary of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, as office boy. He was later engaged in the life insurance business, and was for sometime the publisher of the "Progressive South, " an agricultural paper at Richmond. About 1898 he engaged in the establishment of savings departments in banks of the West and Mid- dle West, and was assistant cashier and

cashier successively of the Commercial & Farmers National Bank of Baltimore. Mary- land, from 1904 to 1909. For the following two years he was secretary and treasurer of the Mutual Alliance Trust Company, of New York, and from 191 1 to 1914 was vice- president of the National Reserve Bank. On the first of January, 1914. this institution was purchased by the Mutual Alliance Trust Company, of which Mr. Baldwin is now vice-president. He is possessed of those social and magnetic qualities which draw to himself and retain friends. His residence is in the borough of Brooklyn. He is a mem- ber of the Southern Society, and the Vir- ginians of New York, also of the New York Chamber of Commerce and Academy of Political Science. Religiously Mr. Baldwin affiliates with the Episcopal church, and in politics adheres to the principles of his fathers in the support of the Democratic party.

He married, October 12, 1887. Frances Hancock Redford, a native of Richmond, Virginia, daughter of John R. and Mary E. (Pae) Redford. Children: i. Robert Maurice, now engaged in business at Balti- more, Maryland. 2. Frank Vernon, Jr., em- ployed in the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York. 3. William Lee, associated with J. B. Duke of the Southern Power Company. 4. Kathryn Imogen, a student at the Mary Baldwin Seminary, Staunton, Virginia. 5. Julian Edward, a student at the Charlotte Hall Military Academy, of Maryland. 6. Jemima May, a student of the Brooklyn public schools.

Lewis Patrick Stearnes, Thomas Franklin Stearnes. Lewis Patrick Stearnes, of New- port News, is a descendant of one of the early New England families. There were three immigrants bearing this name among the earliest settlers of Massachusetts: Isaac. Charles and Nathaniel, who came to America in 1630 in the ship Arabella along with Governor Winthrop and <- ther promi- nent personages. The English name was and still is spelled Sterne. Five hundred vears ago. more or less, when the popula- tion of England had become sufficiently dense to make surnames necessary, some Englishmen assuined the name of Sterne. He may have taken it from the sign of the Sterne, or starling (which is the symbol of industr}'), which he displayed in front of his