Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/165

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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


131


l.ar, and practiced in Lawrenceville, Vir- ginia; member of the state senate in 1894; delegate to the state constitutional conven- tion in 1901 ; delegate to the Democratic national conventions in 1896 and 1904; elected as a Democrat to the sixty-first con- gress, to fill vacancy caused by the death of Francis R. Lassiter and took his seat March 16, 1910; re-elected to the sixty-sec- ond congress. Mr. Turnbull resides in Lawrenceville, Virginia.

Turner, Smith Spangler, born in Warren county, Virginia, November 21, 1842; cadet at the Virginia Military Institute when the civil war commenced, and subsequently given an honorary diploma ; enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861 ; served with Gen. T. J. Jackson as drill officer; an officer of Pickett's division during the remainder of the war; once wounded, and, about the close of the war, badly injured and disfigured by an explosion of gunpowder; taught mathe- matics in a female seminary in Winchester, Virginia, 1865-1867; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1869, and practiced in Front Royal, Virginia ; member of the Virginia legislature, 1869-1872 ; prosecuting attorney for Warren county, Virginia ; for eight years a member of the state board of visitors of the Virginia Military Institute ; elected as a Democrat to the fifty-third con- gress, to fill vacancy caused by the resigna- tion of Charles T. O'Ferrall ; re-elected to the fifty-fourth congress, and served from February 12, 1894, to March 3, 1897. ^^ died at Front Royal, Virginia, April 8, 1898.

Tyler, David Gardiner, was born July 12, 1846, while his mother was on a visit to her mother, at East Hampton, New York, but his life has been wholly identified with Vir-


ginia. He is the eldest son of President John Tyler by his second wife, Julia Gard- iner. As a boy he attended the school of Mr. Austin H. Ferguson in Charles City county, and entered Washington College (now Washington and Lee University; in the latter part of 1862, where he stayed for two sessions, seeing military service at in- tervals in the college company, commanded first by Prof. White and later by Charles Freeman, a student of the college. In 1864 he joined the Rockbridge Artillery com- manded by Capt. Graham and was in the defenses around Richmond till Gen. Lee re- treated to Appomattox, where the army sur- rendered April 9, 1865. After the war he was sent by his mother to Europe with his brother, Alexander, under the care of Rev. Robert Fulton, of New Orleans. He stayed in Europe and attended the Polytechnic School at Carlsruhe two years. He returned to Virginia, and again attended Washington College of which Gen. Lee was now presi- dent. After the first year he studied law i\nd took the degree of Bachelor of Law and in 1869 studied about a year in Richmond under James Lyons. In 1871 he took charge ot the old plantation and practiced in the courts of Charles City and New Kent, but, as the negroes had the domination, there was not much chance for political prefer- ment for many years. He served as a mem- ber of the board of visitors of William and Mary College and as a member of the board lor the Eastern State Hospital at Williamsn burg; was member of the Democratic Cen- tral Committee and presidential elector in 1888. After 1891, when negro domination ceased, his promotion was rapid. He was elected to the state senate ; served as a representative in the fifty-third and fifty-