Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/240

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1 82


VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY


coming its executive head. Mr. Pinder is president of the company at the present time, W. S. Pinder, vice-president, H. G. KUett, secretary and treasurer, and J. S. Ellett, Jr., assistant secretary and treasurer. 'J'he salesrooms and warehouse of the con- cern are in Richmond, and the Virginia- CaroHna Hardware Company holds promi- nent i)lace among the largest enterprises in its line in the state. Mr. Pinder is also president of the Richmond Buggy Manu- facturing Company, and is on the directorate (if the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. He is a progressive, energetic business man, head of two of Richmond's thriving busi- nesses, and takes mure than a passive inter- est in securing to the city the industrial and commercial importance it has long held. His political party is the Democratic, and although never the candidate of his party for public office he is active in its councils. His fraternal society is the Masonic order, his clubs the Rotary, Westmoreland, Coun- try, and Business Glen's, and he is a com- municant of the Presbyterian church.

Mr. Pinder married, at Louisa Court House, X'irginia, June 28, 1906, Helen Hast- ing, born in Louisa county, Virginia, Au- gust 29, 1878, daughter of Colonel William A. Winston, and his wife, Lucy (Payne) Winston, born in Goochland county, now residing in Louisa county, Virginia. Col. William A. Winston served during the four years of the war between the states ; was wounded and confined in a Northern prison. He died in 1908. aged seventy years. Mr. and Mrs. Pinder are the parents of: John Benjamin Jr.. born September 10, 1908; Lucy Payne, born January 25, 191 2.

Judge William Bruce Martin. In succeed- ing generations of the family ot Martin, numbering men who have held prominent and important position in all walks of life, no single figure stands out in honorable relief more plainly than does that of Gen- eral James Green Martin, father of Judge William Bruce Martin, of Norfolk, Virginia, a present day representative of his family. A graduate of West Point, General Martin, then a second lieutenant, won fame and pro- motion in the war with Mexico, sacrificing an arm in the struggle, and afterward, under the flag of the Confederate States of Amer- ica, added to his reputation as a brave sol- dier and gallant officer, rising to the rank


of brigadier-general. His record places him among the heroes of the war between the states, and constitutes a chapter in the his- tory of the line of Martin that brings to the name distinction and honor. His son. Judge William Bruce Martin, judge of the Nor- folk court of law and chancery, has won for the family name eminence in legal circles, and in peace has performed works useful and enduring, with the fidelity and zeal that won for his father front rank among the military leaders of the Confederacy.

Despite the fact that Judge William Bruce Martin is a native of Delaware and that his father. General James Green Martin, owned North Carolina as his birthplace, the family is one of Virginia, and in this state Dr. Wil- liam Martin, grandfather of Judge William Bruce Martin, was born. Dr. William Mar- ton, who was a son of James Green Martin and Susanna (Bruce) Martin, of Virginia, was a member of the medical profession, but had also numerous business and public inter- ests, so that his activity in his profession was somewhat curtailed by his other respon- sibilities. He moved from Virginia to Eliza- beth City, North Carolina, where he prac- ticed medicine, owned a plantation and su- pervised its cultivation, was a well known shipbuilder, represented his district in the state legislature, and was a general officer of the state troops of North Carolina, in which state he passed his mature years. Dr. William Martin married Sophia Dauge, and had issue: Charles F., James Green, of whom further, William F., Robert Bruce, Susan, Margaret and Sophia.

General James Green Martin, son of Dr. William and Sophia (Dauge) Martin, was born at Elizabeth City, Pasquotank county. North Carolina, February 14, 1819, and died in i^yd. His career was a story of service under two flags, to both of which he yielded earnest and sincere devotion. After pre- liminary study at St. Mary's School, in Ra- leigh, North Carolina, he became a student at West Point, entering that institution in July, 1836, many of his friends and class- mates of that time his allies of one war, his enemies of the next. Graduating in July, 1840. General Martin was commis- sioned a second lieutenant in the First Regi- ment of Artillery, and after garrison duty and a short time in the field on the Canadian frontier, during the controversy with Eng- land concerning the Maine and New Bruns-