Republicans, and was elected governor in 1873; while so serving, a legislative committee waited upon him to assure him of his unanimous election as United States senator if he would accept, but he declined, declaring that the state had already bestowed upon him the highest position in its power—the one he now held. He retired to his farm in Orange county, and died at Gordonsville, April 7, 1895. He married Mrs. C. Conway Cave.
Holliday, Frederick William Mackey, born in Winchester, Virginia, February 22, 1828, son of Dr. Richard J. M. Holliday, an early settler of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He graduated from Yale College in 1847, and then entered the University of Virginia, from which he was graduated in law after one session, and was selected as final orator of the Jefferson Literary Society. He was made commonwealth attorney for Frederick county, and served until the war broke out. He went with the first troops to Harper's Ferry, and on his return became captain of a company, which was assigned to the Third Regiment, of the Stonewall Brigade, and rose to the colonelcy; was in numerous engagements, losing his right arm at Cedar Run (or Slaughter's Mountain), disabling him for field service. He then entered the Confederate congress, of which he continued a member until peace was restored. Resuming practice, he took first rank at the Winchester bar. He was a commissioner at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, in Philadelphia; in the same year he was a presidential elector. Without opposition, he was elected governor in 1877. His administration was principally concerned with the state debt question, and he vetoed the repudiation scheme. As governor he delivered the address of welcome at the Yorktown Centennial, under congressional appointment. After retiring from office he busied himself on his farm, and in literary pursuits. He died at Winchester, May 20, 1899.
Cameron, William Evelyn, born in Petersburg, Virginia, November 29, 1842, son of Walker Anderson Cameron and Elizabeth Page (Walker) Cameron, his wife. His father was a cotton broker, descended from Sir Ewan Lochiel, the celebrated chief of clan Cameron in Scotland. Among Gov. Cameron's distinguished American progenitors were Benjamin Harrison, who settled in Virginia in 1630, and was secretary to the colony; Sir Dudley Digges, master of the rolls to King Charles I.; Col. William Byrd, of Westover (1673); and Edmund Jenings (1690), deputy governor of the colony 1706-10. The founder of the Cameron family in Virginia and North Carolina was the Rev. John Cameron (1770), graduate of Aberdeen University, an Episcopal clergyman, and rector of old Blandford Church, Petersburg, Virginia.
William E. Cameron's early life was spent in his native city. He was studious and ambitious. He attended various schools, among which was the classical school of Mr. Charles Campbell, of Petersburg, the historian of Virginia. His first early employment was that of a clerk on a Mississippi steamboat. In 1860, he was selected for a cadetship at West Point, and took a preparatory course in St. Louis under Capt. (afterward Major-General) John Reynolds. In 1861, he acted as drillmaster for the Missouri state troops, and was captured at
