Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/357

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PROMINENT PERSONS


313


president of the \'irginia State Bar Associa- tion. Me declined a nomination for a fed- eral judgeship, a circuit judgeship, and the state senate. He was a Whig prior to the war, then until 1867 a conservative, but since 1869 has been a Democrat. He is a vestryman of Trinity and Emanuel churches. He is a member of the American Peace Soci- ety, was chairman of the state committee on international arbitration. He is a mem- ber of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and of other prominent societies and clubs. He married (first) April 12, 1871, Alary Fon- taine Alexander, of "Walnut Farm," Jeffer- son county, West Virginia, a lineal descend- ant of John Augustine Washington, the elder, of Richard Henry Lee, the "Signer." He married (second) January 5, 1887, Jan- ctta Ravenscroft Harrison, of West Hill, Augusta county, Virginia. He married (third) February 15, 1900, Margaret Fisher Warren, of Richmond, \'irginia.

Rinehart, William A., born in Botetourt county, Virginia, April 3, 1846, son of John and Mary A. Rinehart, and great-grandson of Aaron Rinehart, who came from Ger- many to Botetourt county about 1753. He attended the public schools, and in his six- teenth year enlisted in Company C, Second Regiment Virginia Cavalry, served for three years, and received wound in the arm at Gettysburg. After the war he engaged in the lumber business for five years, and then was superintendent of railroad work for seven years. In 1880 he became a contractor of railroad work of all kinds, and became head of the Rinehart & Dennis Company, a r.'ilroad contracting firm. He was vice- j.resident of the First National Bank of Covington, \'irginia. .A Democrat in poli-


tics, he has represented the counties of Alle- ghany, Bath, and Highland in the Virginia legislature. He is a member of the Baptist (.liurcli. He married, December 20, 1867, Mary Lewis Lipes.

Henry, Robert Randolph, born at Chester, Chester county. South Carolina, April 26, 1845, ^ son of William Dickson Henry, a planter and merchant of Chester, and Julia Hall, his wife, who was born in Fredericks- burg, V^irginia. James Henry, the great- great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of county Tyrone, Ire- land, from whence he came in 1725, and set- tled near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He l.ad married a Miss Swan in his native land, and brought her and his children with him, but almost every member of the family was murdered by the Indians not long after they had made their home here. William Henry, son of James Henry, lived for some years in the Cumberland Valley, but after his mar- riage to Margaret Cowan he removed to York District, South Carolina, settling at the foot of King's Mountain. He was one of the stanchest supporters of the \\'hig party and fought bravely in the cause of the American revolution ; with four of his sons he was active at the battle of King's Moun- tain, the battle of Ninety-Six, and the en- gagement at Brattonsville, York county, South Carolina. In Dr. Lyman Draper's "King's Mountain and Its Heroes," we find the following incident: "Two of his (Wil- liam Henry's) sons followed two of Colonel r-erguson's Tory messengers, who were bearing dispatches to General Cornwallis. requesting reinforcements, and pursued them with such relentless heat that the mes- sengers were compelled to conceal them-