Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1877-10-09
TUESDAY MORNING. OCTOBER o. 1877.
THE LATE WILLIAM LUCAS.

1877, at orion Hail." in the county OF JEFF
ferson, and State of West Virginia, WILLIAM
LUCAS, aged seventy.seven years. The bells
toll and panegyrics glow over the valiant men
of the earth as they fall in the race, and their
dust is laid away in the bosom of the COM
mon mother with pious hands and ceremonies
meet on the part Of the living.
q Here was man who went away from our
busy haunts thirty years ago,-like Tully's
farmer in DE neutrality-suspicious. W it'll his
glebe. his curtilage aud his sylvan solitude.
Once or twice he was called thence by the
people urgent for his service, and he stepped
bac on the stage he had descrtsd to obey the
special call, but nothing could eutice him from
his spreading acres. His name was men-
toned about 1850 for the:ofice first of Lieu
tenant. G overnor, and afterwards for that of
Governor of the Commonwealth Of Virginia.
When he was approached on the subject at
the Exchange Hotel in Richmond, he said
81 am here, gentlemen, with Hunter and
Faulkner, at the Constitutional Convention,
to do what may for the old State,-but no
Office for me. have possessed me of good.
ly home on the banks of the Shenandoah in
the Valley of Virginia, with the Blue Ridge
stretching away to the. East and the Allegheny
to the West Of my estate. In the morning
as stand on my portieo can behold the sun
rising through the Gap at Harper's Ferry,
where the marriage of the waters of the Shen>
an doah and Potomac takes place. Thank,
l,k I.rk
my curtilage and acres for your whole city of
Richmond" And he camc back to his good>
ly home on the banks Of the Shenandoah, and
made it . very wilderness of sweets; Cedar
of Lebanon. and Southern Cypress, evergreen
and deoiduous trees, mngnolias.au fsr-tropic
plants; such as are found no where else in
the State OF West Virginia, ''springing up
around him, and fairly empowering his res
idepce-Rion Hall-in their mrltitudnous
shades. Agriculture engrossed him, and the
small farm of two or three hundred acres with
which he had started expanded by degrees
in to the great plantation of nearly two thou>
sand acres. The fertility of Jefferson county
is famous. Mr.. Lucas estate in fair times
yielded him from eight to ten thousand
bushels of wheat year, and other crops in
like proportion. His ambition, almost a
mania with him,-was to own a magnificent
landed estate. After his hopes had been full
filled, and farm after farm had been added to
his possessions, the war came and smote him
cruel blows right and left. Living at the
mouth of the Valley, he was unhappily in the
very track of the armies which stripped him
of everything they could carry away. Since
the war the inexhaus;ible fertility OF his lands
helped him to recuperate. To what extent
he had repaired his losses before his death is
not known to the present reminiscent; but
Just government. should indemnify his estate
for the property it appropriated out of it for
its own uses.
Although William. Lucas was born SO long
ago as the year 1900 at "Cold Spring" near
Shepherdstown, Jefferson county, yet his
family had inhabited the same land for three
generations before him. Members of the
family fought in the revolution, and his two
brothers, Edward and Robert, (the latter of
whom still survives in green old ago. saw
service in the war Of 1912. William was too
young to enlist, or it is very certain be would
have done SO. The war of Independence
brought with it the coveted freedom from
tyrauts, but it left poverty joint inher-
itance to the patriot fathers. William Lucas
was the architect of his own fortunes His
academical chances he made the most of, but
his father could not afford TO him Collegiate
finish. After teaching school at Harper's
Ferry for a short time, he entered the law
Office of Henry Berry, of Shephcrdstown,
and afterwards the law school of Judge Henry
St. George Tucker at Winchester, where he
met as fellow>studeu,s several young men who
afterwards became eminent in the profession
among the number were Robert Y. Conrad
and Robert j. Brent. Judge Tucker, who
combined elegant scholarship and high lit
erary accomplishing nts with greet legal learn
ing. directed Mr.. Lucas studies with friendly
care and judgment. To those instructions he
gratefully ascribed his future success Mt the
bar. Judge Tucker was his beau ideal of a
scholar and gentleman. To the end of his
life he retained this admiration for his early
preceptor. "In Manners sir" he has often
said to the present writer, "Henry st. George
Tucker was the Chesterfield of America
The distinguished John r. Cooke also inter-
ested himself greatly in the legal success of
Mr.. Lucas.
That success was marked. At Shepherds.
town, where he began the practice of law,
and at Charlestown whittier he removed later
on, he became a leader. No man, it is prob>