George Wesley Atkinson (1845 - 1925)

Ancestors

Preceded by 9th Governor William A. MacCorkle

George W. Atkinson 10th Governor of West Virginia 1897—1901

Succeeded by 11th Governor Albert B. White

Contents 1 Biography 2 Census 3 Acknowledgements 4 Sources

Biography

George was born 29 June 1845 in Kanawha County, erstwhile Virginia, now WV, the son of Col. James Atkinson and Miriam Rader of Nicholas County. He married first in 1868 to Miss Ellen Eagan^[1]; together they produced five children.^[2] He married second in 1897 to Mrs. Myra (Horner) Camden, widow of Jude G. D. Camden of Clarksburg, WV.^[3] For much of the duration of the first marriage George and Ellen lived in WV. Following his marriage to Mrs. Camden, and when his term of office as Governor had expired, George and Myra moved to Washington D. C. where George became a Federal Judge in the U. S. Court of Claims.

According to Laidley, Atkinson was a "man of versatile talents... with a great fund of knowledge and... an understanding and appreciation of the deeper things in life." Atkinson was a lawyer, judge, district attorney, governor, sheriff, postmaster, Internal Revenue agent, collector of tolls, Freemason, businessman, journalist, author, father, husband, and poet, among other things. Politically, he was a Republican of the Lincoln type (as was his father), and was well-liked enough by the people of his state to become the first post-reconstruction Republican to break the Democratic choke-hold on the executive branch. Judge Atkinson was a "promoter and benefactor of education," and a member of the board of trustees for several universities, including W. V. Wesleyan, whose yearbook editors wrote of Atkinson in 1914: "We desire that our future be made more successful and and our lives broader through the thought that we belong to the Class that has for its advisor, one who is recognized as the Friend of Man.^[4]" He was a life-long, active, and dedicated member of the Methodist-Episcopal church.

Atkinson's many writings include: History of Kanawha, After the Moonshiners, Psychology Simplified, Chips and Whetstones (poems), and Bench and Bar. He was also editor and publisher of the West Virginia Journal (periodical.) Atkinson was a pragmatic philosopher who worked for the common good, and although a Republican he leaned Democrat in his belief in supporting and protecting the poor and working classes. A fierce advocate for growing West Virginia's industrial economy, and exploiting her natural resources, he also firmly believed in funding state institutions, including the establishment of free public libraries, a project he enthusiastically supported. "He was also the first governor to promote legislation to improve child welfare and labor conditions."^[5]His popularity with the people was such that he was elected by a considerably larger percentage of the population than even was fellow Republican presidential candidate William McKinley, who himself beat his opponent by a landslide.^[6]

"Born and reared upon the sacred soil of your State," wrote Atkinson in his inaugural address, "my interests are yours, and your wishes shall be mine. My utmost endeavors, I promise you, shall be exerted to administer our laws carefully, thoughtfully, fairly, impartially. I am a Republican, and everybody in West Virginia knows it, but as your Governor, your chief executive officer, I shall be absolutely impartial in the enforcement of the law. In the distribution of patronage, I shall serve my party first; but in the execution of the trusts placed in my keeping by the people of my State, I shall know no party, class, race, or creed. My intention, therefore, is to be fair and just and impartial in the execution of the laws of the prosperous Commonwealth of West Virginia."

After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan, and getting the equivalent of a Masters from Mt. Union (Alliance, Ohio), Atkinson "received his courses the the study of law" at Howard University in Washington, D. C., America's most notable Historic Black University^[7]. At that time, as now, Howard's mission was inclusivity, and this appealed to Atkinson's nature. As Governor, Atkinson was appalled by unfair and unjust discrimination of the State's black citizenry whenever he saw it, and was known to use the words "Jim Crow" with unflinching bitterness. Atkinson demanded the legislature enact a law which prohibited trains form forcing black passengers to ride in designated railcars, saying, "When citizens pay full fare for passenger privileges on any railroad train in the State, they should not be proscribed because of race or color..." Outraged by the poor treatment given to black and colored children in the State Institution for the Deaf and Blind, especially with regard to the Board's failure to properly educate them, he demanded change. And in his public address at the laying of the corner-stone of the New Hall of the West Virginia State Colored Institute at Farm, West Virginia, 1897, Atkinson offered the following:

"Standing on the threshold of the twentieth century and looking back, we find how ignorance, bigotry, and superstition are disappearing into the night as the dawn of intelligence and a clearer knowledge of God's creation is unfolded. This little world of ours no longer appears as the whole of the creation, but simply as a grain of sand, an atom in the limitless expanse wherein are systems of suns and planets never dreamed of in ancient days. Even the suspicion that there were other suns and systems and worlds like our own was regarded, in the Dark Ages, as a heresy meriting death! As in the physical creation, so out of the narrow confines of ignorance into the greater intellectual, moral and religious world of thought, the prejudices that cramped and distorted mental vision are disappearing, and a kindlier, sweeter faith is bringing us into closer unity -- belief in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man."^[8]

George passed away in Charleston, WV, on the 4th of April, 1925.^[9]

Census

George W. Atkison (sic) appears on the 1850 U. S. Census, District 29, Elk, (A. P. Fry), Jarrett's Ford, Kanawha County, Virginia, in the home of his parents James and Miriam Atkinson.^[10]

James Atkison, 44 Virginia

Miram Atkison, 38 Virginia

Sarah J Atkison, 6

George W. Atkison, 5

Eugenia Atkison, 3

Maria Atkison, 2

Almira Atkison, 1 month old

Sarah J Atkison, 26

George W. Atkinson appears on the 1860 U. S. Census, Kanawha, Elk District (Blaine), Jarrett's Ford, Kanawha County, Virginia, in the home of his parents James and Miriam. He is 15.^[11]

James Atkinson Male 49 Virginia, farmer, property valued $7600

Miraim Atkinson Female 47 Virginia

Sarah J Atkinson Female 16 Virginia

George W Atkinson Male 15 Virginia

Virginia B Atkinson Female 13 Virginia

Maria Atkinson Female 11 Virginia

Almira R Atkinson Female 10 Virginia

Elizabeth Atkinson Female 8 Virginia

Mary C Atkinson Female 5 Virginia

Jane S Atkinson Female 1 Virginia

Eliza B Stephenson Female 20 Virginia

George W. Atkinson appears on the 1870 U. S. Census, Charleston, West Virginia, with his wife Ellen, son Howard, and others.

George W Atkinson Male 25 Virginia, editor of W. V. Journal $1800 net worth

Ellen Atkinson Female 27 Ireland

Howard Atkinson Male 0 West Virginia

Bessie Eagen Female 29 Ireland, presumed sister-in-law

Annie McCulock Female 17 Ireland, domestic servant

Charles Manchester Male 26 Connecticut, printer

George W. Atkinson appears on the 1880 U. S. Census. He has moved his family to Wheeling, WV, in the far northern panhandle.^[12]

George W Atkinson, age 34, Virginia, U. S. Internal Revenue Agent

Howard Atkinson, son, age 10, West Virginia,

Bessie K Atkinson, daughter, age 8, West Virginia

George W Atkinson, Jr., son, 6, West Virginia

Florence M Atkinson, daughter, 3, West Virginia

Ellen Atkinson, wife, 36, Ireland

Clara Happy, other, 19, Virginia

George W. Atkins appears on the 1900 U. S. Census, City Ward 3-4, Charleston, WV, USA. He's listed as "Governor of West Virginia." He and Myra have been married three years.

George W. Atkinson Head Male 55 West Virginia

Myra H. Atkinson Wife Female 55 West Virginia

Ellen W. Atkinson Daughter Female 19 West Virginia

Maria E. Stone Sister Female 51 West Virginia

Dela Mcclannahan Servant Female 24 West Virginia

Geo W. Atkinson appears on the 1910 U. S. Census, Precinct 8, Washington, D. C. with his second wife Mrya H. (Horner) Atkinson and Florence E. Horner, a presumed relation. George and Myra have now been married 13 years (his second, her third.) They have chosen to live in a typical working-class neighborhood of Capitol Hill (1600 Thirteenth Street NW) whose inhabitants are professionals, tradesmen, and laborers off all sorts. At the time, this large brown brick house was quite new, having been built in 1900.^[13]

Atkinson, Geo W., head, age 64, a lawyer serving as a U. S. Judge

Atkinson, Myra H., wife, age 65, mother of two living children

Horner, Florence E., lodger, age 21, no current occupation

Acknowledgements

Expanded biography, sources, and census by Gregory S. Morris

Sources

1. ↑ West Virginia Marriages
2. ↑ Laidley, W. S., History of Charleston and Kanawha County, WV, and Representative Citizens., page 539, top. https://archive.org/details/historyofcharles00laid/page/538/mode/2up
3. ↑ West Virginia Marriages
4. ↑ West Virginia Wesleyan College, Murmurmontis, 1914, Volume 9, A Yearbook for 1912-1913, Buckhannon, WV. https://archive.org/details/murmurmontisyear09west/mode/2up?view=theater&q=atkinson
5. ↑ West Virginia Archives and History, WV Dept. of Arts, Culture, and History, George Wesley Atkinson. http://www.wvculture.org/history/government/governors/atkinson.html
6. ↑ Atkinson, George Wesley, Inaugural Address of Governor George Atkinson, 4 March, 1887. http://www.wvculture.org/history/government/governors/atkinsonia.html
7. ↑ Federal Judicial Center, U. S. Supreme Court, One Columbus Circle, Washington, D. C., "Judges." Atkinson, George Wesley. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/atkinson-george-wesley
8. ↑ Atkinson, Geo. W., Public Addresses, Etc. of Geo. W. Atkinson, LL. D., D. C. L., Governor of West Virginia, During his Term of Office, Embracing a Variety of Public Questions. Published by the State of WV, Printed by The Public Printer, 1901, page 62, top. http://www.wvculture.org/history/government/governors/atkinsonia.html
9. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #7618842
10. ↑ "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DBB7-QV3?cc=1401638&wc=95RQ-6TG%3A1031351901%2C1032510201%2C1032516501 : 9 April 2016), Virginia > Kanawha > Kanawha county, part of > image 242 of 272; citing NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
11. ↑ United States Census, 1860," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9BSF-9WC4?cc=1473181&wc=7QY4-SJ5%3A1589436503%2C1589437144%2C1589422206 : 24 March 2017), Virginia > Kanawha > Not Stated > image 200 of 325; from "1860 U.S. Federal Census - Population," database, Fold3.com (http://www.fold3.com : n.d.); citing NARA microfilm publication M653 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
12. ↑ "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYBJ-F5F?cc=1417683&wc=XCCS-MNL%3A1589415848%2C1589402655%2C1589401419%2C1589395236 : 24 December 2015), West Virginia > Ohio > Wheeling > ED 200 > image 33 of 45; citing NARA microfilm publication T9, (National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., n.d.)
13. ↑ "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RK9-FR2?cc=1727033&wc=QZZ4-NSC%3A133636901%2C133636902%2C133777201%2C1589089486 : 24 June 2017), District of Columbia > Washington > Precinct 8 > ED 146 > image 19 of 32; citing NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

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