Francis Harrison Pierpont

Francis Harrison Pierpont
Portrait of Francis Pierpont
Governor of Virginia Disputed until 1865
In office 1861–1868
Lieutenant Governor	Daniel Polsley (1861–1863) Leopold C. P. Cowper (1863–1868)
Preceded by	John Letcher as the undisputed Governor
Succeeded by	Henry H. Wells as "Provisional Governor"
Personal details
Born	(1814-01-25)January 25, 1814 Morgantown (then in Virginia)
Died	March 24, 1899(1899-03-24) (aged 85) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Julia Augusta Robertson
Occupation	Lawyer

Francis Harrison Pierpont (January 25, 1814 – March 24, 1899), called the "Father of West Virginia," was an American lawyer, politician, and Governor of the Union-controlled parts of Virginia during the Civil War. After the war, he was the Governor of all of Virginia during the early years of Reconstruction. In recognition of his significance to its state history, in 1910 the state of West Virginia donated a marble statue of Pierpont as its second contribution to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.

Early life

He was the third son of Francis Peirpoint and was born at the Peirpoint "Plantation" in the "Forks of Cheat" on the Morgantown-Ices Ferry Road, Monongalia County. His middle name, "Harrison," was added later by the boy's father in honor of his commanding officer, General William Henry Harrison. Pierpont, the original family name, was altered to Peirpoint in the land office at Richmond, VA in issuing patents for land deeded to his grandfather. The family was advised, by Virginia lawyers, that in order to hold their grandfather's land they must spell their last name as recorded in the patent. His father used the name Peirpoint throughout all of his life. Francis Harrison also utilized Peirpoint throughout most of his adult life including during his terms as the Civil War and Reconstruction Governor of Virginia. In 1880, when President Garfield appointed him Collector of Internal Revenue, Peirpoint sent his name to the U.S. Senate as Francis H. Pierpont. Pierpont writes that "He consented to the change of his name because it was right."

While Frank was a boy, his family moved their leatherworking business to what is today Marion County, West Virginia. His mother was daughter of Morgantown's founder Zackquill Morgan. Frank Pierpont was educated in a one-room schoolhouse and by his own reading. Pierpont became linked with the region's history for the rest of his life. After walking to Pennsylvania, he enrolled in and graduated from Allegheny College. Later, he taught school in Harrison County. Then he traveled and became an abolitionist after seeing slavery's abuses in Mississippi.

He returned home to Fairmont and handled the family's tanning business as well as became active in the Methodist Church and began studying law. He was admitted to the bar in 1841. In 1848, Pierpont became the local attorney for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Before entering politics, he also helped found Fairmont Male and Female Seminary, the forerunner to Fairmont State University.

Political career

Francis Harrison Pierpont, NSHC statue

Civil war

An active supporter of Abraham Lincoln, Pierpont became more involved in politics as an outspoken opponent of Virginia's secession from the Union. When Virginia seceded and entered the war, delegates from the northwestern counties of Virginia, which refused to join the Confederacy, met at the Wheeling Convention. Declaring that their elected officials had abandoned their posts, a rump government was established in Wheeling, with Pierpont as the provisional Governor. Claiming to be the legitimate government of the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, the "Restored Government" drafted a new Virginia Constitution and sent representatives to the Union Congress. The Second Wheeling Convention met on June 11, 1861, and on June 20, 1861, it unanimously elected Piepont governor of the Restored Government of Virginia with the recognition of President Lincoln. In 1862, Pierpont attended the Loyal War Governors' Conference in Altoona, Pennsylvania, organized by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin, which ultimately backed Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Union war effort. Pierpont was again elected governor for a four-year term on May 28, 1863 by the legislature.

Under Pierpont's leadership, the Wheeling government called for a popular vote on the question of the creation of a new separate state. Despite a lack of overwhelming support and widespread fraud in the voting process, the Restored Government pressed the U.S. Congress for statehood, which also approved the issue. The new state took the name West Virginia and was admitted into the Union in 1863. Arthur I. Boreman was elected governor for West Virginia, while Pierpont remained Governor of the "restored" state of Virginia. From 1863 until 1865, the Pierpont administration's de facto control was limited to those parts of the Commonwealth not claimed by West Virginia that were held by Federal arms - specifically, several Northern Virginia, Norfolk area and Eastern Shore counties. While Pierpont claimed Richmond as the official state capital (as his administration had done since 1861), the de facto seat of government was established in Alexandria for the remainder of the Civil War. The pro-Confederate state government in Richmond maintained its claim to the Commonwealth's antebellum borders and administered the regions of the Commonwealth still held under Confederate arms. In 1864 Pierpont called a Constitutional Convention in Alexandria that abolished slavery, and promulgated the civil Constitution in force in Virginia until 1869.

On May 9, 1865, one month after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, President Andrew Johnson appointed Pierpont as the Provisional Governor of Virginia. Pierpont immediately re-located the seat of government to Richmond.

Reconstruction

Grave

Pierpont followed a policy of forgiveness to those politicians who had served in the Confederate military and government. The Virginia government started to pass laws restoring ex-Confederates to their lost privileges, to the displeasure of most former Union Republicans. As the South became increasingly resistant to Reconstruction after the war, the United States Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867. Through this Act, Virginia was designated the "First Military District" in 1868, and military commander John Schofield replaced Pierpont with Henry H. Wells until state delegates could write and enact a new constitution could be enacted. According to the Civil War historian Richard Lowe, Hiram Bond, a former Vanderbilt family functionary and friend of Grant, planned the removal of Pierpont and installation of Welles. Pierpont became one of the key figures in the Virginia constitutional convention of 1867-1868, which resulted in the Underwood Constitution of 1869. After this, Pierpont left Virginia politics and returned to his law practice in West Virginia.

Pierpont subsequently was elected to one term in the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1870, but lost his seat when the Democrats took control of the state. His last public office was as collector of Internal Revenue under President James Garfield. After his retirement, he helped create the West Virginia Historical Society, as well as served as President of the United Methodist Church.

Death and Legacy

He died at his daughter's home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on March 24, 1899. Three years later, his remains were relocated to Woodlawn Cemetery in Fairmont, West Virginia. They are next to his wife Julia and three of their four children.

A monument to Francis Pierpont was installed in Wheeling on West Virginia Day in 2015.

Further reading

• Ambler, Charles H. Francis H. Pierpont: Union War Governor and Father of West Virginia (1937), the standard scholarly biography
• Downing, David C. A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2007. ISBN 978-1-58182-587-9

External links

• Francis H. Pierpont in Encyclopedia Virginia
• "A Guide to the Francis H. Pierpont Restored Government Executive Papers, 1861-1865", The Library of Virginia
• "A Guide to the Executive Papers of Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont, 1865-1868", The Library of Virginia
• "A Guide to the Executive letter book of Governor Francis H. Pierpont, 1861-1864.", The Library of Virginia
• West Virginia & Regional History Center, WVU Libraries's Pierpont, Francis Harrison (1814-1899), Papers 1811-1949
• Klos, Stanley Y., The Father of West Virginia: A Perplexing Name Change.