Henry Clay McWhorter
The WVGenWeb Project

Henry Clay McWhorter

Capt. H.C. McWhorter, the subject of this sketch and accompanying portrait, has been a resident of what is now West Virginia since 1841; has been, since 1865, and still is, an active, practicing lawyer in Charleston. In 1869-70 he was Prosecuting Attorney for Kanawha county; and in his profession has been successful and attained eminence. He was a member of the Legislature from Roane county in 1865, and from Kanawha in 1866-67-68, of which latter session he was Speaker, fulfilling its onerous and intricate duties in a parliamentary and highly satisfactory manner. Again, in 1885-87, he was a member of the House of Delegates from Kanawha county, elected on the Republican ticket. On the same ticket, in the fall of 1888, he was the candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. He was the first President of the Board of Education in the Independent District of Charleston.

Captain McWhorter is the son of Fields and Margaret M. (Kester) McWhorter, and was born February 20, 1836, in Ashley, Marion county, Ohio. He lived on the farm until he was eighteen years old; then was a clerk in a drug store, and afterwards Deputy Clerk in Roane county Courts until 1861. His father, brother and himself served in the Federal army - Henry C. in the Ninth West Virginia Infantry, first as private, then as Lieutenant, then Captain, then resigned in 1863 on account of severe wounds, but remained in the Provost Marshal's Department until the close of the war. Captain McWhorter is one of the best known and most highly respected citizens of West Virginia.


Taken from Prominent Men of West Virginia, Geo. W Atkinson and Alvaro F Gibbens, W.L. Callin Publishing, Wheeling, WV, 1890.

© 1996 Becky Falin
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