U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Waddell, Richard Bonaparte (1837-1907) --------------------------------------------------------------------- A History of Preston County West Virginia Biographical Department, Supplied by J. R. Cole Kingwood, W. Va., The Journal Publishing Company, 1914 by H. S. Whetsell Pages 798-802 The Waddell family, though small, deserves a creditable mention in the history of the county in which one might almost say the family was founded. The head of this branch of an old Virginia family, Richard Bonaparte Waddell, was born in Frostburg, Maryland, September 14, 1837. He was the son of John Matthew Waddell and Sophia Fogle Waddell, who had emigrated to that place from Virginia a few years before. Owing to a family estrangement, John Waddell never returned to his birthplace. As his interests broadened in his new home, he ceased all communication with the remainder of the family, and consequently lost all accurate record of the family history. Almost the only communication the pioneers ever held with their relatives in Virginia was when their son, who had been named Richard, was five or six years old. At that time David Waddell sought out his brother John and paid him a long visit. David Waddell was an ardent admirer of Napoleon, and insisted upon inserting "Bonaparte" into his young nephew's name. This in itself was sufficient to make any boy in young Richard's place wish he had never seen his esteemed uncle. When that uncle called him "Bony," the boy was surely excusable for wishing he might never see Uncle David again. When Richard Waddell was seven or eight years old, his parents moved into what is now Preston county. They moved about considerably, but finally settled near Brandonville. There John Waddell worked at his trade, shoemaking, till his death. He was declared one of the most skillful craftsmen of his day. Besides his trade, he could turn his hand to any useful device emergency demanded. For a number of years after the death of his father, Richard Waddell made his home with the family of Mr. William Hagans. The rule of this home was "early to bed and early to rise," a rule that was very hampering to young Waddell's social tendencies. But he dutifully marched off to bed at the appointed hour every night, and not until several months had passed did Mr. Hagans learn that his ward was in the habit of slipping away after the rest of the family had retired, and circulating among his kindred spirits in the village. For a while it puzzled Mr. Hagans to know how the boy got out of the house, but rising earlier than usual one morning, he found a stout pole leaning against the wall under the boy's bed-room window. The mystery was solved. But the next night when the young reveller returned from his nocturnal wanderings, his improvised ladder was not to be found. He spent the night — what little was left of it — in the hay loft. The matter was never mentioned between them, but Mr. Waddell never forgot the trick Mr. Hagans had played on him, and often told it to his own children. On April 11, 1858, Richard Waddell married Lucy Weyant, daughter of John and Susan Fichtner Weyant. The Weyant family — unlike the Waddell family — was reasonably large, consisting of: Katherine, who married David Shaffer, and with him lived the greater part of their lives in Preston county; Margaret, who died in early girlhood; Matilda, who married Felty Shaffer and lived and died in Fayette county, Pennsylvania; Ellen, who married John Spindler and with him lived almost all their lives in Preston county; twins, Elizabeth, who married Jefferson Rhodes and lived in Somerset county, Pennsylvania, and Philip Henry, who died young; and Lucy Anne, who married as before stated and spent her life near Brandonville. Although the five Weyant girls each reared a good-sized family of energetic, industrious offspring, the family name, so far as their branch of the family is concerned, became extinct with the death of Philip Henry. To Richard and Lucy Anne Weyant Waddell were born seven children, of whom three died in infancy. Those who survived are: Jennie, Nancy J., Margaret Lynne and Charles Walter. Jennie became Mrs. Marshal Benson. To them were born seven children, as follows: Charles Albert, Wilbur Harold, James Richard, Erroll Clyde, Bruce Emmens, Meta Adaline and Lucy Edna. Nan married M. F. Chorpenning and became the mother of nine children, of whom the following eight are living: Monroe Oscar, Olonzo Jay, Walter Elmo, Lloyd Sherman, Homer Irion, Henry Ward, Creed McKinley and Lucy Ellen. Margaret Lynne graduated from the Mount Carroll (Illinois) Seminary (now the Frances Shimer School) and took her A. B. at the West Virginia University. She has been one of the leading educators in this section of the state for sixteen years, having taught in all grades from the rural schools to the normal schools. For the last nine years she has been engaged in normal school work — four years at Glenville as general assistant, and five at Shepherd College in charge of the department of English. For the past two years she has spent her summers in doing graduate work in Columbia University. Charles Walter took his A. B. at West Virginia University and taught Greek and Latin in the Fairmont State Normal School. When he took charge of this position he was the youngest instructor engaged in normal school work in the state, being barely twenty. In 1907 he received his M. D. from Howard Medical School. Soon after his graduation he began the practice of medicine in Fairmont. He married Myrtle De Vene Shaw, a woman of remarkable musical ability. Dr. Waddell has bought property in Fairmont and made an attractive home for his wife and two little girls, Jean Shaw and Mary Anne. As a physician he has been exceedingly popular and successful. To return to the main subject of the sketch, Richard Waddell, and follow his career, we find that for some time he served in the Union army, and on April 19, 1862, has was given a commission as captain in the One Hundred Fourth Regiment of the Tenth Brigade, third division of the brigade militia, signed by Governor Pierpont. He was afterward appointed third sergeant of Company L, Sixth Regiment, West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry. Another appointment was as quartermaster sergeant of Company E, Sixth Regiment, West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry, stationed at Fort Laramie, Nebraska. He was honorably discharged there May 2, 1866. It was while convalescing from a fever in the army hospital at Fort Laramie that he formed a friendship with the Indian, Chief Spotted Tail. One of Miss Lynne Waddell's most cherished possessions is a small bead kinnikinic pouch given to Captain Waddell by Chief Spotted Tail. Dr. Charles Waddell has a large Indian pipe procured from the same source. Richard Waddell held various offices of trust in his county. As a public official he was safe and conservative, and looked well to the interests of his constituents. He was a kind and obliging neighbor, though extremely fond of his joke now and then. For years he delighted in playing harmless jokes on his neighbor, the widow of one of his superior officers in the army. A favorite jest was his request each spring for the privilege of tapping a row of unusually fine sugar trees that stood in front of her house. The little woman always emphatically refused. Great was her indignation one morning ——April first, it might be mentioned——when she darted out (she always moved as if she had been shot out of a gun), armed with a broom to sweep off every suggestion of dust on her sidewalk. For a moment she gazed fairly spell-bound. Each of her precious trees had two or three spiles in it with crocks under them to catch the saccharine liquid. Her anger knew no bounds and she began to jerk furiously at the spiles. She found them to be only elder stems tied to the trees with black thread. The crocks were mostly bottomless ones gathered from the garbage heap. A cheerful "ha-ha" from across the fence readily informed her to whom she was indebted for the joke. When anyone got the better of him in a joke he was usually game, no matter how much the joke hurt. Here is one instance, however, when he lost his temper over the trick played. An old German walked into the store one morning when Mr. Waddell was unusually busy. Without waiting his turn, the old fellow held up a young chicken and asked: "Mr. Vaddell, vat you bay for sich ghicken like dot?" Mr. Waddell, annoyed at the unseemly haste of his Teutonic customer, glanced up carelessly and said, indifferently, "Oh, about fifteen cents." "I take him," said Mr. Dutchman. "I kotch him in your hen yart." After diving into a veritable bottomless pit of a pocket, he tossed a dime and a nickel on the counter and hobbled out. The fowl was one of Mr. Waddell's carefully bred Plymouth Rocks, the eggs for which had cost him a fancy price. When he realized the trick, he said a few words not found in the International Dictionary, and it was not quite safe for several days to ask him the price of young chickens. Richard Waddell was endowed with an intellect that would have made it possible for him to attain almost any renown the most ambitious could crave had his early education been systematic and complete. Unerring in his judgment, logical in his reasoning, and upright in his conduct, he made himself almost indispensable in his own community. Even with his meager education "he could," as one of his neighbors said, "fix up a deed or a will so safe and fast that all the lawyers in Christendom couldn't budge it." Half the people in his neighborhood went to him for legal advice rather than to a lawyer. His mechanical skill was little less marked than his judgment in legal matters. This talent was no doubt transmitted to him from his father, John Waddell, whose mechanical bent has been mentioned. Until within the last few years before his death, almost every piece of machinery in the neighborhood was wheedled into obedience by Richard Waddell's skillful touch. If he had been well paid for all the useful service rendered he would have been wealthy, but he did his "thanky jobs" freely and uncomplainingly. He never approved of secret orders. For a while he took a great interest in the G. A. R., but in later years he lived a very retired life. "There'll be more than one miss 'Uncle Dick,'" said a neighbor when he learned of the death of Richard Waddell at his home in Brandonville, early on Sunday morning, February 24, 1907. This brief encomium not only voiced the sentiment of the community in which he lived, but of all who knew him. --------------------------------------------------------------------- From Register of Deaths, Preston County, WV (Page 26, Line No. 3) FULL-NAME: R. B. Waddell DEATH-DATE: February 22, 1907 at 67 years of age DEATH-PLACE: Brandonville OCCUPATION: Farmer CAUSE-OF-DEATH: Alcoholism INFORMANT: C. E. Wilkinson, Physician --------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Preston County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/preston/bios.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------