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Dawson, Samuel Romulus (1824-1893)
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History of Ritchie County
by Minnie Kendall Lowther
Wheeling News Litho. Co., Wheeling W.Va., 1911

Pages 534-536

Samuel Romulus Dawson was long a prominent figure in the public
affairs of the county, and though he has been quietly sleeping in
the Ellenboro cemetery for eighteen years, his memory is still
revered.

It was on June 29, 1824, near Brady's mill in Maryland, not far
from Keyser, West Virginia, that he "first saw the light of day."

His father, John Dawson, a blacksmith, was a direct descendant of
one Dawson that went from England to Ireland with Oliver Cronwell,
where he received a large grant of land from Cromwell's hand; and
his mother, Miss Ravenscraft, was a member of a prominent Virginia
family, who resided on the South branch of the Potomac river.

Samuel R. Dawson was the youngest child of a large family, and, as
his educational advantages were very much limited, he became what
was styled a "self educated man." he having mastered Greek and
other languages at an early age without a teacher. He entered the
mercantile business at Romney in Hampshire county while still in
his teens; and shortly after he had reached his majority, joined
the Pittsburg Methodist Episcopal conference, and became identified
with the pioneer "circuit riders" of this section of the country,
during the forties, he having preached at Harrisville, and at other
points. He also served the Weston, Clarksburg, Parkersburg and
Wheeling charges, he being the only member of the West Virginia
conference that has ever had the honor of serving as pastor of the
Fourth Street church, at Wheeling, the ministers of this church
having been continuously imported from other conferences.

Owing to an affection of the throat, he was compelled to give up
his active ministerial work, but continued to hold services
occasionally, and to conduct funerals, up to the time of his death,
on January 28, 1893.

In 1860 he removed to Ellenboro, and was the County's first
representative in the Legislature of the new State of West
Virginia; and was a leading factor in bringing about the
establishment of the Free School system in this state. He served as
private secretary for Governor A. I. Boreman; was appointed United
States Collector of Internal Revenues by President Lincoln; and
filled the position of Commissioner for the War department in the
settlement of the claims of the Civil war under President Grant. He
was clerk of the United States Senate for both the Committee on
Patents, and for the Committee on Territories; and, in 1876, he was
made the president of the County court.

Mr. Dawson three times took the marriage vow. His first wife being
Miss Mary Kidwell, daughter of Hon. Z. Kidwell, a member of
Congress from the Fairmont district before the state was separated
from the "Old Dominion;" his second, Miss Luvina Jackson, of
Fairmont, and the third, Miss Rebecca J. Gallagher, of Moundsville,
who died on April 21, 1907.

The one daughter of the first union, Georgianna, died at
Washington, D. C., near the year 1865, unmarried.

The late Charles T., of Pittsburg; William B., who is probably in
South America, if living; Mrs. Virginia Emmel, New York city; and
Mrs. Emma Moore Scott, of Moundsville, who is a well-known
missionary and lecturer (she, with her late husband, having spent
some time in the mission-fields of India), are the children of the
second union.

And the late John G., of Moundsville; Harry H. and Joseph G., of
Ellenboro, and Perla Hurst, who, with her parents, rests in the
Ellenboro cemetery, are the fruits of the last union.

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