Pierpont, Francis Harrison

Pierpont, Francis Harrison

(1814–99) governor; born in Morgantown, Va. (now W.Va.). A lawyer and an active Whig, he supported the Union when the Civil War broke out. When Virginia seceded (1861), he organized a mass meeting at Wheeling and became the provisional governor of Western Virginia (1861–63). When West Virginia was admitted as a state (1863), he became governor of the "restored" state of Virginia, the counties still controlled by the Federal government. With the end of the Civil War, he became governor of Virginia (1865–68) and sought to heal the wounds between Yankees and Confederates in his state. West Virginia placed his statue in the U.S. Capitol.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.