THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA Forest J. Bowman, Esq.* BENJAMIN FRANKLIN KELLER.......................................................................... 730 GEORGE WARWICK MCCLINTIC ....................................................................... 739 HARRY EVANS WATKINS ................................................................................. 743 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MOORE .......................................................................... 746 JOHN A. FIELD, JR. ............................................................................................ 755 SIDNEY L. CHRISTIE ......................................................................................... 760 DENNIS RAYMOND KNAPP ............................................................................... 765 KENNETH K. HALL ........................................................................................... 768 CHARLES H. HADEN, II ..................................................................................... 773 JOHN T. COPENHAVER, JR. ............................................................................... 781 ROBERT J. STAKER ........................................................................................... 789 WILLIAM MATTHEW KIDD ............................................................................... 793 ELIZABETH V. HALLANAN................................................................................ 795 DAVID A. FABER ............................................................................................... 803 JOSEPH ROBERT GOODWIN ............................................................................... 812 ROBERT CHARLES CHAMBERS ......................................................................... 819 THOMAS E. JOHNSTON ...................................................................................... 826 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................... 829 The Charleston Gazette (―Gazette‖) for Wednesday, January 23, 1901, screamed out the day‘s top news: ―Queen Victoria Is Dead. Passes Peacefully Away With Family at Her Side. Prince of Wales Becomes King Edward Se- venth.‖ Other headlines trumpeted the burning of the Grand Opera House in Cincinnati and an ―Indian Outbreak‖ in the Indian Territory, that vast territory north of Texas which would later become the state of Oklahoma.1 Nowhere in the paper was there a word about the fact that President William McKinley had * Jackson Kelly Professor of Law Emeritus, West Virginia University College of Law. The author is deeply indebted to Matthew T. Loughney, Theresa McCutcheon, and Kennad L. Skeen, II, members of the WVU Law Class of 2002, who provided invaluable service as research assis- tants in the preparation of this history. I am also indebted to the former Court Administrator of the United States Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Ronald D. Lawson, and his assistant, Sally M. Groves, for their invaluable assistance in this project. 1 CHARLESTON GAZETTE, Jan. 23, 1901, at 1. 725 726 WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 109 signed a bill dividing the State of West Virginia into two judicial districts, with a separate federal judgeship authorized for each district, although this news would be of infinitely more importance to the area covered by what was even then called ―The State Newspaper‖ than the news the Gazette featured that day.2 The same was not true in Bluefield, West Virginia where The Bluefield Daily Telegraph (―Telegraph‖) had tracked the progress of a congressional bill to create a second federal judicial district for the state. The newspaper there understood the significance of the legislation. With a population of 4,650, Blu- efield had an opportunity to enter the ranks of Clarksburg, Wheeling, and Char- leston as West Virginia cities with a federal building and a federal judicial court stop. A new building, new employment opportunities, a new judge, and all the prestige the United States government could offer a turn-of-the-century mining town in the extreme southern part of the state, were inducements too grand to ignore. West Virginia had been organized as one judicial district with one judgeship by the Act of June 11, 1864, which provided that the court should sit at Clarksburg, Wheeling, and Charleston.3 As the state grew and commerce expanded, the need for a second United States District Court for West Virginia became apparent to most of the state‘s leaders. So, on December 5, 1900, Con- gressman Alston G. Dayton, a Republican of Barbour County, introduced a bill to create a second federal district court for the state. The bill became known as the ―Dayton Bill.‖4 2 Charleston already had a federal building where a federal judge sat every April and Septem- ber. Very likely, the news that a new federal district had been created for southern West Virginia was just too close to home and not nearly as ―newsworthy‖ or ―glamorous‖ as the death of Eng- land‘s monarch, or Indian troubles in the West, or a ―general alarm‖ fire in Cincinnati. 3 Act of June 11, 1864, ch. 120, 13 Stat. 124 (1864). Prior to that, what is now West Virginia had been part of the District of Virginia. When Virginia became the third state to be divided into two districts with a separate judge for each, all of what is now West Virginia became a part of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. The District of West Virginia created in 1864 was given circuit court jurisdiction, which was different from the current Circuit Court of Appeals jurisdiction, being greater than the United States District Courts then and now, but less than United States Circuit Courts of Appeals today. An 1891 act abolished the appellate jurisdiction of the circuit courts over appeals from the district courts and sent all such appeals to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the circuit. In 1911 the circuit courts were abolished and the district courts became the only court of the federal system exercising all jurisdiction defined in the statutes. At the second meeting of The West Virginia Bar Association, held in Charleston on January 19-20, 1887, W. P. Hubbard of Wheeling proposed a resolution ―to obtain legislation by Congress to repeal the special statute conferring Circuit Court powers on the United States District Court within the State, and to provide for holding sessions of the Circuit Court at the places where the District court now sits.‖ The resolution was referred to committee and carried forward as unfinished business for a couple of meetings and then disappeared from the records. PROCEEDINGS OF THE WEST VIRGINIA BAR ASSOCIATION, pp. 9-11, 1886-1892. 4 Act of January 22, 1901, ch. 105, 31 Stat. 736 (dividing West Virginia into two judicial districts). The Act listed the counties to be included in the Northern District and stated, ―the southern district includes the residue of said State of West Virginia, with the waters thereof.‖ Thus the twenty-four Counties of Jackson, Mason, Putnam, Roane, Clay, Braxton, Webster, Poca- 2007] SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA 727 President McKinley‘s signing of the Dayton Bill was not mentioned in the Telegraph, although over the preceding few weeks the Telegraph had fol- lowed what it called the ―Bill to Divide the State‖ with great interest as it had worked its way through the Congress. On January 11, for example, the Tele- graph reported a ―Warm Discussion of Federal Court‖ when the Senate Judi- ciary Committee took up the bill. The Telegraph article stated that E. L. Butte- rick, J. W. St. Clair and Judge Stiles, all of Charleston, and E. L. Delliker, clerk of the United States Circuit Court, of Parkersburg, had appeared before the committee to oppose the bill. Those appearing in favor of the bill, according to the Telegraph, were three of West Virginia‘s four congressmen, Blackburn B. Dovener, Alston G. Dayton, and David E. Johnson; West Virginia‘s senior United States Senator, Stephen B. Elkins; Judge T. L. Henritze of McDowell County; and a Mr. Taylor, also from McDowell County.5 While the Telegraph headline described the hearing as ―warm,‖ it could perhaps be more properly described as ―hot.‖ Congressman Dayton opened the discussion in favor of the bill. He explained that it was favored by The West Virginia Bar Association, a non-partisan body; that the bill had been endorsed by every West Virginia Con- gressman for the past two years; and that every member of the present and in- coming state administration, with one exception, favored the bill. Mr. Butterick followed Congressman Dayton and pointed out that Judge Jackson, who was then West Virginia‘s sole federal district judge, opposed the bill. Judge Stiles then took the floor and argued that the land suits heard in the federal courts were largely from the territory embraced in the new district and that the court should be kept as far as possible from the scene of the litigation. J. W. St. Clair6 rose and declared that the state had done without two federal courts so far and, in his opinion, ―could do without two a while longer.‖ When E. L. Butterick spoke, he said Governor Atkinson was in favor of the bill because he wanted to be a fed- eral judge, and that Attorney General Rucker wanted it for the same reason. Butterick was in the process of reading from an editorial to this effect from the Gazette when Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts,7 chairman of the Committee, stopped him. Senator