HON. BLACKBURN BARRETT DOVENER

Hon. Blackburn Barrett Dovener, West Virginia's distinguished 
representative in Congress from the First Congressional District, 
whose portrait is herewith shown, was born April 20, 1842, at 
Hurricane Bridge, Teays Valley, in what was then part of Cabell 
county, Virginia, now Putnum county West Virginia.

He is son of  Dr. R. G. Dovener, a native of Cherry Valley, New York. 
The mother of the subject of this sketch was the daughter of Andrew 
Barrett, of Cabell county, Virginia.  During the infancy of their son 
the parents moved to Elizabeth, Wirt county, and when he was twelve 
years of age they changed their residence to Parkersburg, and there 
the childhood of young Dovener was spent. He attended the district 
schools, and was a pupil for several terms in the well-known 
Parkersburg Academy, conducted by Prof. John C. Nash.  His 
educational course was abruptly terminated by his enlistment in the 
volunteer service of the Civil War, in 1861, at the age of nineteen 
years.  He raised a company known as Company A, of the fifteenth 
Virginia Regiment (afterward designated as the fifteenth Regiment, W. 
Va. Vol. Inf., on the admission of West Virginia as a state), but on 
account of his youth he declined leadership.  He served as first 
lieutenant until after the battle of Cedar Creek, when he was 
promoted to be captain of the company.  His services throughout the 
war were distinguished and valuable to the national cause and won him 
an enviable record.  At the close of the war Captain Dovener moved to 
Wheeling, where he married Margaret Lynch, daughter of the late 
William Lynch, of this city.

In 1867 he was appointed as chief clerk in the office of the 
secretary of State, after which he decided to pursue the profession 
of law.  He was admitted to the bar in 1873, and began practice in 
Wheeling the same year.  By patience, perseverance and industry he 
won for himself a position at the bar and in the courts of his native 
state and adjoining states an enviable and worthy distinction as an 
able and successful practitioner.  As a counselor he is safe and 
wise, and ready in the comprehension of the salient features of a 
case.  As an advocate he is earnest, making his cause his own.  He is 
ready in debate and fluent in expression.  As a man he is affable, 
courteous and polite.  He was for a time the junior member of the law 
firm of Davenport & Dovener.  Upon the death of the senior member, 
which occurred in 1880, he succeeded to the firm's practice, which 
under his auspices has been greatly increased until now his clientage 
is one of the largest and most lucrative in Wheeling.  As a criminal 
lawyer he has had m8uch experience, and in this line of his 
profession has no peer.

In politics Mr. Dovener is a Republican, a stalwart of the stalwarts.  
He has championed the principles of the party in all parts of the 
state, and no one has accomplished more for the success of the 
Republican cause than Mr. Dovener.  He represented Ohio in the 
legislature in 1883, and in 1894 he was elected to represent the 
First Congressional District of West Virginia in Congress, and is now 
serving his fourth term.  As a member of the river and harbor 
c0mmitee he has made himself famous.  No member of Congress from this 
state has accomplished so much for the improvement of our water 
courses as this brilliant and gifted man.  In the Fifty-fourth and in 
the Fifty-fifth Congresses, unaided and alone, he secured 
appropriations of $7,000,000 for the permanent improvements of the 
rivers in which West Virginia is directly interested.  Through his 
energy, influence and perseverance improvements on the Ohio river 
between Pittsburg and Marietta, which will cost the sum total of $10, 
200,00, have been entered upon by the general government to carry out 
that which was originated in the mind of Mr. Dovener,  __ the 
improvement of our water courses, whereby navigation may be kept up 
all year round, and our commerce may be carried an distributed to the 
Southern markets, Whereby West Virginia will receive a lasting and 
permanent benefit.  As Henry Clay achieved greatness and renown in 
building a national highway, so will the subject of this sketch, and 
his name will go down to posterity, honored and revered by grateful 
people. 


From "HISTORY OF WHEELING and Ohio County, West Virginia and 
Representative Citizens."  Edited & Compiled by Hon. Gibson Lamb 
Cranmer.  Biographical Publishing, 1902. 

(Peggy Lynn Rowe)