248
VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
by the Southern Presbyterian University in
1883. President Cleveland tendered him the
office of assistant secretary of agriculture
for the United States, in 1893, but he de-
clined ; he is ex-officio member of the Vir-
ginia Board of Agriculture, and his agricul-
tural reports and papers on agricultural
subjects are of great value in scientific
Circles. He retired from his active duties at
ihe college (now called the Virginia Poly-
technic Institute) at the end of the session
of 1906-07. Dr. McBryde married, Novem-
ber 18, 1863, Cora, daughter of Dr. James
I'.olton, of Richmond, Virginia.
Wilson, William Lyne, born in Jefferson county, Virginia, May 3, 1843, son of Ben- jamin and Mary (Lyne) Wilson; educated at Charlestovvn Academy, and was gradu- ated from Columbian College, D. C, in i860, and subsequently studied in the University of Virginia. He served in the Confederate army as a private in the Twelfth Virginia Cavalry. After the war he was professor of Latin in Columbian College, from 1865 to 1&71, but resigned his position on the over- throw of the lawyers' test oath in West Vir- ginia, and for eleven years practiced law at Charlestown. He was a delegate in 1880 to the national Democratic convention in Cin- cinnati, and the same year was an elector-at- large for the state on the Hancock ticket ; chosen president of the West Virginia Uni- versity, and entered upon the office, Septem- ber 4, 1882, but resigned it the following )-ear, having been chosen a Democratic member of the forty-eighth congress; he served in that and each successive congress until the fifty-fourth, when he was defeated : he was chairman of the committee on w-iys and means of the fiftv-third congress, and
rarried through the house of representatives
the measure repealing the purchasing clause
of the Sherman law, and also the tariff bill
which bears his name; Columbian Univer-
sity conferred upon him the degree of LL.
1). in 1883, and he received the same honor
from Hampden Sidney College in Virginia,
the University of Mississippi, Tulane Uni-
versity, Central College of Missouri, and the
West X'irginia University ; in 1890 he was
offered the presidency of the University of
Missouri, but did not accept it; he served
six years as one of the regents of the Smith-
sonian Institution ; was permanent presi-
dent of the Democratic national convention
at Chicago, 1892; his name was frequently
mentioned as United States senator from his
state, and he was frequently urged to accept
the speakership of the house of representa-
tives ; in 1895 was made postmaster-gen-
eral in President Cleveland's cabinet, and
on the expiration of his term was elected
president of Washington and Lee Univer-
.fity : died at Lexington, Virginia, October
17, 1900.
Miller, Polk, born in Prince Edward county, Virginia, August 2, 1844, a son of Giles A. Miller and his wife, Jane Anthony Webster, the former for some terms a mem- ber of the state legislature. He was edu- cated in private schools, and in 1863 enlisted as a private in the Richmond Howitzers, and served till the end of the war. After the war he kejjt a drug store, and finally became the manager and chief proprietor of two large concerns of that nature. Pos- sessing a fine voice, and fondness for the banjo, he gave a number of private amateur entertainment? illustrating plantatio'i life, 'i'hese were so enthusiastically received.
