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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
West Virginia ; elected as a Democrat to the
twenty-sixth congress (March 4, 1839-
March 3, 1841 ) : reelected to the twenty-
eighth congress (March 4, 1843-March 3,
1845) ; died on his farm in Jefferson county,
West X'irginia, August 29. 1877.
Machir, James, native of Virginia ; elected to the fifth congress (March 4, 1797-March
3. 1799) ; died June 25, 1827.
Mallory, Francis, son of Charles King Mallory, lieutenant-governor of Virginia during the war of 1812, born near Hampton. Elizabeth City county, Virginia, December 12, 1807; attended the common schools; located in Hampton ; was appointed mid- shipman in the United States navy in 1822; resigned in 1826; studied law, and medicine, and was graduated from the medical de- partment of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1830, and practiced in Norfolk, Virginia; abandoned practice of medicine and moved to his farm in Elizabeth City county ; elect- ed as a Whig to the twenty-fifth, twenty- sixth and twenty -seventh congresses (March
4, 1837-March 3, 1843) * «^"d supported the administration of John Tyler; appointed navy agent at Norfolk, November i, 1850; president of Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad Company, 1853-1859; died in Norfolk, Vir- ginia, March 26, i860. He married (first) Mary Elizabeth Sheild, and (second) Mary Frances Wright, daughter of Col. Stephen Wright, of Norfolk, Virginia, by whom he had eleven children.
Martin, Elbert S., native of Virginia ; at- tended the public schools ; elected as a Dem- ocrat to the thirty-sixth congress (March 4, 1859-March 3, 1861).
Mason, John Young, born in Greenville
county, Virginia, April 18, 1799; attended
the common schools of his neighborhood,
later the University of North Carolina, from
which he graduated in 1816; studied law in
Litchfield, Connecticut, was admitted to the
bar in 1819. and commenced practice in
Hicksford, Virginia, which soon became ex-
ttnsive and lucrative; elected to the Vir-
ginia assembly in young manhood, and
served for a number of years; member of
the state constitutional convention in 1829;
elected a member of the United States house
of representatives in 1831, remained until
1837, then appointed judge of the United
States district for Virginia; secretary of the
navy, March 14, 1844-March 10, 1845. ^"^
September 9. 1846-March 8, 1849; attorney-
general from March 6, 1845, ^o September
9. 1846; at the end of President Polk's ad-
ministration, John Y. Mason went to Rich-
mond, Virginia, and engaged in the practice
of law ; was a member of the constitutional
convention of Virginia, and presided over
the deliberations of that body; in 1853 ^^s
appointed minister to France by President
Franklin Pierce, was reappointed by Presi-
dent Buchanan, and remained abroad for
the rest of his life, his death occurring in
Paris, France, October 3, 1859.
Maxwell, Lewis, native of Virginia ; locat- ed at Weston; elected as a Whig to the twentieth, twenty-first and twenty-second congresses (March 4, 1827-March 3, 1844).
McCarty, William Mason, son of Col. Daniel McCarty, of Westmoreland county, Virginia, and Sarah Mason, his wife, daugh- ter of George Mason, who wrote the Vir- ginia Declaration of Rights, was educated
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