1. Bethuel Middleton Kitchen was a nineteenth-century politician from Virginia and West Virginia.
23 Facts About Bethuel Kitchen
1. 2.
Bethuel Kitchen was a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1861 and 1862 under the Restored Government of Virginia.
3.
On May 28,1863, Bethuel Kitchen was elected from Virginia's 7th District to the United States House of Representatives.
4.
Bethuel Kitchen presented his credentials as a member-elect to the 38th United States Congress in December 1863, but was not permitted a seat because voting had been limited in the war-torn counties of the 7th District.
5.
On October 27,1864, Bethuel Kitchen was elected to the 3rd and 4th West Virginia State Senate, serving two sessions in 1865 and 1866.
6.
In 1866, Bethuel Kitchen was elected from West Virginia's 2nd District to the United States House of Representatives, serving in the 40th United States Congress from 1867 to 1869.
7.
Bethuel Kitchen was master of the West Virginia State Grange from 1873 to 1879.
8.
In October 1878, Bethuel Kitchen was elected as a Greenback Party candidate to the 14th West Virginia House of Delegates, which convened from January through March 1879.
9.
Bethuel Kitchen was president of the Berkeley County, West Virginia court from 1880 to 1895.
10.
Bethuel Kitchen died at his home, "Valley View", in Shanghai, West Virginia, on December 15,1895.
11.
Bethuel Kitchen's son Joseph Garrison Bethuel Kitchen was a delegate to the 19th West Virginia Legislature in 1889.
12.
Bethuel Kitchen's daughter sneaked onto a second-story porch and played a bugle call, convincing the Confederates that Federal cavalry were approaching.
13.
On October 1,1864, Bethuel Kitchen chaired a Union meeting at Martinsburg, West Virginia.
14.
On May 28,1863, Bethuel Kitchen was elected from Virginia's 7th District to the United States House of Representatives.
15.
Bethuel Kitchen defeated runner-up Lewis McKenzie of Alexandria, Virginia, by a vote of 962 to 716.
16.
In December 1863, Bethuel Kitchen presented his credentials as a member-elect to the 38th United States Congress.
17.
On December 23,1863, runner-up Lewis McKenzie contested the election on the grounds that a majority of Bethuel Kitchen's votes had come from Berkeley County, Virginia, which simultaneously voted to join the new state of West Virginia on May 28,1863.
18.
On February 8,1864, the House Committee of Elections, led by Henry L Dawes, presented a report and two resolutions declaring that neither McKenzie nor Kitchen were entitled to a seat.
19.
Bethuel Kitchen cited a lack of evidence that citizens were prevented from voting, and the difficulty in determining why citizens failed to vote.
20.
Dawes countered this report with statements Bethuel Kitchen had given regarding entire counties that had been under rebel control and did not hold elections.
21.
Dawes noted that while Berkeley County had legally been part of Virginia on the day of the election, the county was in the process of being transferred to West Virginia and its votes for Bethuel Kitchen did not represent the majority of Virginia's 7th District.
22.
Therefore, the House passed the committee's resolution that Bethuel Kitchen was not entitled to a seat, but dismissed McKenzie's claim.
23.
Bethuel Kitchen was afforded mileage and pay to the date of this resolution.