1. John Letcher was an American lawyer, journalist, and politician.
16 Facts About John Letcher
1. 2.
John Letcher served as a Representative in the United States Congress, was the 34th Governor of Virginia during the American Civil War, and later served in the Virginia General Assembly.
3.
John Letcher was active on the Board of Visitors of Virginia Military Institute.
4.
John Letcher was born in the town of Lexington in Rockbridge County, Virginia.
5.
John Letcher attended private rural schools and Randolph-Macon College in Boydton, Virginia.
6.
John Letcher studied law, was admitted to the Virginia State Bar, and opened a practice in Lexington in 1839.
7.
John Letcher was active in the presidential campaigns of 1840,1844, and 1848, serving as a Democratic elector in 1848.
8.
John Letcher was a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850.
9.
John Letcher was elected as a Democratic candidate and served as a Representative in the United States Congress from 1851 to 1859.
10.
John Letcher was elected as Governor of Virginia in 1859, defeating Whig candidate William L Goggin, and served from 1860 to 1864:.
11.
John Letcher is even charged with having been an abolitionist.
12.
John Letcher was prominent in the organization of the Peace Conference of 1861 that met in Washington, DC, on February 8,1861, to devise means to prevent the impending American Civil War.
13.
John Letcher discouraged secession but actively sustained the ordinance passed by Virginia on April 17,1861.
14.
John Letcher died on January 26,1884, at the age of 70, and was interred in the Presbyterian Cemetery at Lexington, Virginia.
15.
Letcher's son, John Davidson Letcher, was a professor at Oregon State University, serving as acting president from January 1892 to June 1892.
16.
Governor John Letcher had a daughter, Lizzie, who married James Harrison, a language professor at Washington and Lee and later head of the Romance and Teutonic Language Department at the University of Virginia after 1895.