Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/47
Thus eminently fitted for the service and ornament
of the country
he was made Receiver General of his Majesty's
revenues here,
was thrice appointed public agent to the court and
ministry of England
and being thirty-seven years a member
at last became President of the Council of this
Colony.
To all this were added a great elegance of taste
and life,
the well bred gentleman and polite companion,
the splendid economist and prudent father of a
family,
with the constant enemy of all exorbitant power
And hearty friend to the Liberties of his Country.
In 1728 he was appointed one of the two commissioners to represent Virginia in running the dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina. Of this journey he made a journal which he afterward elaborated into an equivalent of 250 octavo pages. This manuscript, along with the manuscript of an account of a journey which he made four years later to "Eden," a tract of land he had bought in south central Virginia, and a narrative of his progress to the mines of Germanna in 1732, besides others of his papers, are yet preserved. All the Byrd manuscripts were reprinted in the Wynne edition of 1866 and in 1901, "The Dividing Line," "A Journey to Eden" and "A Progress to the Mines," with several of his letters and reports were edited by John Spencer Bassett.
A later day William Byrd, great-grandson of the third William Byrd, of Westover, was adjutant general of the state of Texas and served with distinction during the war between the states, attaining the rank of colonel in the confederate army, department of the Lower Mississippi. He was the father of the subject of this sketch. In 1865, after the war closed, Colonel Byrd moved to Winchester, Virginia, and there practiced law. He was a son of Richard Evelyn Byrd, of Clark county, Virginia, also a lawyer, whose middle name, Evelyn, was borne by the maiden who died of a broken heart, not being allowed by her father to marry the man of her choice. Her memory, and that of his grandfather also is perpetuated in the person of Richard Evelyn Byrd, of Winchester, and of Richmond. Richard Evelyn Byrd married Ann Harrison, of Lower Brandon, Virginia, and had sons, George Harrison, William (Colonel) and Alfred H. Colonel William Byrd married Jennie. daughter of John Rivers, of Texas. From an ancestry of such men, lawyers, literatteurs and soldiers, comes Richard Evelyn Byrd, of Winchester and Richmond, a true Virginian in all save place of birth.
Richard Evelyn Byrd, son of Colonel William and Jennie (Rivers) Byrd, was born in Analin, Texas, August 13, 1860, his father at that time being adjutant general of the state. When five years of age, his parents moved to Winchester, Virginia, where the lad began his education. He prepared at Shenandoah Valley Academy, going thence to the University of Virginia. After completing a classical course at the university, he entered the law department of the University of Maryland at Baltimore, whence he was graduated LL. B. in 1882. He was admitted to the Virginia bar, and at once began the practice of his profession at Winchester. He was in due season admitted to the state and federal courts of the district and was soon firmly established in public esteem as a strong, aggressive, able lawyer. In the year 1884 he was elected commonwealth attorney for Frederick county, an office he ably filled for twenty years. During this period he won high standing as an able, fearless prosecutor and as a learned, upright lawyer.
He took an active part in the political battles of the period, was a member of the Democratic State Committee, became one of the well known, progressive and influential men of his state, and was listened to with respect in party councils. In 1906 he was elected a member of the Virginia house of delegates, re-elected in 1908-10-12, and at the beginning of the second term was chosen speaker of the house, and reëlected in 1910-12. Becoming a partner of the law firm of O'Flaherty, Fulton & Byrd, of Richmond, when elected to the house of delegates. Mr. Byrd did not feel it necessary to discontinue his residence in Winchester. He was also commissioner of accounts for the circuit court of Frederick county, master commissioner in chancery, and special examiner of records for the counties of Frederick, Clarke, Warren, Page, Shenandoah, and the city of Winchester. As a politician Mr. Byrd is fearless and aggressive, a hard fighter, but one who fights in the open. He is stalwart in his devotion to his party and always bows to the will of the party when expressed through the secular party channels. As a