John M. Phelps
Encyclopedia
John M. Phelps was the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 President of the West Virginia Senate
West Virginia Senate
The West Virginia Senate is the upper house of the West Virginia Legislature.There are 17 senatorial districts. Each district has two senators who serve staggered four-year terms....

 from Mason County
Mason County, West Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 25,957 people, 10,587 households, and 7,569 families residing in the county. The population density was 60 people per square mile . There were 12,056 housing units at an average density of 28 per square mile...

 and served from 1863 to 1864.

Political and military service

On May 13–15, 1861, John M. Phelps was a delegate from Mason County to the First Wheeling Convention
Wheeling Convention
The 1861 Wheeling Convention was a series of two meetings that ultimately repealed the Ordinance of Secession passed by Virginia, thus establishing the Restored government of Virginia, which ultimately authorized the counties that organized the convention to become West Virginia. The convention was...

 held in Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia; it is the county seat of Ohio County. Wheeling is the principal city of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area...

. The purpose was to separate themselves from the rest of Virginia who had voted to secede from the Union, an unpopular sentiment in western reaches of the state. They were particularly upset that many of their votes in the succession election had not been counted.

John M. Phelps mustered in as Captain of Company "E" 9th West Virginia Infantry upon its organization on February 28, 1862. Three months later, on May 2, 1862, he became the chaplain. Less than a year later, he resigned on March 18, 1863 "on account of business and family affairs."

He was elected as the first President of the West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

State Senate which convened in Wheeling on June 20, 1863 and adjourned six months later on December 11. He served in the Senate from 1863 to 1865 and again from 1869 to 1870. On February 4, 1865 he voted for the abolishment of slavery in West Virginia. He was elected as Secretary of State in 1870 and served 1871-1873.

Family life

John Phelps married Mary Loudin prior to 1845 in Gilmer County, West Virginia. they had three children all born in Virginia:
Oliver (born 1845), Cordelia (born 1846), and William (born 1849). Mary died in February or March 1853 in Harrison County, West Virginia. Oliver also served in the Civil War, and was promoted to commissioned a Captain of E Company on May 6, 1862, 1st Lieutenant on March 5, 1862,, and was made Captain of B Company on February 1, 1864.

Phelps then married Susan Jane Hagerman at Malden, Kanawha County, West Virginia. They had two more children: Charles (born 1857), and Thomas (born 1859). Phelps died August 26, 1884 at Point Pleasant, Mason County, West Virginia of a "chronic inflammation of the stomach and bowels and internal hemorrhoids," and illness he had contracted during the Civil War. He was buried at Lone Oak Cemetery, Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
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