Graves of the Pierponts
In Memoriam
Francis H. Pierpont, governor of the Restored Government of Virginia and the "Father of West Virginia" died on March 24, 1899. He is buried here with his wife, Julia Augusta Robertson Pierpont. They first met when he interviewed her in 1847 for a governess's position for his neighbor Judge Thomas Haymond. She accepted the position. In 1854, she married Pierpont. Three of their four children also are buried here. The fourth, Mary Augusta, died in Laurel, Maryland, where the family lived while Pierpont served as Virginia's governor in Alexandria. Two West Virginia governors, 113 Civil War veterans, and West Virginia's first state school superintendent are buried elsewhere in the cemetery.
Pierpont and his family returned from Richmond, Virginia to Fairmont and their Quincy Street house in 1868 when his term as governor ended. He resumed his career as an attorney, served in the West Virginia legislature, and taught school for Fairmont's African Americans. Becoming ill in 1896, he lived with his daughter Anna Siviter in Pittsburg until his death.
Julia Pierpont died in Fairmont on March 25, 1886. While in Richmond. In May 1866 she and her children and several friends cleaned and decorated the neglected graves of Union soldiers in Hollywood Cemetery. In this event and others elsewhere are the origins of our nation's Memorial Day.
On April 20, 1910, during day long ceremonies in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Governor William E. Glasscock presented a statue of Pierpont to the United States Congress. In his presentation address, Glasscock said of Pierpont, "He was the benefactor of Virginia, assisting her... to rise, phoenix-like, from her own ashes. Had there been no restored government [of Virginia], there would have been no State of West Virginia."
Marker is at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue, on the left when traveling north on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
