Francis Harrison Pierpont
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Francis Harrison Pierpont, statue
Francis Harrison Pierpont (January 25, 1814–March 24, 1899), called the Father of West Virginia, was an American lawyer, politician, and governor of (the free parts of) Virginia during the Civil War.
Born near Morgantown (and kin to its founder Zackquill Morgan), Pierpont grew up in western Virginia, in what is today Marion County, West Virginia and was linked with the region's history for the rest of his life. He graduated from Allegheny College, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. In 1848 he became the local attorney for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
An active supporter of Abraham Lincoln, Pierpont became more involved in politics with the outbreak of the Civil War. When Virginia seceded, he organized a convention of Unionists from the northern and northwestern counties of the state, which declared that their elected officials had abandoned their posts and elected Pierpont provisional governor of Virginia. A legislature was set up, a new constitution was drafted, and representatives were seated in the Federal Congress. The state adopted the name West Virginia and was admitted into the Union in 1863. When Arthur I. Boreman was elected governor for West Virginia, Pierpont became governor of the "restored" state of Virginia, those counties occupied by Union troops. The capital, originally in Alexandria, moved in 1865 to Richmond, where Pierpont became governor of the whole state of Virginia.
After he was replaced by a military commander in 1868, Pierpont returned to his law practice in West Virginia. He served one term in the state legislature in 1870 and was collector of Internal Revenue under President James Garfield. He died 18 years later in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 24, 1899.
In 1910, the state of West Virginia donated a marble statue of Pierpont to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.