FAULKNER, Charles James, Congress, WV (1847-1929)

1847-1929
Senate Years of Service: 1887-1899
Party: Democrat

FAULKNER, Charles James, (son of Charles James Faulkner [1806-1884]), a Senator from West Virginia; born on the family estate, ‘Boydville,’ near Martinsburg, Va. (now West Virginia), September 21, 1847; accompanied his father, who was United States Minister to France, to that country in 1859; attended school in Paris and Switzerland; returned to the United States in 1861; during the Civil War entered the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington in 1862; served with the cadets in the Battle of New Market; graduated from the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1868; admitted to the bar in 1868 and commenced practice in Martinsburg, W.Va.; elected judge of the thirteenth judicial circuit in 1880; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1887; reelected in 1893 and served from March 4, 1887, to March 3, 1899; chairman, Committee on Territories (Fifty-third Congress); appointed a member of the International Joint High Commission of the United States and Great Britain in 1898; retired from public life and devoted his time to the practice of law in Martinsburg, W.Va., and Washington, D.C., and to the management of his agricultural interests; died at ‘Boydville,’ near Martinsburg, W.Va., January 13, 1929; interment in the Old Norbourne Cemetery, Martinsburg, W.Va.


Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography ; McVeigh, Donald R. “Charles James Faulkner: Reluctant Rebel.” Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University, 1955.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present