Philip Doddridge (May 17, 1773November 19, 1832) was a

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

lawyer and sectional leader of western (now West) Virginia. He served in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

representing the Wheeling District in the Upper

Ohio River Valley The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinoi ...

, as well as in both houses of the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 16 ...

Early life and education

Philip Doddridge was born in Bedford County in the Province of Pennsylvania. He was the son of John and Mary Wells Doddridge. Doddridge grew up along Cross Creek at

Doddridge's Fort This article is a list of forts in Washington County, Pennsylvania. During the colonial era and the American Revolution, Washington County, Pennsylvania was on the American Frontier. The forts provided protection for settlers from attacks by I ...

in frontier Washington County, Pennsylvania, site of Doddridge's Chapel frequently visited by Methodist circuit riders including bishop

Francis Asbury Francis Asbury (August 20 or 21, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ...

. His education included tutoring from his father, attending Canonsburg Academy (a forerunner to

Washington & Jefferson College Washington & Jefferson College (W&J College or W&J) is a private liberal arts college in Washington, Pennsylvania. The college traces its origin to three log cabin colleges in Washington County established by three Presbyterian missionaries t ...

), and reading law with mentors in Wellsburg. He also once traveled down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

on a flatboat. He married Juliana Parr Musser, and they had at least five sons who survived them. The family also owned at least household slaves.

Career

In 1796, Doddridge settled downstream along the Ohio River at newly founded Wellsburg (then Charleston), Virginia (now West Virginia). He became active in civic affairs and in Trinity Episcopal Church founded by his brother, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, a frontier author, physician and Episcopalian missionary. He was admitted to at least the Virginia bar in 1797. Wellsburg was the county seat of Brooke County, Virginia (now West Virginia), and as a frontier lawyer, Doddridge also practiced in nearby counties of Pennsylvania, and Ohio specializing in land disputes common in his day. West Virginia founder Waitman T. Willey read law under Doddridge.

Politics

From 1804 to 1809, Doddridge won election and re-election to the Senate of Virginia representing the six northwestern Virginia counties, but he resigned during what normally would have been his second four-year part time position after accepting a position as Commonwealth Attorney (prosecutor) for Brooke County. In 1815, Brooke County voters elected Brooke as one of their two representatives in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-number ...

, and he would both win and lose re-election several times. Doddridge was a leading advocate for the

Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830 The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830 was a constitutional convention for the state of Virginia, held in Richmond from October 5, 1829 to January 15, 1830. Background and composition Almost immediately, the Constitution of 17 ...

during which he was the leading voice for western reformers seeking greater say in Richmond amid east-west sectionalism. In 1822, he was an unsuccessful candidate to the Eighteenth Congress and in 1824 to the Nineteenth Congress, although he served in the Virginia House of Delegates. Reportedly,

Daniel Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison ...

said Doddrige was "the only man I really feared in debate." Doddridge was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian candidate to the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses. During that time, he was an outspoken advocate of congressional authority during the 1832 Stanbery-Houston Affair. He was also chairman of the House Committee for the District of Columbia (Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses) tasked with codifying the district laws inherited from Maryland and Virginia. Doddridge served in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1829 and died in office.

Family life

Philip Doddridge married Julia Parr Musser in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on April 30, 1800. They had five sons and five daughters.

Death and legacy

Doddridge fell ill and died in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, November 19, 1832. He was interred in the

Congressional Cemetery The Congressional Cemetery, officially Washington Parish Burial Ground, is a historic and active cemetery located at 1801 E Street, SE, in Washington, D.C., on the west bank of the Anacostia River. It is the only American "cemetery of national m ...

. His student,

Waitman Willey Waitman Thomas Willey (October 18, 1811May 2, 1900) was an American lawyer and politician from Morgantown, West Virginia. One of the founders of the state of West Virginia during the American Civil War, he served in the United States Senate r ...

, wrote a sketch of his life, now held in Morgantown by the West Virginia and Regional History Center. Descendants later donated his papers (and those of his descendants) to the same entity. Phillipsburg, Ohio, on the Ohio River, was originally named for Doddridge. After the Brilliant Glass Company located there in 1880, the town and railway station changed the town's name to Brilliant.

Doddridge County, West Virginia Doddridge County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,808. Its county seat is West Union. Doddridge County is part of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, WV Micropolitan Statistical Area. ...

is also named in his honor. Limited research has been conducted regarding the life of Philip Doddridge. One historian has argued that historical accounts of Doddridge often feature inaccuracies due to reliance on primary sources from the Virginia Tidewater. In autumn 2019, an article in ''West Virginia History'' argued that: "Some historians have reduced Doddridge to a caricature by relying too heavily on sources laden with the anti-Appalachian views of Virginia’s eastern elites motivated by self-preservation of their plantation lifestyles reliant on black slavery. In other instances, historians omit Doddridge’s name from accounts of historical events in which he played a key role. Similarly, advocates for an independent West Virginia later used Doddridge to fit their own purpose to highlight western needs to separate from Richmond. These competing approaches continue to influence lopsided narratives that sometimes bizarrely exclude Philip Doddridge from summaries of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–30 for which he was a chief proponent and the leading reformer."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doddridge, Philip 1773 births 1832 deaths Virginia lawyers Members of the Virginia House of Delegates Virginia state senators Burials at the Congressional Cemetery People from Brooke County, West Virginia 19th-century American politicians People from Bedford County, Virginia National Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia 19th-century American lawyers