FRANCIS BEVERLEY WHITING.

Judge Francis Beverley Whiting was the eldest son of Nathaniel Burwell Whiting and Camilla Pleasants. He was born March 24, 1856, near Millwood, Clarke County, Va. Of several brothers and sisters, one brother and one sister survive him. He went as a boy to the Episcopal High School and to the old Shenandoah Valley Academy in Winchester, Va., two of the great fitting schools of the State of which L. M. Blackford and Archibald Magill Smith were respective principals, men peculiarly gifted in stimulating intellectual effort and in moulding character.

Well prepared for college, young Whiting entered Washington and Lee University in 1873. Having unusual mathematical ability and tastes, he selected civil engineering as his life's work and entered upon this course with the earnest and conscientious effort for which he was even then remarkable. Before the first session was over, however, the young collegian had serious trouble with his eyes, which threatened him with total blindness. The physicians advised him to leave college, and so he had to give up his professional studies and adopt an outdoor life with the hope of saving his sight.

Facing this disappointment courageously he returned home to become a farmer and an expert in the management of cattle, as well as a noted horseman. Diligent in business and devoting himself with energy to agricultural matters, he longed for a professional career, and as far as bad eyes permitted and time allowed, read diligently history, political science, constitutional law, and kindred subjects.

His eyes having been improved by the open-air life he lived, he accepted a position in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth in Richmond. While thus employed he attended law lectures at Richmond College, now the University of Richmond, and in 1892 he was licensed to practice law, taking his examination before two circuit judges, as was then permitted, for admission to the bar.

Returning to his farm, he rode seven miles a day to his office in Berryville, the county seat of Clarke, and punctually met all appointments. For a time he was, by appointment, Commonwealth's Attorney for the county; then he was junior partner in the firm of Lee and Whiting, the senior being the learned lawyer and gentleman, Judge Richard Henry Lee, of Loudoun and Clarke. Later he was a member of the firm of Whiting and Smith, the Hon. Blackburn Smith, of Berryville, Va., being his partner.

In 1916, when Judge Thomas W. Harrison retired from the bench to be a member of the House of Representatives from the Seventh District of Virginia, Mr. Whiting was chosen to succeed him as judge of the Seventeenth Virginia Circuit, composed of the counties of Clarke, Frederick, Shenandoah and Warren, and to become judge of the Corporation Court of the city of Winchester.

Always interested in politics, he was for many years before he was elected to the bench chairman of the Democratic Committee of his home county, rendering valuable and unselfish service.

On May 30, 1901, Mr. Whiting married Nannie Moss White, daughter of Mr. John R. White and his wife, Margaretta McGuire. His wife and daughter, Margaretta C. Whiting, survive him.

Judge Whiting died of heart failure at his home in Berryville, Va., April 14, 1927. In him his community lost a public-spirited citizen; the Episcopal church an active vestryman and a consistent member; his friends, one who was ever loyal and true; his family, a loving and unselfish husband and father; the bar, a learned lawyer, a wise counsellor, a noble man; and the bench an impartial and able judge whose mind, alert and penetrating, took in, as by intuition, the bearings of the case and whose conscience guided his every action, public and private. Few of his decisions were reversed in the Court of Appeals of Virginia, though he handed down some notable decisions involving new questions.

In learning and in character he measured up to the high ideals and exalted standards of our Virginia judiciary.

DANIEL PRICE WITHERS.

Judge D. Price Withers at the time of his death was judge of the Corporation Court of Danville, Virginia. He represented the best type of the North Carolina citizenship transplanted across the line into Virginia. His father was Elijah Benton Withers, of Caswell County, and his mother was the daughter of Daniel S. Price, of the well-known ante-Revolution family of the Old North State.

Colonel Benton Withers had a gallant record in the famous North Carolina soldiery that helped to compose the great Army of Northern Virginia. After the war he came to Danville and for many years was one of the leaders of the bar of that city, as the head of the firm of "Withers and Barksdale." In the early eighties there were few better legal firms-the Barksdale mentioned being Henry Edmunds Barksdale, of the famous Southside Virginia family of that name.

Young Withers and his elder brother, Eugene, came to the Danville bar fully equipped. He enjoyed a liberal education and held the degree of B. L. from the University of Virginia. While his brother entered the political field and made a reputation as an independent spirit in the Democratic party, Price Withers stuck to his profession and was soon elected to the bench, where he achieved success as a patient, just, and industrious judge. He was a clean, upright Christian man who performed faithfully his duty to God and his country. His death was a great blow to his family and friends and to the community in which he had so long walked uprightly and done justly. His wife was Agnes Dillard Jones, daughter of Edward Keen Jones, of Danville. Three children survive of the four born to him: Ann, Agnes and Mary.

In Judge Withers' death the profession and the judiciary lost a faithful and efficient member.