Tidler
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Submitted by Valerie Crook
(vfcrook@earthlink.net)
The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 525-526
Harrison
JAMES O. T. TIDLER. A legal practice extending over a
period of more than twenty years has given James O. T.
Tidler a first rank at the bar of Clarksburg, West Virginia.
The law has been regarded by him as a high and honorable
profession, not merely a vocation and source of livelihood.
To its service he took a scholarship of unusual breadth
to develop the excellent qualities of a brilliant mind and
he is only now in the prime of manhood and rich experience,
with the promise of more mature fulfillment still before him.
His ancestry on both sides is of the best old Virginia
stock. His paternal grandparents were John W. and Eliza-
beth (Windle) Tidler. His maternal grandparents were
Capt. Henry Harford and Frances (Snyder) Quaintance.
The Quaintance family was prominent in the military
affairs of Virginia. Capt. H. H. Quaintance was an officer
and lost his two oldest sons, John and William, in the Con-
federate army during the Civil war. He was the son of
Col. John Quaintance.
The father of the Clarksburg lawyer was George Wash-
ington Tidler, a teacher, stockman and farmer. He was
born in Shenandoah County, right in the heart of the beau-
tiful Valley of Virginia, June 11, 1842, and died at Slate
Mills, Rappahannock County, Virginia, August 28, 1910.
He was strongly inclined to intellectual pursuits and attain-
ments, and became well educated for a man of his day,
when there were no public free schools. He was kind and
accommodating to his friends and neighbors, and people
from all over his section would come to him for advice and
counsel, which he gave freely and without remuneration. He
was regarded as the best informed man in all his community.
Though not a lawyer, his knowledge of the law was mar-
velous.
When the Civil war began he enlisted as a Confederate
soldier in Shenandoah County, Virginia, and served as a
lieutenant under that famous military genius, Gen. Thomas
J. (Stonewall) Jackson. Before the war terminated he was
captured by the Federal army and was imprisoned on Rock
Island in the Mississippi River, off the west coast of Illinois.
The pangs of hunger and the severe case of typhoid fever
which he contracted while in prison somewhat impaired his
health. For a number of years he bought livestock and
shipped it in carload lots to Baltimore and other Eastern
markets. For many years he was justice of the peace,
taught school, and was appointed by President Benjamin
Harrison to a position in the United States internal revenue
service. In politics he was a republican, a member of the
Baptist Church and was worshipful master of his Masonic
Lodge.
He is survived by his wife, Frances Quaintance Tidler,
who was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia, April 20,
1849. After their marriage they lived on their farm at
Slate Mills, Rappahannock County, Virginia. She was a
beautiful and lovable woman, with strong Christian char-
acter, and her teachings, her life, her loyalty and love, her
devotion and willing sacrifices indelibly impressed her chil-
dren and molded their characters and ambitions for the
accomplishment of worthy achievements. To her five sons
and two daughters living the name "Mother," will always
express the highest and most typical embodiment of all that
is lovable, good, noble and sublime. Their seven children
are Wilbur Q., John W., James O. T., Mrs. Teresa Pearle
Norris, Mrs. Ruth Thornhill, Harford S. and George W., Jr.
The oldest of these, Wilbur Q. Tidler, is a graduate of the
University of Kentucky. He was for about twenty years a
Government official in the United States internal revenue
service, and prior to that service was a teacher and farmer.
Their youngest son, George W. Tidler, Jr., is a farmer and
soldier. He served in the World war against Germany, and
was in France pursuing the German armies when the armis-
tice was signed. After that he served in the United States
Army of Occupation, and was stationed near Coblenz for
several months.
James O. T. Tidler, of Clarksburg, was born December 31,
1876, and was reared to manhood off the Tidler home farm
at Slate Mills, Rappahannock County, Virginia. His only
early educational advantages were those of a country public
school, but he was always a leader in his classes. At the
age of eighteen years, the youngest age allowed by law, he
taught school near his home in Rappahannock County, after
having successfully passed the teachers examination, where
he was granted a first grade certificate. Teaching three
years supplied a considerable part of the fund he needed
for his law course, as he sought no financial assistance from
any relative or friend, but relied solely upon his.own efforts
and resources. His legal education is a record of brilliant
achievements. In February, 1900, he entered Richmond
College Law School, now Richmond University of Virginia,
and made Junior Law in less than a half session. In the
fall of 1900, following, he was offered and accepted a re-
sponsible position of financial trust and management in
connection with the president's office, and entered the Senior
Law Class, but in less than four months he went before the
Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia at its Richmond
term on January 11, 1901, and successfully passed the most
rigid bar examination, except one, ever held by that high
court, and was by the Supreme Court granted license to
practice law. Thirty applicants tried this examination for
admission to the bar, of which number nineteen able men,
most of them graduates in law, failed, and only eleven of
the thirty applicants passed and obtained license to prac-
tice. This examination and its results were given con-
siderable space in the Richmond and other Virginia news-
papers at the time, the same being, also, a matter of record
in Volume 6 of the Virginia Law Register.
Though being admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court
under circumstances that were a splendid augury for his
future, Mr. Tidler did not at that time quit school to prac-
tice, as might have been expected, but preferred to continue
his studies to completion and become a full-fledged graduate
before beginning the practice of his chosen profession. In
the early spring, however, he was stricken down with
inflammatory rheumatism, to such an extent that he could
move neither hand nor foot without assistance and great
pain, and was for several weeks treated in a Richmond
hospital. Notwithstanding this great affliction he was un-
daunted in his purpose and the achievement of his ambi-
tions. Leaving the hospital, though still sick and afflicted
and unable to write, he stood oral examinations on all
branches of law and books his class had completed during
his illness, and then went to his parents home at Slate Mills,
Virginia, to recover his health and strength. It was just
three weeks prior to the June commencement before he was
able to return from home and rejoin his class; but not-
withstanding his serious illness, loss of time, and missing
most important lectures of his class, he resumed his studies
with such a zeal to win over all obstacles that in this
three weeks period he mastered all legal subjects so com-
pletely as to pass the final written examinations with such
a high percentage of proficiency that he was not only
graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, June 13,
1901, but was by the faculty and trustees of the college
awarded the first prize as the most distinguished and hon-
ored graduate of his class.
In October, 1901, Mr. Tidler, then but a briefless bar-
rister, with only meagre financial resources, opened a law
office in Clarksburg, and since then has been eminently
successful, gaining honors both as a trial lawyer and as a
counselor. The same fertile brain that had distinguished
him soon lifted him out of poverty and obscurity and made
him a prominent man of affairs of Clarksburg, where he
acquired valuable real estate holdings, being now the owner
of a number of houses and lots in the City of Clarksburg
and lands in the State of Virginia. He is a republican
voter, but neither as a matter of necessity nor from inclina-
tion has he sought any public office or diversion in politics.
He was, however, associate member of the Legal Advisory
Board during the World war in 1917-18, and rendered valu-
able patriotic service without remuneration.
Mr. Tidler is, also prominent in fraternal circles, being
at present dictator (presiding officer) of Clarksburg Lodge
No. 52, Loyal Order of Moose, which has a membership of
about a thousand men. For several years he was state
treasurer of West Virginia, of the Patriotic Order Sons- of
America. He is a member of the Baptist Church.
On October 12, 1910, Mr. Tidler married Miss Anna
Martha Wickes, of New Market, Shenandoah County, Vir-
ginia, where she was born September 10, 1885, daughter of
Giles William and Mary Lizzie (Crim) Wickes. Her father
was born February 12, 1854, and still survives. Her mother
was born April 3, 1858, and died April 24, 1893. Her
paternal grandfather Wickes was born in 1827 and died in
1867. He married Wilmuth Ann Kipps, who was born
in 1827 and died in 1905. Mrs. Tidler's paternal great-
grandparents were William (1795-1852), and Mary Wickes
(1797-1871), while her maternal grandparents were David
Crim (1822-1860), and Martha Jane (Windle) Crim (1828-
1874). The latter's parents were Washington (1802-1882),
and Charlotte Glenn, Windle (1806-1891). Mrs. Tidler is
a member of the Methodist Church.
Mr. and Mrs. Tidler have two very promising children,
the older, Hazel, born June 23, 1913, and the younger,
James, born July 29, 1920.
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