John Edward Massey

Background

John Edward Massey was born on April 2, 1819 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. He was the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Chewning) Massey.

Education

In 1836, from the old-field school near his home, with his belongings packed in a pillowcase, he journeyed on foot the sixty miles to the Virginia Baptist Seminary, now University of Richmond, for a year's study.

Career

Further work in private schools and another year at the Seminary followed, after which he read law while working in his father's shop to pay for his law books. In 1843 he was admitted to the bar. The youngest in a very religious household, however, he had from infancy successfully "exhorted" at revivals, and now men said that he ought to be a preacher. Accordingly, the next year he was licensed, and for eight years thereafter as the Virginia Baptist Association's missionary he energetically carried his message to the people of the heterogeneous Valley region from Winchester to Lexington, meeting considerable success and learning much about the psychology of plain men and the arts of dialectic and side-stepping. He was a pastor in Albemarle and Nelson counties from 1854 to 1862; and then, alleging ill health, he purchased the "Ash Lawn" farm in Albemarle and thither retired with his wife. During Reconstruction he was resentful but quiet. Then, after he had passed his fiftieth birthday, he began a career of thirty years as a "champion of the people. " Elected to the House in 1873 and 1875 and to the Senate in 1877, he was ere long dubbed "Father of the Readjuster Movement, " through which the various elements of discontent eventually compelled a definite settlement of the debt issue. The movement was strongly disapproved by the "best people, " however, and when Massey found his gubernatorial aspirations thwarted and his group being led into the Republican party by William Mahone, he revolted and aided powerfully in the restoration of a liberalized Democratic regime. His unsuccessful campaign for the place of congressman at large (1882), his election as lieutenant-governor (1885), and his election as superintendent of public instruction (1889) were incidents in this "redemption" of the state. As state auditor under the Readjusters (1879 - 81), he had rendered important service, though not without an eye to politics; as superintendent he desired that schools for negroes should receive only such taxes as had been paid by negroes for that purpose. Always a temperance advocate, he distinctly aided the local-option movement but vigorously opposed any identification of the anti-liquor agitation with a party. There were many stories reflecting upon his personal financial integrity, but most of these he disproved to the satisfaction of a jury in 1895; and shortly before his death he was elected to the constitutional convention of 1901-02.

Achievements

• Massey served as the 15th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from January 1, 1886, until January 1, 1890.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Baptism: Its Mode, Subjects and Design: Also, Its Relation to the Lord's Supper

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Autobiography of John E. Massey (Classic Reprint)

    (Mfi. Massby intended to make two books out of his materia...)

Politics

He had originally been a Whig, but a trip through New England about 1854 made him a Democrat; by 1860 he was an ardent and argumentative secessionist; and during the Civil War he raised "grain and provender" for the army and bought Confederate bonds.

Views

Asserting that, through the corrupt collusion of Carpet-baggers, bankers, and brokers, taxes and interest rates had become excessive while the state's schools and charities were neglected and farming languished, he declared that the recent "funding act" ought to be undone and the state's enormous debt "readjusted" to the state's diminished capacity to pay. Accordingly, notwithstanding his opposition to ministers' participating in politics, since other capable and trustworthy men were lacking because of the penalties of Reconstruction, he announced himself as a candidate for the legislature.

Personality

Massey's strength lay in the common man's conviction of his honesty and sympathy and in his remarkable skill as a rough-and-tumble debater. Thoroughly understanding the shallower aspects of finance and the deep needs of his people, he was so full of anecdote and Scriptural quotation, so ready at repartee, so self-confident and poised, that few public men could boast of a successful encounter with him.

Connections

Massey was married to Margaret Ann Kable since 1847. In 1890 he married Mattie E. McCreary of Alabama.

Father:

Benjamin Massey

Mother:

Elizabeth (Chewning) Massey

Wife:

Mattie E. McCreary Massey

20 July 1854 - 4 June 1944

Wife:

Margaret Ann Massey

10 September 1829 - 3 July 1889

Daughter:

C Clarence Massey

3 July 1856 - 10 September 1881