REV. LYMAN BROWN WHARTON.
In colonial days William Wharton came from England to Virginia,
settling in Culpeper County. His son John settled in Albemarle county,
Virginia, and had a son also named John, who was the father of John
Austin Wharton, who was born in Bedford county, and who died June
20, 1888, aged eighty-five years. John Austin Wharton married Isabella
Brown, who survives him, living now in Liberty, Virginia. Their
son is the subject of this sketch, Lyman Brown Wharton, born in
Liberty, Virginia.
After the usual preliminary education, he entered the University of
Virginia, which he attended sessions of two years, and graduated in the
schools of ancient and modern languages. He took orders in the Protestant
Episcopal Church and had charge of Cornwell Parish, Charlotte
county, Virginia, until he became chaplain of the 59th Virginia Infantry,
C. S. A., with which he remained until its surrender at Appomattox.
He then took charge of a church in Abingdon, Virginia; in 1870 became
professor of Greek and German, at William and Mary College, where he
remained until 1881, becoming then associate principal of Norwood
High School, Nelson county, Virginia. Subsequently he was professor
of languages in Hanover Academy, Virginia, and in Bellevue High
School, Bedford county, Virginia. In 1886 he was professor of Ancient
Languages in the Maryland Military and Naval Academy, Oxford,
Maryland. In 1888 he returned to Williamsburg and became professor
of languages in college of William and Mary, which position
he still fills.
Mr. Wharton married in Richmond, Virginia, December 27, 1877,
Martha Paulina Taylor. She was born in Henrico county, near Richmond,
and is the daughter of the late Henry Porterfield Taylor and
Cornelia Taylor, nee Storrs. Her mother still lives in Richmond; her
father died there, November 19, 1887, aged seventy years. He was a
son of Col. Edmund Taylor, who served in the war of 1812, and at a
later period was the first captain of the old military organization in
Richmond, the "Richmond Blues." The father of Colonel Taylor was
Edmund Taylor, Esq., of Taylorsville, Hanover county, Virginia.
Mr. Wharton had one brother in service in the late war, John, a cadet
at the Virginia Military Institute, who participated in the service of the
cadets in the field, including that in Newmarket battle.
