HON. RICHARD HENRY CARDWELL.
The subject of this sketch was born at Madison, North Carolina, on
August 1, 1846. He was educated in Rockingham county, that State,
beginning at Madison Academy, then in the Beulah Male Institute,
which he quitted to enter the Army of the Confederacy, as a member of
the North Carolina Junior Reserves. This was in March, 1864, and in
May following he took a transfer to the Army of Northern Virginia,
serving in Virginia until the close of the war. Returning to Rockingham
county, North Carolina, Mr. Cardwell engaged in agricultural pursuits,
and in the tobacco trade until 1869. In that year he moved to
Hanover county, Virginia, and read law in the office of Winn & Haw, in
the city of Richmond. He was admitted to the Bar in the spring of
1874, opened an office in Richmond, and has been engaged in practice
there ever since, with residence at Hanover C. H. In 1884 he was
elected by the Legislature, and commissioned, judge of the county court
of Hanover county, but declined to qualify. He has been a member of
the House of Delegates of Virginia from Hanover county since 1881,
and is the present Speaker of that body. In 1884 he was Elector on the
Democratic ticket.
The father of Mr. Cardwell was Richard P. Cardwell, died October 3d,
1846, aged about thirty-five years, a son of Richard Cardwell, of Rockingham
county, North Carolina. His wife, mother of Richard H., was
Elizabeth M., daughter of Nickolas Dalton, of Rockingham county,
North Carolina. She died in 1864, aged fifty-three years. In that
county, in February, 1865, Richard H. Cardwell married Kate Howard,
who was born in Richmond, Virginia. C. Howard, their first-born child,
died at the age of ten years. They have six children, born in the order
named: William D., Lucy Crump, Lizzie Dalton, Charles P., Katie, Julia.
Mrs. Cardwell is a daughter of Edward C. Howard, who was born in the
city of Richmond, and was city clerk of Richmond from the creation of
the office in 1866 until his death in 1886. Mr. and Mrs. Cardwell are
members of the Presbyterian church at Ashland, Virginia, and he is a
Ruling Elder in the church. He is also a member of the Masonic fraterity;
of the American Legion of Honor; of the Royal Arcanum, and
of the Knights of Honor.
