COL. THOMAS WHITEHEAD.
Colonel Whitehead was born in Nelson county, Virginia, December 27,
1825. He went to school in Lovingston, at Lynchburg and at New
Glasgow. At the age of nineteen, he went into his father's mercantile
and tobacco establishment, and also served as deputy sheriff under his
father two and a half years. He was then in business one year in New Glasgow,
merchandise and tobacco, after that studied law at Amherst C. H.,
with Robert M. Brown. Admitted to the Bar in March, 1849, he formed
a partnership with his former teacher, and the two practiced together
until 1855. From 1855 until the beginning of the war, Colonel Whitehead
practiced individually, was a Master Commissioner in Chancery,
and was also engaged in farming. In April, 1861, he made up the company
known as the "Amherst Rangers," of which he was elected first
lieutenant, and which was assigned in service as Company E, 2d Virginia
Cavalry. In 1862 he was elected captain, and after having been twice
wounded was promoted major of the same regiment. His first wound
was received at Stevensburg, in the left knee, from a ricochetting cannon
ball; the second, gunshot in the left arm, at Trevilian Depot, disabled
him for active service, and from that time till the close of the war he
was, by order of General Lee, detailed on a Military Board.
Since the close of the war Colonel Whitehead has been engaged in
farming, in merchandising, in the practice of law, in journalism, and in
public life. In 1865 he was elected to the Virginia legislature by the
district composed of Amherst, Nelson and Buckingham counties. This
legislature never assembled, the election having been set aside by military
authority. In 1866 he was elected commonwealth attorney for
Amherst county, but removed by military orders. Re-elected to this
office in 1869 he served until, in 1872, he was elected to the Forty-Third
Congress from the Sixth Congressional District. At this time he was
editing and publishing the Amherst Enterprise. In June, 1876, he became
editor of the Lynchburg Daily News; in 1880 established and
edited the Lynchburg Daily Advance; in 1885 established Whitehead's
Democrat, a weekly, at Lynchburg, which paper he removed in 1887 to
Amherst C. H. and discontinued in December, 1888. In December, 1887,
he was elected commissioner of agriculture for the State of Virginia,
and is still serving.
Colonel Whitehead is a member of the M. E. church (South), which he
joined in 1854. He is a Mason, into which Order he was admitted in
1848; in 1849 he joined the Sons of Temperance; in 1885 the Good
Templars. His father was John Whitehead, born in Amherst county in
1787, died in Lynchburg in 1856, a son of Burcher Whitehead who married
Nancy Camden, and who was a son of John Whitehead, born in
New Kent county, removed to Amherst county before the Revolution.
The mother of Colonel Whitehead was Anna, daughter of Dennis
Mahony, born in Philadelphia, brought to Virginia in childhood. His
first wife, who died in January, 1853, aged twenty years, was Mary K.
Irving. At Amherst C. H., June 14, 1854, he married Martha Henry
Garland of Amherst county. Their children were born in the order
named: John, Millie P., Thos., jr., David G., Mary I., Irving P., Mattie
G., Essie, Nellie G., Robert C.
