HON. CHARLES GRATTAN,
Judge of the Hustings court of Augusta county, was born in Rockingham
county, Virginia, on the 8th of December, 1833. He was educated
at home, at Ridgeway (Albemarle county), and at the University of
Virginia. After leaving the University he was engaged in farming, in
Rockingham county, until elected to the House of Delegates, in 1859.
He erved two terms in the legislature, being elected for the second
term in 1861, while at Harpers Ferry. During the war he served in
connection with the quartermaster's department until the meeting of
the legislature, acting on the march from Winchester to Manassas as
Q. M. commissary and ordnance officer for "Stonewall" Jackson in the
absence of those officers. Later he stood the ordnance examination,
and was assigned to Cabell's battalion of artillery, then to charge of
field park of the Second Corps, then to charge of ordnance, Cavalry
Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, on the staff of Gens. J. E. B. Stuart
and Wade Hampton. After the war he farmed in Augusta county, until
he came to the Bar at Staunton in 1871, then continued practice
until, in 1887, he was elected to the office he is now ably filling. He
has been superintendent of the schools of Augusta county, for six years,
and in 1888 was appointed, by the Board of Agriculture, Commissioner
of Immigration for the State of Virginia.
Judge Grattan is a son of Major Robert Grattan, who was born in
Rockingham county on March 1, 1800, and died in 1856, and whose
father was the Major Robert Grattan who commanded a troop of
Horse in the whisky insurrection. The last-named Major Robert
Grattan, also of Rockingham county, was a son of John Grattan of
he same county, who came from the North of Ireland early in the
Eighteenth century. The mother of Judge Grattan, born in Albemarle
county, died in Harrisonburg, Virginia, about 1868, aged fifty-nine
years, was Martha D., daughter of Peter Minor, Esq., of Albemarle
county. His wife, whom he married in Augusta county on January 6;
1864, was born in this county, Elizabeth Crawford Finley. Her father
was Samuel B. Finley, born in Augusta county, died in this county,
about 1874, a son of Samuel Finley of the same county. Her mother
was born in Greenbrier county, (then). Virginia, and is now about
seventy years of age, Sarah A., daughter of Col Samuel McClung of
Greenbrier who married Elizabeth Crawford of Augusta county. The
children of Judge Grattan and wife are six daughters, Mary, Virginia,
Sarah, Martha McClung, Elizabeth Christian, Minnie Watson, and they
have buried one daughter, Louisa Noland.
