Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper

Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper (born March 11, 1811 in Isle of Wight County , Virginia , † July 17, 1875 in Macclesfield , Virginia) was an American politician and lawyer who was lieutenant governor of Virginia during the War of Civilizations and afterwards .

Life

Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper was born in Isle of Wight County, the fourth son of Navy Captain William Cowper, who previously served on the USS Constellation . William Cowper later served as captain of the frigate USS Baltimore and had been released from regular service since 1801. Leopold's parents, who married in 1802, separated just a year after his birth. Apparently he did not have to declare bankruptcy as a partner in the trading company John Cowper & Co, but also squandered the interim business successes in the Caribbean after returning home, although his father-in-law had supported him financially. In January 1817, Leopold Cowper's mother, Ann Pierce Parker Cowper (1775–1849), the daughter of former Congressman Josiah Parker († 1810), was able to obtain a final divorce through the Virginia General Assembly after a petition that proved physical and psychological abuse obtain and received sole custody of their five sons. The petition had listed evidence that William Cowper had sought his wife's family inheritance and hit her himself while pregnant with Leopold Copeland Parker.

After school and college, Cowper practiced as a lawyer in Portsmouth and Norfolk Counties . As a Whigs politician , he served two consecutive terms in the Virginia House of Delegates , 1847-1848 and 1848-1849.

In May 1863, Cowper was elected as a candidate for the office of lieutenant governor for the Union-controlled area of ​​Virginia under the so-called Restored government of Virginia to replace a candidate from Berkeley County , who in turn withdrew his candidacy. Although the candidates for the actual governorship and attorney general had no opposing candidates, Cowper was challenged in turn by Gilbert S. Miner , whom he was able to beat in the election on May 28, 1863. Even though Cowper himself could not move into his new office until January 1864 due to the chaos of war, Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont appointed him as Lieutenant Governor on November 17, 1863, when the previous Lieutenant Governor Daniel Polsley , who had been his representative until then , resigned from his office.

As Lieutenant Governor, Cowper presided over a state senate that comprised just six districts: Accomack and Northampton Counties, Alexandria and Fairfax Counties, Elizabeth City Counties and the City of Hampton , Loudoun County , the City of Norfolk , and those that no longer exist Norfolk and Princess Anne Counties.

Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper died in 1875 at the age of 64, unmarried and without descendants. He was buried at Macclesfield, on the family home in Smithfield, Isle of Wight County.

literature

• John T. Kneebone et al. a. (Ed.) Dictionary of Virginia Biography The Library of Virginia, Richmond 1998, 3: 497-499. ISBN 0-88490-206-4 .

Web links

• Petition of Ann PP Cowper for divorce from William Cowper. November 20, 1816. Manuscript. RG 78, Legislative Petitions, Isle of Wight County. Library of Virginia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Bennett Boddie: Seventeenth century Isle of Wight County, Virginia: a history of the county of Isle of Wight, Virginia, during the seventeenth century, Including abstracts of the county records. Genealogical Pub. Co, Baltimore 1980, (1st ed. 1938), p. 241.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Transcript of the Ann Pierce Parker Cowpers petition . On: www.lva.virginia.gov. Accessed November 6, 2012.
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ Genealogies of Virginia Families: Healy-Pryor . Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore 1981, p. 601.
5. ↑ Description of the book publication and the exhibition Working out her destiny. Women's history in Virginia 1600-2004 : Thomas E. Buckley: The Great Catastrophe of My Life: Divorce in the Old Dominion. University of North Carolina Press, SJ Chapel Hill 2002 . On: www.lva.virginia.gov. Accessed November 6, 2012.