General Notes

WV Heritage Encyclopedia
2nd Edition, 1976
Edit/Pub Jim Comstock
VOL 8, Pg 1 744
FRENCH, DAVID EDWIN (1871-    ) was born in Giles County, Virginia, son of Henley C. and Harriet Thomas (Easley) French. His father was educated in Emory and Henry College and at West Point Military Academy, and during the Civil war had charge of the salt-peter works on New River for the
Confederate Govern ment. After the war Captain French was a farmer and stock raiser. He died April 7, 1890. David Edwin French attended the grades and high school in Virginia, studied law with his brother, William Wirt French, at Pocahontas, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in May, 1895. For ten years he lived in McDowell County, West Virginia, and since 1905, in Bluefield. For eight years he se rved as city attorney of Bluefield and was a member of the State Senate  191 0-14. He was a Democratic candidate for the nomination for governor in 1916, being defeated by Governor Cromwell. He was a delegate
at large to the New York Convention of 1924, acting as chairman of the West Virginia delegation.
He married Miss Minnie Reid, of Athens, who graduated from Concord State Normal at Athens at the age of sixteen and was a teacher for several years before her marriage. She wrote verse and stories and was a member of the League of American Penwomen. She was a daughter of Capt. William A. and
Louise (Hare) Reid. Her father was educated at Emory and Henry College, was a captain in the Confederate army, and after the war, a farmer and stock man in Summers County.