Henry J. Fisher (d. 31 January 1883), member of the Convention of 1850–1851, was born in Pennsylvania, possibly about 1805, and was the son of John Fisher and Catherine Fisher (maiden name unknown). Nothing is known of his early years, although judging by his later accomplishments, he received a solid education before studying law and passing the bar. He came to the Kanawha Valley by 1825 when he was living in the town of Point Pleasant, in Mason County (later part of West Virginia). On 9 May 1828 he married Mary "Polly" Booton and they had one son. For much of his life his law practice provided his primary income, but Fisher, who owned enslaved laborers, also accumulated large landholdings. He was known as one of the most accomplished lawyers in the region, but in 1835 a judge suspended Fisher’s license for willful malpractice in his court. Fisher appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which overturned the judge's order in December 1835.
Fisher participated in local political meetings and in 1833 received votes in an election to fill a vacant seat in the state senate, although he may not have been an official candidate. In 1836, he won the first of two one-year terms representing Jackson and Mason Counties in the House of Delegates. He served on the Committee for Courts of Justice (1836–1837 and 1838 terms) and on the Committee of Finance (1838). A supporter of President Martin Van Buren, Fisher lost his race for reelection in April 1838 to a Whig who defeated him again in 1839.
In 1850 Fisher received the second-highest vote total to win election as one of three delegates to represent a district composed of Boone, Cabell, Logan, Mason, Putnam, Wayne, and Wyoming Counties in a convention that met from 14 October 1850 until 1 August 1851 to revise the state constitution. He served on the Committee on the County Courts, County Organization, and County Taxation. Longtime sectional differences between residents in eastern and western Virginia had brought about the convention, and although Fisher was present for votes on a number of important issues, the most critical was the basis on which representation would be allocated in the Virginia legislature. Eastern delegates favored legislative representation calculated on a mixed basis of population and property holding, which included enslaved people, but western delegates opposed property as a basis for representation.
In April 1851 residents of Mason County sent an ultimatum demanding that Fisher and the other two delegates return home if the convention failed to adopt representation based on the white population or declined to submit a mixed basis to the voters in a referendum. In the convention, Fisher urged eastern delegates to heed the strong feelings among his constituents, which he believed were generally representative of those of the West. Opposition continued, however, resulting in a compromise establishing the white population as the basis of representation in the House of Delegates and a fixed number of seats in the Senate with thirty for the East and twenty for the West. Fisher voted with the majority in favor of the compromise. On 31 July he voted for the new constitution that was approved in a statewide referendum in October.
In the early days of the Civil War, Fisher became alarmed by the conduct of the war in western Virginia. In October 1861 he wrote to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, warning that the region was critical to victory. Citing the abundant resources of coal, timber, and salt that would benefit the Confederacy’s war effort, and the need to control navigation on the Ohio River, he predicted that unless measures were taken a new state would be formed from the northwestern counties, bringing abolitionism to the Valley of Virginia and resulting in border warfare. Although debilitated by blindness, he was an elector for Jefferson Davis in the election for president of the Confederate States of America held on 6 November 1861. Finding Mason County residents hostile to his southern sympathies, he resettled in Greenbrier County.
After the war, Fisher returned to his home in Point Pleasant and resumed his business affairs. His wife had died on 28 April 1858, and on 26 September 1865 he married Eliza S. Perkins, a widow with at least two sons, in Wythe County, Virginia. They did not have any children. He retired from practicing law before 1870, although he continued as a legal consultant for his namesake son's practice. Henry J. Fisher died at his home on 31 January 1883 and was buried in Pioneer Cemetery, in Point Pleasant. In his will, Fisher made provisions for a daughter whose mother was not identified. He also disinherited his son from an extensive estate, which led to multiple lawsuits among his heirs during the next decade.
Sources Consulted:
History of the Great Kanawha Valley (1891; repr. 2000), 1:304–305; United States Census Schedules, Mason Co., 1850 (age forty-five), 1860 (age fifty), 1870 (age sixty), 1880 (age seventy-five), Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; first marriage in Mason Co., W.Va., Marriage Records, West Virginia Division of Arts, Culture, and History, Charleston, W.Va.; second marriage at age fifty-eight and parents’ names in Marriage Register, Wythe Co., Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia (LVA); Ex parte Fisher (1835) (6 Leigh) Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia [1830–1971], 33:619–633; Richmond Enquirer, 13 Sept. 1850; Journal, Acts, and Proceedings of a General Convention of the State of Virginia [1851], 59, 419; Appendix on Committee of the Whole, 22; Supplement, 1850–1851 Convention Debates, nos. 30 and 38, LVA; United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (1880–1901), series 1, vol. 4: 914–917; will in Mason County, W.Va., Will Book 2 (1874–1896), 99–104; Violette S. Machir comp., Mason County, W. Va. Cemetery Inscriptions (1972), 1:138 (age ninety-two at death); death notices in Charleston Kanawha Gazette, 7 Feb. 1883, and Gallipolis [Ohio] Journal, 8 Feb. 1883 (“aged about 86 years”).
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Kenneth R. Bailey and Dictionary of Virginia Biography staff.
How to cite this page:
Kenneth R. Bailey and Dictionary of Virginia Biography staff, "Henry J. Fisher (d. 31 January 1883)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2024 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Fisher_Henry_J, accessed [today's date]).
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