SUMMERS COUNTY, (Hinton News) – Editor’s note: Here is the second part of the “Connections between Concord University and Summers County series.
Armistead Abraham Lilly, often known as “Cousin Abe,” was a native of Summers County for whom Concord was a key stop on the road to success. Born in Jumping Branch on March 25, 1878, Lilly was the son of Robert C. and Virginia Lilly. He attended public schools in Raleigh and Mercer counties before graduating from Concord in 1898. Lilly taught school for a short time in Mercer and then Fayette County. Concord provided him with the basis for further higher education as Lilly went on to earn a law degree from the Southern Normal University in Tennessee. Admitted to the West Virginia bar in 1900, “Cousin Abe” practiced law in Raleigh County. A man of large stature and a gifted orator, Lilly was elected to the state legislature in 1900 and took his seat as the youngest lawmaker in Charleston. In 1904, at age 26, Lilly was elected Prosecuting Attorney for Raleigh County. An already prominent Republican, he served in 1908 as a Presidential Elector, casting his vote for William Howard Taft. Lilly ran a campaign for Congress in 1910. Although unsuccessful, the campaign, as former Governor George Wesley Atkinson stated, “gave him a state-wide reputation and made him a factor to be reckoned with in the future.” The height of Lilly’s political career came in 1912 when “Cousin Abe” was elected West Virginia’s Attorney-General.
As Attorney-General, Lilly handled several major issues dealing with cases from railroad rates to charges of corruption against members of the state legislature. Perhaps the most momentous issue was the Virginia debt settlement. West Virginia’s 1863 constitution vaguely committed the new state to assume a portion of the 1861 Virginia debt. In the wake of the 1872 constitution, West Virginia’s leaders usually sought to avoid making payment. The debt issue was so volatile that former Governor William MacCorkle wrote years later that “opposition made me afraid to advocate openly the Virginia debt, and in fact, like many men in public life, I was afraid to face a question which was loaded with political disaster.” In 1911, the United States Supreme Court ruled that West Virginia was bound by the state constitution to pay a third of the antebellum Virginia debt. Lilly oversaw West Virginia’s motion to reopen the case before the nation’s highest Court, which determined in 1915 that the mountain state owed the Old Dominion $12,393,929.50. Working in the administration of Governor Henry Hatfield, Lilly helped start the process of retiring the debt through the sale of bonds. West Virginia would pay the last installment to Virginia in 1939.
Hatfield’s activist regime split West Virginia Republicans between progressive and conservative wings. Clashing often with Hatfield on political and personal issues, Lilly led the conservative faction as a gubernatorial candidate in 1916 in what Atkinson described as “the most spirited contest ever known in West Virginia.” Lilly focused his campaign primarily on a need to lower taxes. The Attorney General declared on the day he announced his campaign that “I believe that no more taxes should be levied than will meet the actual necessities of government, economically administered. Taxation has come to be a serious burden to the people.” Making speeches throughout the state, Lilly lost the nomination by 134 votes to the progressive Judge Ira Robinson. Initially contesting the election, Lilly eventually reached a compromise with Robinson, who lost to Democrat John Cornwell of Hampshire County in the general election.
After unsuccessfully running for the United States Senate in 1922, Lilly focused more on his legal practice and business efforts. Lilly served as a member of the board of directors of the Virginia Rubber Company, which elected him company president in July 1921. “Cousin Abe” also became president of the Williamson Pain Manufacturing Company in 1923. Both successful companies were based in Charleston.
Maintaining a connection with southern West Virginia, “Cousin Abe” organized the Lilly Reunion Association in 1929 and served as the organization’s first president. Under his leadership, the Lilly Reunion held its first gathering in August 1930. One Hinton newspaper, The Leader, reported on August 21, 1930, that attendance at the two-day event was around 28,000. The former Attorney General was himself the primary speaker at the reunion and told his audience that though the meeting was “intended for pleasure and enjoyment,” it had a greater objective. In his address, Lilly asserted that the event would be a failure “unless it has awakened in us the need of progressive advancement and added purpose to serve; has created in us an ambition worthy of the present and prophetic of the future.”
The majority owner of the Ruffner Hotel in Charleston, Lilly resided in the penthouse until his death in 1956. “Cousin Abe” left behind a legacy as one of the most noteworthy Concord graduates and natives of Summers County.
