Battelle, Gordon
clergyman, was born Nov. 14, 1814, in Newport, Ohio. His influence in western Virginia was very great, and at the beginning of the civil war in 1861 he was appointed an official visitor to the military camps. The needs of the time demanding attention to the political situation, he became a member of the convention that met Nov. 24, 1861, and framed the constitution of the new state of West Virginia. To him, more largely probably than to any other man, was due the abolition of slavery in that region. He died Jan. 7, 1862.