Blackburn B. Dovener
American lawyer and politician (1842-1914)
Blackburn Barrett Dovener (April 20, 1842 – May 9, 1914) was a Republican politician from West Virginia who served as a United States representative. He served as a member of the 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th, 58th and 59th United States Congresses. He died in 1914.
Biography
Dovener was born in Tays Valley, Virginia, in Cabell County (now in Putnam County, West Virginia) on April 20, 1842. He taught school from 1858 to 1861. When he was nineteen, he raised a company and served as captain of Company A, 15th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He became captain of an Ohio River steamboat in 1867. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1873 and entered practice in Wheeling, West Virginia. He gained some fame there as counsel to murder defendant Taylor Strauder, taking the case (Strauder v. West Virginia) all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, winning an important legal victory for the civil rights of freedmen.
“Blackburn B. Dovener” enters the record as american lawyer and politician (1842-1914). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Blackburn, Dovener and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q880730. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1842, 1914, 1858 and 1861.
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This entry incorporates text from “Blackburn B. Dovener” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.