Ralph Lazier Berkshire
American judge (1815-1902)
Ralph Lazier Berkshire (born April 8, 1815 or 1816; died November 8, 1902) was a lawyer, judge, and Republican politician who helped found the state of West Virginia and became the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia (from June 20, 1863 to December 31, 1866). Although defeated for re-election, Berkshire again served from September 10, 1868 until December 31, 1872, and later represented Monongalia County in the West Virginia Senate (1874–1878) as well as continuing to practice law.
Early and family life
Berkshire's grandfather John Berkshire had been a Monongalia County pioneer. In 1817 his father, farmer William Berkshire, moved his young family across the Ohio River from what had become Maryland to Monongalia County (then in the state of Virginia). William Berkshire would marry three times; only Ralph and his brother Edmond C. Berkshire, who moved westward on the National Road to Addison, Champaign County, Ohio, would survive of the ten children born to his second wife, the former Ruth Bradget. His father was a Whig and Patriot and a devout Methodist, and against his will was once written in by friends in opposition to Sherrard Clemens. When he was 18, the home-schooled Ralph Berkshire left his family's farm, moved to Morgantown and apprenticed himself to a carpenter. In 1838, he began to read law with Guy R.C. Allen in Morgantown.
In 1842 Ralph Berkshire married Maria L. Chadwick, daughter of James Chadwick. Three children survived their parents (Jane Ann Berkshire Wagner, Mary R. Berkshire and Charles B. Berkshire); another daughter died as an infant and another after marrying.
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