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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
April 13, 2000
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 404
ARTHUR SPENCER DAYTON, of Philippi, represents the
third generation of a family that has been distinguished
in the bench and bar of Virginia and West Virginia for
over eighty years. He is the only son and child of the
late Judge Alston G. Dayton, to whom a separate article
is dedicated in this publication. The son is one of the
younger members of the bar, but took to his professional
work fine talents and an unusually broad and liberal edu-
cation, and already stands in the front rank of West Vir-
ginia lawyers.
He was born at Philippi, March 6, 1887. When he was
about eight years of age his father removed to Washing-
ton to take up his congressional duties, and the son re-
ceived most of his early education in the schools of Wash-
ington. Subsequently he entered West Virginia University,
graduating A. B. in 1907, began the study of law there,
and the following year graduated with the in cursa de-
gree LL. B. His work in the university of his home state
was supplemented by graduate study in Yale University,
where he received the Master of Arts degree in 1909.
Mr. Dayton was admitted to practice in the Supreme
Court of West Virginia, June 3, 1908. Though only twenty-
one years of age, he had covered a remarkably wide field
of research and scholarship, but his admission to the bar
did not mark the end of his student career. He has found
it as necessary to go to court with his lessons prepared
as when he went to his classes, and among his contempo-
raries he is distinguished as much for his diligence as a
student as the varied resources he is able to bring forth at
demand in solving the problems and intricacies of litiga-
tion. He has been admitted to practice in all the higher
courts in the state and the Federal courts. For the first
two years he was a member of the law firm of Blue and
Dayton at Philippi, and since then he has been alone in
practice and has found his time more and more taken up
with great bulk of cases that represent some of the most
important in the state.
Mr. Dayton is also known for his substantial contribu-
tions to the literature of law. Several of his articles have
been published in the Standard Encyclopedia of Procedure,
published by L. D. Powell and Company. These articles
include treatises on Certiorari, Dismissal, Continuance and
Nonsuit. All branches of the law have been included in
his practice, and if there is a tendency at all toward spe-
cialization it is toward the litigation in which corporations
are involved. He has exhibited especially the qualities of
thoroughness and accuracy, has a wonderful grasp of legal
principles, and his integrity is universally conceded. Among
numerous professional connections he is attorney for two
of the three banks of Philippi, for the Baltimore and Ohio
and Western Maryland Railroad. Mr. Dayton was accepted
and approved for army service abroad in the World war as
first lieutenant, and was scheduled for sailing when the
armistice was signed.
For a dozen years he has been active in republican pol-
itics, has been a spokesman of his county in the state re-
publican conventions, was an alternate to the National
Convention in 1912 and was chairman of the Second Dis-
trict Congressional Convention of 1916. Fraternally he is
a Lodge and Chapter Mason, has done the work of the
Subordinate and Encampment degrees in the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, is a member of the Delta Tau Delta
and the Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity, and belongs to
the DuQuesne Club and the University Club of Pittsburgh.
He is an elder of the Presbyterian Church of Philippi.
On June 14, 1916, Mr. Dayton married Miss Ruth Woods.
Her father, Hon. Samuel V. Woods, was one of the lead-
ing lawyers of the West Virginia bar, and also a success-
ful business man and financier. Mrs. Dayton was born in
Barbour County and finished her education in National
Park Seminary at Washington, District of Columbia.
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