James Henry Dooley (January 17, 1841 – November 16, 1922) was a

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

, business leader, politician, and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

based in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

during

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

and the

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...

. He represented Richmond in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

for three terms.

Early life

James Henry Dooley was the son of Irish immigrants John and Sarah Dooley. He was born in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, one of nine children. His father, John Dooley, Sr. was a successful hat manufacturer. The Dooley family was prominent in the community and the parish of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church. Dooley attended Georgetown College (now

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

) and became the first student to rank at the head of his class during each of his four years, graduating in 1860. Soon after, James and his brother John enlisted in the

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

, joining their father's unit, the First Virginia Infantry. James Dooley was wounded at the

Battle of Williamsburg The Battle of Williamsburg, also known as the Battle of Fort Magruder, took place on May 5, 1862, in York County, James City County, and Williamsburg, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the first pitc ...

during the Peninsula Campaign in May 1862. He was captured and confined for a short time. Upon his release, Dooley worked in the Confederate Ordnance Department in Richmond. After the war, Dooley completed a Master of Arts degree at Georgetown, then returned to Richmond.

Career

During the postwar years, as Richmond began to rebuild its business district, Dooley began a legal career. Upon his father's death in 1868, James Dooley started using his father's honorific "Major," although he himself never attained that rank. The following year, Dooley married Sarah ("Sallie") O. May of

Staunton, Virginia Staunton ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 25,750. In Virginia, independent cities a ...

Augusta County Augusta County is a county in the Shenandoah Valley on the western edge of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The second-largest county of Virginia by total area, it completely surrounds the independent cities of Staunton and Waynesboro. Its count ...

, although she remained an Episcopalian. Dooley was elected to the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 161 ...

and served from 1871 to 1877. Dooley also invested in real estate and became involved in railroads, insurance, steel, and banking. In 1880, Dooley joined the board of directors of the

Richmond and Danville Railroad The Richmond and Danville Railroad (R&D) Company was a railroad that operated independently from 1847 until 1894, first in the U.S. state of Virginia, and later on of track in nine states. Chartered on March 9, 1847, the railroad completed its ...

, which soon expanded into a multi-state system of over 8,000 miles. During this period of expansion Dooley served on the board of directors of the Richmond and West Point Terminal Railway and Warehouse Company. During the panic of 1893 when the Danville system faced bankruptcy, the company was reorganized by Drexel Morgan and Company of New York into the new Southern Railway Company. Dooley was later a founder of the

Seaboard Air Line Railroad The Seaboard Air Line Railroad , which styled itself "The Route of Courteous Service," was an American railroad which existed from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime rival, t ...

. In 1909, Dooley was elected to the board of the hesapeake and Ohio Railway In 1893, Major Dooley had a large stone mansion built on a large estate overlooking the

James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...

in enrico County, west of Richmond which he and his wife named

Maymont Maymont is a 100-acre (0.156 sq mi) Victorian estate and public park in Richmond, Virginia. It contains Maymont Mansion, now a historic house museum, an arboretum, formal gardens, a carriage collection, native wildlife exhibits, a nature cente ...

. By 1912 the Dooleys also completed an enormous mountain retreat, Swannanoa, in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

Rockfish Gap Rockfish Gap is a wind gap located in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlottesville and Waynesboro, Virginia, United States, through Afton Mountain, which is frequently used to refer to the gap. Joining the Shenandoah Valley to the Piedmont r ...

near

Waynesboro, Virginia Waynesboro (formerly Flack) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is a principal city of the Staunton-Waynesboro Metropolitan Statistical Area. Waynesboro is located in the Shenandoah Valley and is surrounded by Augusta Cou ...

in Nelson County. According to Richmond's Maymont Foundation, "Major Dooley's leadership of various civic endeavors runs as a continuous thread through the history of Richmond, from the early 1870s through the early 1920s." He succeeded his father as a board member of St. Joseph's Orphanage. In 1881, he helped raise money for relief in Ireland. Dooley also served on the board of the

Medical College of Virginia The VCU Medical Center is Virginia Commonwealth University's medical campus located in downtown Richmond, Virginia, in the Court End neighborhood. VCU Medical Center used to be known as the Medical College of Virginia (MCV), which merged with the ...

and, in 1919, gave the funds to construct the Dooley Hospital (now part of

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virgini ...

Death and legacy

Major Dooley died in Richmond at the age of 81. He was interred in Hollywood Cemetery, and later reinterred with his wife Sallie in a mausoleum at Maymont. James Dooley is still considered one of the largest donors in the history of the

Diocese of Richmond The Diocese of Richmond ( la, Diœcesis Richmondiensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Catholic Church in the United States. Its current territory encompasses all of central and southern Virginia, Hampton Roads, ...

. His family had long supported Catholic causes. His father (the original Major) had supported St. Joseph's Orphanage; his brother John attended Georgetown Seminary but died in 1873 before ordination; and his sister Sarah entered the Visitation monastery in Richmond. The Dooleys, who were themselves childless, left a record 3 million dollars to the St. Joseph's Orphanage, which permitted it to build "St. Joseph's Villa" adjacent to Maymount on the North Side of Richmond in

Henrico County Henrico County , officially the County of Henrico, is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 334,389 making it the fifth-most populous county in Virginia. Henrico County is incl ...

. The charitable organization continues to serve families and children today. Major Dooley left their home,

, to the City of Richmond, to be used as a park and museum after Mrs. Dooley's death. Today,

is a major Richmond attraction on the

, with a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

, formal

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

s, native wildlife exhibits, nature center,

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

collection, and children's farm and

petting zoo A petting zoo (also called a children's zoo, children's farm, or petting farm) features a combination of domesticated animals and some wild species that are docile enough to touch and feed. In addition to independent petting zoos, many general ...

. Mrs. Sallie Dooley gave Swannanoa to her husband's two remaining sisters upon her death, and while it subsequently changed ownership several times, the mansion remains, and like Maymont is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. She also gave a half million dollars to build the Crippled Children's Hospital in Richmond (later the Children's Hospital of Richmond)Bayliss, p. 222, and another half million dollars to build the Richmond Public Library as a memorial to her husband.

References

Works

*Dooley, J. H., Daniel, J. W., & Daniel, J. W. (1891). ''Payment of gold contracts in silver : correspondence between James H. Dooley and U.S. Senator John W. Daniel.'' Richmond, Va: J.L. Hill Printing Co. OCL
20986959
*Dooley, J. H. (1900). ''How may state receive return for money spent on education''. S.l: s.n. OCL
13420088
*Dooley, J. H. (1902). ''Has our country passed the climax of its prosperity? A reply ... to the address of Mr. F.A. Vanderlip, New York, N.Y., at Wilmington, N.C.''. OCL
26773592
*Dooley, J. H. (1911). ''A national constitutional convention and its possible consequences. What limitations can be imposed upon the powers of a convention called to amend the Constitution of the United States?''. OCL
78952562

Early life

Career

Death and legacy

References

Works

See also