With the midterm elections now just 22 days away on November 3rd, we remember one of West Virginia’s Governors who passed away on this date in 1923.
Fairmont’s Aretas B. Fleming was the eighth governor of West Virginia, and with the midterms looming, there’s a certain poetic irony here, given how intensely tied his legacy is, to the controversial 1888 gubernatorial race, held during our state’s twenty-fifth anniversary.
The West Virginia gubernatorial election of 1888 was one of the most chaotic political episodes in any state’s history. It resulted in a prolonged constitutional crisis that left our state without a settled governor for over a year.
In that election, in which about 150,000 votes were cast, the Republican nominee, Nathan Goff, Jr. from Clarksburg, held a narrow initial lead of just 106 votes over Fleming, the Democratic nominee. Both parties immediately cried foul, alleging multiple examples of corruption, intimidation, and vote-rigging.
Fleming and the Democrats challenged the results; claiming Republicans allowed blocks of African-American voters from Virginia to illegally cross state lines into southern West Virginia counties like McDowell and Mercer and vote for Goff.
The West Virginia Legislature was responsible for officially declaring the results of the election, but with both chambers deadlocked in investigations of multiple races, no winner could be certified by Inauguration Day.
And that’s not all; three of the four Congressional results were also contested that year.
And when Inauguration Day arrived on March 4th, 1889, you had the surreal situation of Fleming and Goff both taking the oath of office, with each claiming to be the rightful governor.
To make the situation even more bizarre, the outgoing Democratic governor, Emanuel Willis Wilson, refused to surrender the office until a legitimate successor was determined. Even the State Senate President at the time, Robert S. Carr, made a run at claiming executive authority — it was a real mess.
The Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that outgoing Governor Wilson would stay in office to keep the state’s business functioning until the legislature came to a solution.
Wilson remained as Governor for 14 additional months, until January of 1890, when the Legislature, voting along straight party lines, finally declared Fleming the winner.
In the end, Fleming served only one term and his time in office is best remembered for spearheading a new uniform statewide ballot system.
Fleming died on this date in 1923 at the age of 83, but not before, along with his brother-in-law Clarence W. Watson, formed many coal companies, including the one known as CONSOL Energy, which merged with Arch Resources early last year to become Core Natural Resources.