Biographies - Hon. George Preston Finley

             The Hon. George P. Finlay is a fine specimen ot intellectual and physical manhood. He is six feet four inches in height, and measures fully up to that standard in mental strength. He is a leading lawyer at one of the finest and strongest bars of the country, that of the courts of Galveston, Texas.

             His grandfather and grandmother were natives of North Ireland, and in 1770, they emigrated to this country, and settled in North Carolina. Here, together with a large family they reared, James Finlay, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born. He exhibited the traits of his lineage, Scotch-Irish, for from his youth he was remarkable for enterprise, sound judgment and intrepidity. He fought in the Seminole war, and as a pioneer of civilization, he found a home in Mississippi.

             The mother of George P. Finlay was a native of South Carolina, of a revolutionary family. She was a Miss Cada Lewis, before her marriage to James Finlay, daughter of Joel Lewis, a highly respected citizen of Brandon, Mississippi, and a sister of Everett and Hugh Lewis, of Gonzales county.

             George P. Finlay has two brothers, Luke W. Finlay, a lawyer, of Memphis, Tennessee, and Oscar E. Finlay, a lawyer, of Graham, Young county, Texas.

             George P. Finlay was born in Augusta, Perry county, Mississippi, November 16, 1829. His parents moved to a farm about two miles south of Brandon, Rankin county, Mississippi, the same year, where he was raised and educated. He took a thorough collegiate course, and was graduated from Brandon College in the class of 1850. He then entered the law office of B. H. Lombard, Esq., of Brandon, and attended law lectures at the Louisville, Kentucky, Law School, from which he was graduated in 1852.

             He taught school for a while, in Mississippi, to obtain the means to settle and commence the practice of his profession in Texas.

             He came to Texas in 1853, and settled at Lavaca, Calhoun county, where he was engaged in an extensive practice of law, in partnership with Hon. J. J. Holt, one of the most eminent lawyers in the State, until 1873, when he removed to Galveston.

            Geo. P. Finlay was married to Miss Carrie Rea. in Lavaca, November 16, 1854. His wife was a native of Booneville, Missouri, and was born May 13, 1836. She was the daughter of Horsley Rea, who was accidentally killed in 1848, west of San Antonio, while on his way to California, with his family, and Pamelia Ewing, who was the daughter of the Rev. Finis Ewing, the founder of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and a sister of United States Senator Ewing, of Illinois, and of Judge Ewing, late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri.

             The mother of Mrs. Finlay, Mrs. Pamelia Ewing Rea, died in Austin, Texas, in 1881. Mrs. Carrie Rea Finlay has three living sisters; Mrs. Mary Forbes, who married Robert M. Forbes, a Texas veteran, and member of the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1846, who died in 1887, and his widow now resides with her son-in-law, Colonel Wm. G. Sterrett, at Dallas, Texas; Mrs. Florence Glenn, wife of Major John W. Glenn, of New Orleans, and Mrs. Jessie Evans, wife of Wm. E. Evans, of Galveston, Texas.

             Mr. and Mrs. Finlay have three children: Julia, wife of Hart Little, born August 27, 1854, who has two children, Julia, born in 1882, and George Finlay, born in 1885.

             Quitman Finlay, born July 21, 1865, a lawyer practicing in partnership with his father, at Galveston.

             Virgilia Octavia Finlay, born March 12, 1870, unmarried.

             George P. Finlay was made a Mason in 1854, and became Master of a Lodge of A. F. and A. M., and is now a Knight Templar. In 1861-2, he was State Senator of the Texas Legislature, representing Victoria county, the Twenty-fourth Senatorial District. He also represented the same district in the Thirteenth Legislature, 1873. He was a member of the House of Representatives, representing Galveston in the sixteenth and seventeenth sessions of the Legislature, 1879 and 1881. He served as Chairman of Judiciary Committee of the Senate in 1873, and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the sixteenth and seventeenth sessions of 1879 and 1881.

             He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Public Schools of Galveston from 1881 to 1887. He organized the system, and is known as the father of the Public Schools of Galveston.

 WAR RECORD.

             In 1846, George P. Finlay joined the First Mississippi Rifles, the celebrated regiment commanded by Colonel Jefferson Davis, and served through the Mexican war with that regiment.

             In 1862, as soon as the Senate adjourned, of which he was a member, and without waiting to serve the second session of the Senate, he volunteered in the Confederate States service, and was commissioned as Captain of a Company in the Sixth Texas infantry, commanded by Colonel Garland and Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Anderson. He was captured with his regiment at Arkansas Post, January 11, 1863, and was confined, first in the prison at Columbus, Ohio, and afterwards at Fort Delaware. He was exchanged at Richmond, Virginia, May, 1863.

             He served in Georgia under Generals Bragg and Johnson, and the last year of the war he served in the Trans-Mississippi Department, under General Kirby Smith, as Judge Advocate.

             Mr. Finlay, it goes without saying, is a Democrat, and was the nominee of that party for Congress in the Seventh Congressional District of Texas, in 1882, but was defeated.

             He was City Attorney for Galveston in 1878, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888 and 1889.

             Mr. Finlay, his wife and three children, are members of the Episcopal Church.

             He is six feet four inches in height, and has earned the sobriquet of the "Tall Sycamore." His appearance is commanding, and aids in impressing his fine oratory upon his hearers. He has a fair complexion, gray eyes, dark brown hair and beard, now slightly silvered with gray. He has a large head, is full chested, stands straight, a fine open countenance, and intelligent and expressive features. He ranks with the first in his profession, and as a man and citizen he has the esteem and confidence of all who know him. He is genial, courteous and benevolent, and now, with a splendid constitution and robust health, he has promise of many years of usefulness to his family and to his State.

             Quitman Finlay was married to Miss Alice Josephine Downs, at Waco, Texas, on the 6th of November, 1889.