James
Southgate
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 5 March 1859, page 3
COVINGTON NEWS
THE GAS COMPANY IN COUNCIL-The Gas Company of which Mr. James
Southgate is the very embodiment, received quite a going over in Council at the
meeting on Thursday evening last. One of the members introduced a resolution
which called upon the aforesaid James Southgate to continue the main gas pipes
up Scott and Greenup streets to Twelfth street, which if done would consume a
large amount of pipe, much more than the city is entitled to in a single year.
The city has the privilege of laying the pipes where Council shall direct but Mr. Southgate can not avail himself of the advantage thereof for the purpose of supply private consumers without paying for the laying of the same.
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Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 28 April 1859, page 2
THE LATE JAMES SOUTHGATE, Esq.
James Southgate, Esq. was born in 1806 in Richmond, Virginia. He
was the youngest son of Wright Southgate for many years a merchant in that city
and who was, previous to the Revolution, an officer in the English Navy.
James Southgate was educated and received his diploma at old William and Mary College at Williamsburg in that State, in the year 1819, studied law with Frances Walker Gilmer, one of the most erudite scholars and learned lawyers in his time, in the old Commonwealth.
When it was first established it was under the guidance and interaction of him that Southgate acquired the legal knowledge which he possessed after he received his license to practice law and in 1828 emigrated to Kentucky and settled at Covington to practice his profession. In the pursuit of that profession he was always governed by the highest sense of honor and probity.
In social life he was excelled by few men in agreeable conversational powers and in the capacity of rendering everyone happy in his company. He was twice married but was unfortunate enough to lose each of his wives in a short time after marriage. He left an only daughter, the child of his second wife, who married Captain Hamer, of the United States Army.
James Southgate was elected President of the Covington Gas Company in 1851 and was the promoter and founder of it and continued President until his death. His temper was cheerful and joyous, his manner dignified and courtly, and in dispensing the amenities of life in society, especially in the company of ladies, he was a choice specimen of a Virginia gentleman of the old school.
He was the life and soul of a pleasure party; his hilarity of disposition and perfectly good breeding rendered his presence ever welcome. His association was chiefly with persons younger than himself and he partook largely of the geniality of spirit which characterizes youth.
The writer of this notice was associated with Mr. Southgate in the practice of the law, at the period when he abandoned his profession for the Presidency of the Gas Company and during years of acquaintance of the most intimate character every found him to the minutest matter every inch a gentleman and the embodiment of honor and integrity.