Chilton, William E. 1858-1939

William Edwin Chilton (March 17, 1858 – November 7, 1939) was a United States senator from West Virginia. Born in Colesmouth, Virginia (now St. Albans, West Virginia), he attended public and private schools and graduated from Shelton College in St. Albans. He taught school, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1880, commencing practice in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1882. He also engaged in the newspaper publishing business, and was prosecuting attorney of Kanawha County in 1883. In 1892 he was chairman of the Democratic State executive committee and was Secretary of State of West Virginia from 1893 to 1897. Chilton was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1911, to March 3, 1917; while in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Census (Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Congresses) and of the Committee on Printing (Sixty-fourth Congress), and also served on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chilton's bid for reelection in 1916 failed; he unsuccessfully contested the election of his opponent, Howard Sutherland. After Chilton's term in the Senate, he resumed the practice of law and the newspaper publishing business in Charleston. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Senate in 1924 and again in 1934. He died in Charleston in 1939; interment was in Teay's Hill Cemetery, St. Albans. His parents' house at St. Albans, known as the Chilton House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.