Francis Mallory

Francis Mallory (December 12, 1807 – March 26, 1860) was an American naval officer, physician, railroad executive, and Whig politician who served two terms in the United States House of Representatives representing Virginia’s 1st congressional district and later two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Norfolk. He was born in 1807 in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, part of the Hampton Roads seaport area that is now within the Hampton metropolitan region. He was the son of Frances Lowry Stephenson Mallory (1786–1845) and Charles King Mallory (1781–1820), who briefly served as lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1812. His grandfather and namesake, Colonel Francis Mallory (1740–1781), was a Virginia militia officer who married three times and was killed in the Skirmish at Waters Creek while defending Hampton during the Patriot siege of Yorktown near the end of the American Revolutionary War. Young Francis grew up with a sister, Mary (1810–1853), and two younger brothers, William Stevenson Mallory (1817–1857) and Charles King Mallory (1820–1875), in a family deeply connected to Virginia’s political and military traditions.

Mallory received his early education at the private Hampton Academy. After the death of his father in Norfolk in 1820, he began a career in the United States Navy, accepting a midshipman’s commission in 1822. He served as a naval officer from 1822 to 1828, gaining experience in maritime service during a period when the young republic was consolidating its naval presence. Leaving active naval duty before the age of thirty, he turned to the study of medicine. He enrolled in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, one of the leading medical schools of the era, and graduated in 1831. Sources suggest that he may have had a first wife who died in 1830, though details of that marriage are sparse.

After completing his medical training, Mallory established a medical practice in the area surrounding Norfolk, Virginia, serving a growing port community whose health needs were shaped by maritime commerce and periodic epidemics. He married Mary Francis Wright, and by 1850 the couple resided at Old Point Comfort in Elizabeth City County with their children: sons Francis Mallory Jr. (1834–1863) and Charles O’Connor (Connor) Mallory (1842–1877), and daughters Abby, Mary, Kate, and Alice. Two other sons died in infancy, and Mallory and his wife later chose to be buried beside them. The family’s later history reflected the turmoil of the Civil War: his namesake son, Francis Jr., died in 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville while serving in the Confederate States Army, and his cousin and fellow Confederate officer Charles King Mallory died only days later. Charles O’Connor Mallory enlisted as a private in the 6th Virginia Infantry in April 1861, rose to the rank of sergeant major after transfer to the 55th Virginia Infantry, surrendered at Appomattox Court House, and afterward became a farmer in Essex County, Virginia, where he had sons who continued the family’s military tradition.

Mallory’s political career began while he was still a practicing physician. A member of the Whig Party, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1836 to represent Virginia’s 1st congressional district, a constituency that included parts of the Tidewater region. In the 1837 contest he was elected with 50.26 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat Joel Holleman (also spelled Hollerman in some records). His first term in Congress commenced on March 4, 1837. He lost his bid for reelection in 1838 to Holleman, but the political fortunes of the Whig Party soon gave him another opportunity. During that 1838 campaign, Holleman publicly pledged that he would resign if a Whig were elected president in 1840. When Whig candidate William Henry Harrison won the presidency in 1840, Holleman honored his promise and resigned, triggering a special election. Mallory won that election to complete the remainder of the term and was also elected to the subsequent full term, thereby serving again as the area’s congressman until March 4, 1843. His three terms in Congress, spread across these intervals, placed him in the midst of a significant period in American political history, as debates over economic policy, internal improvements, and sectional tensions intensified. As a Whig representative, he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Tidewater constituents in national deliberations.

After leaving Congress, Mallory remained active in public service and regional development. During the administration of President Millard Fillmore, a fellow Whig, he was appointed Navy Agent at Norfolk in the early 1850s, a position that involved oversight of naval supplies and expenditures at one of the nation’s key naval stations. At the same time, he became a leading advocate for improved transportation links to the port of Norfolk. For many years he lobbied the Virginia General Assembly on behalf of a railroad line connecting Norfolk with the interior of the state, contending with rival railroad and shipping interests based in Richmond and Petersburg. His efforts bore fruit in 1851, when he and allied Norfolk interests secured a legislative charter and financing from the Virginia Board of Public Works for the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad (N&P), a project he helped guide as a principal organizer and executive.

Mallory’s role as a railroad executive was central to the economic transformation of southeastern Virginia. In 1853, the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad hired a young civil engineer, William Mahone, a 26-year-old graduate of the Virginia Military Institute from Southampton County. Mahone, known as “Little Billy” for his small stature, was noted for his frugality and high construction standards. Under Mallory’s leadership and Mahone’s engineering direction, the railroad undertook the challenging task of crossing the Great Dismal Swamp between South Norfolk and Suffolk. Mahone designed and implemented an innovative corduroy roadbed, using a log foundation laid at right angles beneath the swamp’s surface; enslaved labor, rented for the project, carried out much of the construction. This engineering solution proved remarkably durable and, more than a century and a half later, continued to support heavy coal traffic bound for export piers at Norfolk’s Lambert’s Point. Mahone also engineered and built a 52‑mile tangent track between Suffolk and Petersburg, which remains a major artery of modern Norfolk Southern rail traffic, though rebuilt after the Civil War. Mallory survived the devastating yellow fever epidemic that swept Norfolk in 1855, killing roughly 2,000 of its 6,000 residents, but the epidemic’s human and financial toll delayed construction of the railroad for more than a year. When the line was finally completed in 1858, Mallory stepped down from its leadership, and Mahone became the new president of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad.

In addition to his federal and corporate roles, Mallory returned to elective office at the state level. He served as a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly, representing the city of Norfolk in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1854 to 1859. In that capacity he continued to advance the interests of Norfolk and the surrounding region, particularly in matters of transportation, commerce, and infrastructure, while also participating in the broader legislative debates of antebellum Virginia. His combined experience as a naval officer, physician, congressman, federal appointee, and railroad executive gave him a multifaceted perspective on public policy and economic development.

Francis Mallory died in Norfolk on March 26, 1860. His legacy in the Hampton Roads area has been commemorated in several ways. Francis Mallory Elementary School in the Hampton City Public Schools system bears his name, as does Mallory Street in the historic Phoebus section of Hampton near Fort Monroe. These local memorials reflect his enduring association with the region where he was born, practiced medicine, pursued political office, promoted rail transportation, and spent his final years.