Marmaduke H. Dent

Marmaduke Herbert Dent (born April 18, 1849 Granville in what was then the state of Virginia; died Grafton, West Virginia, September 11, 1909) was a West Virginia politician and judge.

Dent's father was Marshall M. Dent, a newspaper editor in Morgantown and a delegate to the 1861 Virginia Secession Convention and to the First Wheeling Convention. Marmaduke Dent was the first graduate of West Virginia University, in 1870, and was the first president of its alumni association from 1873 to 1876. Dent worked as a teacher after graduation, but he studied the law and was admitted to the bar in 1875, in Grafton, West Virginia.

After serving in a number of local elected positions in Grafton, Dent was elected to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in 1892 and served as its president in 1899, 1900, and 1902. His term lasted from 1893 to 1904.

References

• Marmaduke Dent bio on WVU alumni association site
• Bench and Bar of West Virginia, George W. Atkinson, Virginia Law Book Company, Charleston, WV, 1919, p. 72-4.
• An American Judge: Marmaduke Dent of West Virginia, John Phillip Reid, New York University Press, 1968.