Profile of James Michael Dooley on Famous Like Me

James Henry Dooley (January 17, 1841-November 16, 1922) was a Virginia lawyer, business leader, and philanthropist based in Richmond during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age.

Dooley was the son of Irish immigrants John and Sarah Dooley. He was born in Richmond, one of nine children. His father, John Dooley, Sr. was a successful hat manufacturer. The Dooley family was prominent in the community and the parish of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.

James Dooley attended Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) and was the first student to rank at the head of his class during each of his four years, graduating in 1860. Soon after, James and his brother John enlisted in the Confederate Army, joining their father's unit, the First Virginia Infantry. He was wounded at the Battle of Williamsburg during the Peninsula Campaign in May, 1862. He was captured and confined for a short time. He later worked in the Confederate Ordnance Department in Richmond. Although he never attained rank in the army, in later life he was referred to by the honorific "Major."

After the war, he completed a Master of Arts degree at Georgetown and returned to Richmond. During the postwar years when Richmond was beginning to rebuild its business district, he began his career as a lawyer. He married Sarah ("Sallie") O. May of Lunenburg County, Virginia in 1869. Dooley was elected to the Virginia General Assembly and served from 1871 to 1877.

In 1880, he became a board member of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which expanded into a multi state system of over 3,000 miles which, in 1894, became the basis of the Southern Railway. He also was a director of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, and a leader in the founding of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. He was also involved in steel companies and banking.

In 1893, Major Dooley had a palatial brick mansion built overlooking the James River in the western portion of the Richmond area which he and his wife named Maymont, as well as a mountain retreat, Swannanoa, in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Rockfish Gap near Crozet, Virginia.

According to Richmond's Maymont Foundation, "Major Dooley's leadership of various civic endeavors runs as a continuous thread through the history of Richmond, from the early 1870s through the early 1920s." He was a board member of St. Joseph's Orphanage, served on the board of the Medical College of Virginia and, in 1919, gave the funds for the construction of the Dooley Hospital (now part of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Major Dooley died in Richmond at the age of 81. He first was buried with his former Confederate comrades in Hollywood Cemetery, and later re interred with his wife Sally in a mausoleum at Maymont.

The Dooleys, who were themselves childless, left a record 3 million dollars to the St. Joseph's orphanage, a charitable organization which continues its work in family and children services in modern times. Mrs. Dooley gave a half million dollars to build the Richmond Public Library as a memorial to her husband.

Their home, Maymont, was left to the City of Richmond as a park and museum subsequent to Mrs. Dooley's death. Today, Maymont Park is a major Richmond attraction, with a museum, formal gardens, native wildlife exhibits, nature center, carriage collection, and children's farm and petting zoo.

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