VAN WINKLE, Peter G., senator, born in New York city, 7 September, 1808; died in Parkersburg, West Virginia, 15 April, 1872. He removed to Parkersburg, Virginia, in 1835, and practised the profession of law there till 1852, when he became treasurer and subsequently president of a railroad company. He was a member of the Virginia constitutional convention in 1850, and of the Wheeling reorganizing convention in 1861, was in the West Virginia legislature from the formation of the new state till 1863, and in that year became United States senator, having been chosen as a Unionist for the term that ended in 1869. He was chairman of the committee on pensions in that body, was a member of those on finance, pensions, post-offices, and post-roads, and in the impeachment of President Johnson was one of the members that voted for acquittal. In 1866 he was a delegate to the Philadelphia loyalists' convention.