History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 160

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HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

ive his chief service to the world, but he also enjoyed a de circle of admiring friends. He was known for his nerous temper, his absolute honesty, and purity of heart. e was dignified in demeanor, straight and erect in carriage, id on holiday and social occasions attracted attention by ways wearing a Prince Albert coat. He was a democrat .t never sought any office. In Baltimore soon after his turn from the army he married Bridget Mackey, who also me from Tipperary. Of their eight children four are now ing. The parents were devout Catholics.

Joseph M. Murphy was born at Parkersburg, November 1880, and his home has always been in this city. He mpleted his education in Duquesne University at Pitts- argh. For over two years after leaving college he was in e retail grocery business, but his subsequent time and en- avors have been in the lumber trade and he is now & ember of the wholesale lumber firm of Justus-Murphy Com- ny. He is also a director of the Union Truat Company. As a young man he became interested in politics, and ona of the state'a most influential democrats. The spring .llowing his majority he was elected a member of the arkersburg City Council, and served four years. He was on e Democratic State Executive Committee twelve yeara, four mars as its treasurer. In July, 1915, he was appointed a ember of the Board of Regents of the State University, it retired from that office in 1919. He is unmarried.

LAWRENCE A. CATHER during the years aince manhood is been active in business as a farmer, timber dealer, and 7 recent election is now serving as clerk of courts of arion County.

Mr. Cather was born on a farm in Harrison County, West irginia, June 20, 1882, son of Millard Fillmore and Mollie . (Carder) Cather. This Cather family is of Scotch an- stry. There were two brothers, Jasper and Robert, who ft their native Scotland during Colonial times and estab- shed themselves on the frontier in Pennsylvania. They ere soldiers in the period of Indian hostilities during what known as the French and Indian war, and their homes era burned and they were driven from Pennsylvania at at time. Both of them subsequently enlisted and served Patriot soldiers in the Revolution. Jasper was present : the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. After le war Jasper Cather bought up a lot of army equipment id established a home in Frederick County, Virginia. He as the ancestor of Lawrence A. Cather through his son homss. his grandson John, and his great-grandson, Mil- rd Fillmore. John Taylor Cather was born in the Shen- idoah Valley of Virginia, and was one of the pioneers of aylor County, West Virginia, and served aa a soldier in e Sixth West Virginia Regiment of Infantry during the ivil war. He married Emeline Cather.

Millard Fillmore Cather was born in Taylor County in 354, and has spent all his active life as a farmer. He and s wife have lived in Marion County since 1907. Millard illmore Cather married Mollie E. Carder, who was born in arrison County in 1854, daughter of Dr. Albert S. and ary (Barnett) Carder. Doctor Carder was a graduate of le Louisville Medical College of Kentucky, and served as a rgeon in the Confederate Army. Millard F. Cather and ife had three children: Lawrence A .; Wilbur E., who is graduate with the degrees A. B. and LL. B. from West irginia University and is now practicing law at Win- lester, Virginia; and Jessie is the wife of Professor R. L. rowe, a former director of music at West Virginia Wes- yan College, but now residing in Detroit, Michigan.

Lawrence A. Cather lived on a farm until he was about fteen years of age. After that he attended achool at rafton and was also a student in West Virginia Univer- ty, but left before graduating and for about three years as a clerk in the railway mail service. Since then he has en continuously active in the timber and farming indns- y, also has some important real estate interests. He oved with his parents to Marion County in 1907, but in 912 he bought some timber land in Preston County, and as busy handling thia property, with home at Terra Alta, ntil 1916, when he returned to Fairmont. Mr. Taylor was ected clerk of the courts of Marion County in 1920, on

the republican ticket, and has been in the office aince Janu- ary 1, 1921. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order, Knights of Pythias and Ancient Order of United Work- men.

He married Miss Elsie Dala Little, a native of Marion County, and daughter of a well known farmer of the county, Thomas J. Little. Mrs. Cather is a graduate of the Fairmont Normal School and for several years was a popu- lar teacher in the county, until her marriage. They have two children: Mary, born September 18, 1914, and Myra Ellen, born December 12, 1916.

HARLIN REX COKELEY represents several generations of thrifty agricultural ancestors, and has qualified himself for and has done some highly successful work in the new pro- fession of agricultural agent or adviser. He is the present agricultural agent for Monongalia County.

Mr. Cokeley was born on a farm three miles south of Harrisville, in Grant District of Ritchie County, West Vir- ginia, June 13, 1891, son of Edmond Elijah and Margaret M. (Amos) Cokeley. Both the Cokeley and Amos families have been Americans since Colonial times. Jeremiah Coke- ley came from Ireland about 1750 to Virginia. His five sons were William, Daniel, Edmond, Jeremiah and Elijah. Edmond was a Continental soldier in the Revolution. Elijah Cokeley, son of the immigrant ancestor, died in 1822. He married in 1812 Christina Crofus, who came with her par- ents from Germany to Virginia in 1790. In 1840 she, then a widow, with her three sons moved to Ritchie County, West Virginia, and settled near Harrisville. Her oldest son, Edmond, married Eliza Waggoner, of Maryland, and moved to Iowa. The second son, Isaac, married a daughter of John Rexroad near Harrisville and lost his life in the defense of the Union. The youngest son was Andrew Coke- ley. These three brothers and their uncle, Daniel Cokeley, who came to Ritchie County about the same time, are the ancestors of all the Cokeleys in that county. Andrew Coke- ley married Ann Moats, daughter of Jacob Moata, and settled on a farm near Harrisville. Their second son was Edmond Elijah Cokeley.

The Amos family is of German origin, transplanted to America near the middle of the eighteenth century. Henry Amos came into Monongalia County about 1770. He mar- ried Elizabeth Hall, of Pennsylvania, whose father came from Delaware. Henry Amos was a Virginia soldier during the Revolution. His second son, George Amos, in 1816 mar- ried Idna Hawkins, member of an old English family. George Amos with three brothers was a soldier in the War of 1812. His oldest son, Henry Amos, who settled in Ritchie County, in 1848, married in 1849 Malinda Rex, of Marion County. They were the parents of J. W. Amos, who was a soldier of the Union from 1862 to 1865 in Company K of the Tenth Virginia Regiment; George Amos, who for twenty-six years was clerk of County Court and died in 1898; and Margaret M. Amos, who was the wife of E. E. Cokeley and died January 9, 1918. Edmond E. Cokeley spent his active life as a farmer and died on his place near Harrisville in Jannary, 1918. His wife was born seven miles southeast of Harrisville in 1854. They were married October 16, 1877, and their six children were: Harlin R., of Morgantown; L. L. Cokeley, clerk of the Circuit Court of Ritchie County; Howard A., an employe of the Bureau of Fisheries at Leadville, Colorado; Wilbur Cokeley, who lives on the home farm near Harrisville; Mrs. Grace Lewis, of Grafton, West Virginia; and Margaret May. at home.

Harlin R. Cokeley attended country schools in his home district, and afterwards taught four years in district schools. While teaching he was also carrying on his studies in the State Normal School at Huntington, West Virginia, now Marshall College, where he graduated in 1913. Dur- ing the following year he was business manager and also performed part of the editorial work of the Educator at Charleston. In the fall of 1914 be entered West Virginia University, and by carrying extra work received his Bachelor of Science and Agricultural Degree in 1917.

Mr. Cokeley was appointed county agent for Hardy County in 1917, and was on duty in that county until the fall of 1919, when he resigned to become county agricultural

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agent of Monongalia County. The success of the county agricultural agent is largely dependent upon his particular qualifications and his personal fitness for the work, since co-operation on the part of the farmers is entirely volun- tary, and the agent must inspire confidence and perfect an organization preliminary to his real work. In the case of Mr. Cokeley his personal qualifications have enabled him to perform a work of far-reaching influence and value. Through the Monongalia County Farm Bureau a large pro- portion of the farmers do extensive cooperative buying and some cooperative marketing. He has also organized farm boys and girls into "4H" clubs, a special feature of which is the establishment of regular camps where the boys and girls spend at least a week's vacation under the direction of instructors. The period is one of practical instruction and recreation at one and the same time. He has also encouraged livestock improvement by influencing the farm- ers to buy and bring into the county a large number of high grade and registered cattle. In 1921 he was instru- mental in inducing more than a hundred farmers of the county to plan Soja beans as an experimental crop. He has also conducted a campaign of education to secure the eradication of tuberculosis among cattle.

While a student at Marshall College Mr. Cokeley 's literary society elected him as its representative in the Inter-Society Debate in the spring of 1913, and he was one of the winners. He was also assistant editor of the school Year Book at Marshall, and while at West Virginia Uni- versity was assistant editor of the West Virginia Agricul- turist and student assistant instructor in animal husbandry in his senior year. He is a charter member of the Kappa Sigma college fraternity at West Virginia University. He is also a member of Moorefield Lodge No. 29, F. and A. M., Kyser Chapter No. 19, R. A. M., and belongs to the Uni- versity Grange. At present he is a member of the Kiwanis Club and Chamber of Commerce.

In June, 1917, Mr. Cokeley married Clara S. McMillen. She was born at Bethel. Ohio, daughter of Saul and Pauline (Fisher) McMillen. They have one son, Edmond Ross, born April 16, 1919.

E. WAYNE HENRY. The Henry family of Morgantown, West Virginia, was established in Monongalia County a short time following the close of the Revolutionary war by Frank Henry, the great-great-grandfather of the present generation.

Frank Henry was of English descent, but when the struggle came to settle the independence of the American colonies be embraced the cause of the latter and during the war that followed served as an officer of the Virginia line under General Washington. As a reward for military serv- ices he received a grant of land in Grant District, Monon- galia County, where he settled, and eventually became the owner of over 1,000 acres in that neighborhood, every acre of which is owned at the present time by his heirs. He be- came the father of two sons.

Eli Henry, son of Frank Henry, succeeded his father as head of the family. He married a Miss Barbe, and they became the parents of twelve children, one of whom, Syl- vester, efficiently carried on the farm industries in Grant District. He married Virginia Houston, a daughter of Robert Houston, and three sons were born to them: Elroy, Jesse H. and Omar C.

Jesse H. Henry, secoud son of Sylvester and Virginia Henry, was born May 1, 1872, on the old Henry homestead in Grant District, Monongalia County, and died at Morgan- town, April 24, 1921. He began teaching school at the age of nineteen years, and taught continuously for thirteen years, or until he was elected county superintendent of the public school districts in Monongalia County in 1904, to which position he was re-elected in 1908, serving two full terms of four years each.

In 1912 Mr. Henry removed from the farm into Morgan- town and took over the management of the Morgantown branch store of the W. F. Frederick Piano Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which position he was filling at the time of his death. He was an active and prominent citizen, and gave largely of his time and ability to advance

the welfare of the entire community. Mr. Henry wi greatly interested in Christian work and was a most fait. ful member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, wi superintendent of a Sunday school on the West Side ( the city and was choir leader of Doctor Armstrong's Bib Class. But a few months before his death he had ™ linquished the chair of worshipful master of Morgantow: Union Lodge No. 4, A. F. and A. M .; was a member ( Morgantown Commandery No. 18, Knights Templar, an was a thirty-second degree member of West Virginia Cor sistory No. 1, Scottish Rite, and a member of Osiris Templ Mystic Shrine. He belonged also to the Knights of Pythia. the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club.

During the World war Mr. Henry was active in all pa triotic movements and did his full share in every drive fr funds for war purposes.

In early manhood Jesse H. Henry was united in marriag with Miss Zoe Z. Schafer, who was born in the same neigh borhood in Grant District as himself, a daughter of Joh C. and Miranda (Hildebrand) Schafer. The father of Mr. Henry was born also in Grant District, Monongalia County a son of Peter Schafer, who was a soldier and lost his lif, in the war between the states, falling at Bull Run and late, dying of his wounds. The mother of Mrs. Henry was born at Opetiski, on the border line of Monongalia and Mario counties, West Virginia, a daughter of Louis and Catherin Maria (Mahoney) Hildebrand. To Jesse H. and Zoe 2 Henry two sons were born: E. Wayne and Reece Rinehart the latter of whom is a member of the senior class in th Morgantown High School.

E. Wayne Henry was born February 13, 1896, on the old estate of his great-great-grandfather Henry, a part 0: which be bas inherited. He was educated in the Laure Point graded schools, from which he was graduated il 1910, and in 1913 entered the high school at Morgantown and was a junior when he left school. He then became an assistant to his father in the W. F. Frederick Piand Store in 1917, and following the death of his father suc ceeded to the management of the business. He is : member of Morgantown Union Lodge No. 4, A. F. anč A. M., and has received the chapter degrees in the York Rite, and is a Scottish Rite Mason. Mr. Henry belong: also to Monongalia Lodge No. 10, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and to Morgantown Lodge No. 411, Benevo. lent and Protective Order of Elks, and to the Morgantown Kiwanis Club. Up to the present, political life has bad no attraction for him, but he is an earnest and helpful private citizen and one of the valued members of the Chamber of Commerce. Like his late father, he is active in the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he values the honor to which he succeeded his father as a director of the local Chautauqua Association. The Henry family of West Virginia for generations has worthily rep- resented the type of citizenship that Americans are proud to claim.

On January 2, 1922, Mr. Henry was united in marriage with Miss Mildred Rhodes, of Morgantown, a daughter of the late Joshua and Ola Rhodes, of Waynesburg, Pennsyl- vania.

BENNIE W. RUSSELL. It is perhaps natural that Monon- galia County, seat of the state university, should be one of the most progressive in the state in the matter of schools and educational facilities. However, here as elsewhere much progress in this direction is dependent upon the en- thusiasm and abilities of the teaching personnel. Outside of the independent districts there is probably no civil dis- trict in the county that enjoys a finer record than the Clay District, of which the district superintendent of schools is Bennie W. Russell, whose father has been a teacher and who has devoted the best years of his own life to educa- tional work, and under his leadership Clay District has achieved some splendid results during the past seven years.

Bennie W. Russell was born near Mount Morris in Greene County, Pennsylvania, in 1874. When he was thirteen years of age his parents, L. D. and Flora (Tapp) Russell, moved to the vicinity of Morgantown. Flora Tapp WAS A daughter of Festus H. Tapp, who came from the vicinity

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HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

Winchester, Virginia, to West Virginia about 1835, aet- ing in Monongalia County, near Maidaville, where he lived ad where he died at the age of aeventy-six and where his aughter Flora was born. L. D. Russell and family lived ear Morgantown about six years, and then returned to eansylvania, where he and his wife are still living. He as been in the work of the schoolroom forty years, and x years of that time he taught in West Virginia, and ught one or two terms under his aon as district super- tendent.

During the aix years the family lived near Morgantown, ennie W. Russell attended the state university. He taught 1 Taylor County and later received his degree at Waynes- arg College in Pennsylvania. He was principal of graded :hools at Simpson, in Taylor County, at Blacksville, served ree years from 1910 as superintendent of Battelle Dis- ict of Menongalia County, and for the past aeven years is been superintendent of Clay District.

It will be appropriate to note some of the distinctive rogress made in the district during the past seven years. Then he was elected district superintendent the class of achers numbered twenty-two. There are now thirty six, and leir qualifications are even more impressive than the in- reased number. When he became superintendent there as not a single teacher under him who had a college, nor- al or high school training, whereas now twenty five out f the thirty-six have the equivalent of at least a high chool, and some of them atill better educations. Fre- ueat teachers' institutes is one means of elevating teach- ig standards. Seven years ago the district had only one wo-room building. At Blacksville is a first class high chool, with an eight-room building, the Daybrook High chool, has four rooms, and the Pentress and Mooreaville schools are conducted in two-room buildings. Superintend- nt Russell undoubtedly has the true abilities of a leader, nd this great work to his credit is due in no small degree o the enthusiastic cooperation he has been able to create mong the taxpayers and patrons of the schools. He eeps in the closest touch with individual scheels and even rith individual scholars. He visits every school onee a month and part of the year twice a month, and grades many of the examination papers, so that he is familiar rith the work of the individual student. The pupils in he grammar grades caught the contagion of education, and most of them are eager to continue through high school and many go from high school to college or university. Mr. lussell is district elub agent for the boys and girls in be agricultural program, and has awakened great interest a practical subjects appealing to country children, and here are a number of poultry and pig clubs, and their ex- ihits have been sent to local county and state fairs.

Mr. Russell is a member of the State Association of 'eachers and the Monongahela Valley Round Table. He 3 affiliated with the Lodge of Masons at Morgantown, with West Virginia Consistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite at Wheeling, and is the present noble grand of the Independ- nt Order of Odd Fellows at Blacksville.

At the age of twenty, Mr. Russell married Miss Maggie ihock, of Gilmer County, West Virginia. She died two ears later, leaving a daughter, Oneita, who is a normal chool graduate and doing some successful work in edu- ational affairs. Mr. Russell married for his second wife, aura Tennant, daughter of Perry Tennant, of Moores- ille. They have one son, Bennie W., Jr., born in 1907 nd new in the second year of his high school work.

JAMES THEODORE CALLANAN, in the worda of an edi- orial that fitly expressed some of the qualities and sources if the great esteem in which he was held, "was a man mong men, and in his death Parkersburg and the com- ounity in which he lived suffers an almost irreparable loss. The loss is felt the more in view of the fact that the hand f death reached out and touched him suddenly and when le was in the very prime of life, a time when it would have een possible for him to do and serve even more than he had n the past. Kind, manly, big-hearted, generous, he was re- peeted and loved by all to a fault. 'Jim' Callanan was a man who knew men and who numbered his friends by the

hundred. Bluff, genial aud -sincere in manner, he was a man who made friends easily and who held them alwaya.

"To few men does Parkersburg owe more than to James T. Callanan. Largely through his efforts and business ability there haa heen given to this city one of the largest and most thriving industries. This, however, is only the smallest part of his service. Never has there been a worthy movement in which 'Jim' Callanan did not take an active part, and he never failed to do more than his full ahare to make it a success.

"As one of the Big Brothers of the Elks he has done much that will never be knowa, for he was a man that per- formed his good works as a pleasure rather than as a duty and who, even to his most intimate friends, did not reveal the extent of what he did to make the path a little easier for his fellowa."

Mr. Callanan was born at Crossingville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, October 29, 1863, grew up in Western Penn- sylvania, had a practical business education, and as a young man became an expert in mechanical lines and for aome years was in business in his native state. In 1903 he moved from Butler, Pennsylvania, to Parkersburg, and with several local men bought the Parkeraburg Machine Company, whose plant was then on Second Street. Later the company bought the U. S. Engine Werks at what is now Parmaco, and the entire plant was consolidated there. It was Mr. Callanan's genius in directing a mechanical industry, his executive ability, and a broad vision realized in every department that made this one of the city's largest industries. He was the active head of the business until his death, after a brief illness, on September 28, 1919. Mr. Callanan was also president of the Community Savings & Loan Company and head of the Cole Oil Company.

Business represented only one side of his large and generous nature. He worked for the welfare of the com- munity in which he lived, and was one of the directors of the Parkersburg Board of Commerce, a member of the Parkersburg Rotary Club, and during the World war was a leader in every local campaign. Largely through his in- dividual efforts the success of the War Camp Community Service drive was insured. Generosity was his outstanding characteristic, and he showed that quality in his business and among his employes as well as in his relations to individuals and organizations in the city. He was one of the leading workera and contributors to St. Xavier's Catholic Church, was for many years a member and a former governor of Parkersburg Lodge No. 198, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, belonged to the Maccabees and the United Commercial Travelers.

December 22, 1886, Mr. Callanan married Julia Dunn. At his death he was survived by his mother and a brother and sister at Buffalo, New York, and also by Mrs. Callanan and two sons and one daughter. The daughter is Miss Mary Callanan. The aons, James T., Jr., and Ralph F. Callanan, are progressive young business men, well qualified to carry on and continue the great industry built up by their hon- ored father.

James T. Callanan, Jr., was born at Washington, Pena- sylvania, December 22, 1887. He acquired hia early educa- tion in the Pennsylvania public schools, attended the famous Tome School for Boys at Port Deposit, Maryland, and then entered his father's plant and by successive steps and with experience in nearly every department was well qualified to become president and general manager at his father's death. He is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Rotary Club. November 23, 1911, he married Miss Loura Williamson. They have a daughter, Loura Anne.

Ralph F. Callanan, the younger aon, was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, March 27, 1895, and after completing bis course in the Parkersburg High School attended the Georgia School of Technology, also the University of Pittsburgh. He likewise aince leaving school has been associated with the Parkersburg Machine Company, of which he is vice president.

During the World war he was a member of the Vocational Training Corps at Richmond, Virginia, but subsequently was transferred to the Field Artillery Officers Training School at Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky, and received his honorable discharge November 28, 1918.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 160

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