History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 176

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Charles Albert Kreps, oldest living son of Adam T. Kru and wife, came with his parents to Parkersburg in 1894, wł he was nineteen years of age. He had graduated from 1% high school of Greenville, Pennsylvania, in 1892, and in 18 received his A. B. degree from Marietta College in Ot He then entered George Washington University in the C of Washington, where he received his law degree in 19 and in November of that year began his professional pract at Parkersburg.

Mr. Kreps was a member of the local draft board during World war. He served five years as chairman of the Repr lican County Central Committee, and has held the post treasurer of the West Virginia Bar Association fifteen yer He is also a member of the American Bar Association. ] Kreps is unmarried and has found time to cultivate a num of social and civic intereats, though his legal practice : always been heavy. He is a Knight Templar and thir second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and i past master of Mount Olive Lodge No. 3, A. F. and A. : past high priest of Jerusalem Chapter No. 3, R. A. M., p eminent commander of Calvary Commandery No. 3, K.T

THOMAS EDWARD GRAHAM. Parkersburg as a great : growing center of commerce and industry will always € much to the enterprise and personality of the late Thor Edward Graham. He was more than a plain, practical bi

9. E. Graham

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man who could guide large business activities to succesa- issue. He was a man of calm and reasoning thought as E aa of action, and was regarded aa one of the clearest kers on taxation and other important questiona affecting state and nation. He has been well described as a man mills, possessing their ruggedness, fired with their un- lenged winds of freedom, and a keen sense of his rela- ship with the great ultimate and fundamental purposes xistence.

son of Richard and Ann (Stephens) Graham, both ilies pioneera in Wood County, he was born in that nity February 5, 1855, and grew up in the hill district what outside the main currents of business life in that His boyhood interests were those of the log cabin ol, the hunting rifle and the rough games and labor of estead and woods. Aa a boy he made a reputation as a ed horseman, and was only nine years of age when he hia first race and in subsequent years frequently par- vated as a jockey. While he grew up in contact with the ch frontier epic of society, it is said that he never used anity, and his mind and heart were kept absolutely in. After reaching his majority he moved to Ripley in Ison County and began his career as a merchant, buying I selling all the products and commodities. He soon blished a name for honesty and business judgment. dea his home place he extended his trade by means of fon traina transporting and carrying goods over a wide ua of country around Ripley.

is success in a restricted field brought him to Parkers- ; in 1898. He was then nearly forty-five years of age, an of considerable capital and with the initiative and rprise to make him a leader in what was already a ring city. Here, with Mr. C. D. Bumgarner, his nephew, Wirt County, he established a wholesale shoe business. la finding it difficult to secure a satisfactory quality of kingmen's shoes for distribution, the firm began manu- uring shoes of good grade and thus established and t up at Parkersburg an industry which has become known a coast to coast for the quality of its special product. ing his lifetime Mr. Graham saw the manufacturing and lesale business of the Graham-Bumgarner Company reach lume of more than $5,000,000 a year.

s an auxiliary and outgrowth of this special business and Association with his friends there has since been estab- ed and built up two other concerns. His son Guy founded Graham-Brown Shoe Company at Dallas, Texas. Be- 8 the Graham-Bumgarner Company of Parkersburg re is also the Graham Brothers Shoo Company of that

[r. Graham for many years was regarded as one of the st members of the democratic party in West Virginia. was not a politician but a thoughtful man of affairs believed in carrying sane and constructive ideals into the dling of political problems. For years he had made a e study of taxation, both local and national, and on erent occasions he presented his well conceived argu- ta in behalf of a better and fairer distribution of tax dens, particularly federal taxation. He believed that international problems should be solved by peaceful ad- ment rather than by the introduction of armed force, to the end of his life he was a stanch advocate of the gua of Nations. He was a charter member of the ncil of 1914 at Philadelphia looking to a Federation of ions for world peace. He was deeply depressed by the rnational aituation following the World war, and that is eved to have contributed in some measure to his early th. He died at his home in Parkeraburg, November 10, 0. He was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which inated Woodrow Wilson for President, and was national mitteeman from West Virginia at the San Francisco vention in 1920. He was on the committee that notified nklin Roosevelt of his nomination to the vice presidency. 'he late Mr. Graham was a stanch advocate of education. de his advantages were confined to a log school, his sons e given the best of educational opportunity, finishing in State University. He was a devoted member of the st Baptist Church of Parkersburg, and was a member of Elks order and the Rotary Club. While serving as

president of the Chamber of Commerce be waa leader in the movement that brought about the erection of the bridge over the Ohio River at Parkersburg.

At Ripley in 1880 Mr. Graham married Miss Catherine A. Armstrong. From that day until his death his home was his shrine and the paramount interest of his life. Mr. and Mrs. Graham had three children: Guy Edgar, Thomas Edward, Jr., and Miss Gladys.

The heaviest sorrow of his life came in the death of his older son, Guy, in February, 1920. Guy E. Graham was born at Ripley, March 23, 1881. He attended the public schools there, spent a year in Ohio University at Athena and three years in the State University of West Virginia at Morgantown. He planned to become a lawyer, but through the influence of his father, who needed his aid, he worked and studied and took an active interest in the ahoe business at Parkersburg. He was road salesman for some years, with headquarters at Weston for four years. He then became buyer and assistant general manager in the homo offices at Parkersburg. In 1911 he founded the Graham-Brown Shoe Company at Dallas, Texas, and he remained in that city, directing the affairs of the company, until 1918. He then returned to Parkersburg to take the active management of the factory, and he also became president and general man- ager of the Graham Brothers Shoe Company. He was for two terms president of the Southern Shoe Wholesalers Asso- ciation, was vice president of the Parkersburg Board of Commerce, a member of the Rotary Club and Elka. He was in a practical sense the virtual head of the two Parkeraburg houses when he died February 17, 1920.

The surviving son, Thomas E. Graham, Jr., was born October 23, 1892. He attended the Augusta Military Acad- emy at Augusta, Virginia, and also spent three years in West Virginia University at Morgantown. Since his uni- versity career his time has been fully taken up with the Graham interests at Parkersburg, and he is now president of the Graham-Bumgarner Company and the Graham Brothers Shoe Company.

In 1915 he married Miss Goldie McVey. daughter of A. D. McVey. Their two children are named Thomas Edward ITI and Catherine McVey Graham. Mr. Graham is a democrat, a member of the Baptist Church, and is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner and Elk. He is also identified with the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce.

CHARLES P. HARVEY has been in the newspaper business at Parkersburg forty-two yeara. He has been editor, reporter, publisher and business manager, and probably no phase of the newspaper profession has escaped him. From the stand- point of continuous and active service he is probably the dean of the newspaper profession in West Virginia.

Mr. Harvey, who is publisher of the Parkersburg Sentinel and president of the Sentinel Publishing Company, was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, February 5, 1855, son of Charles and Maria (Ebreeht) Harvey. His grandfather, Bernard Harvey, was a life-long resident of Ireland, where Charles Harvey was born. The latter came to the United States in 1833 and became a Pennsylvania farmer and also operated a large wheat warehouse. He was living at Cham- bersburg when that city was sacked and burned by the Confederates n the Civil war. Subsequently be removed to Washington County, Maryland, where he and his wife spent their last yeara.

Charles P. Harvey was about eight years of age when Chambersburg was in the path of the destroying Confederate army. At the age of fourteen he returned from Maryland to Chambersburg and began a four years' apprenticeship at the printer's trade in the office of the Valley Spirit, whose editors were Duncan and Stenger. He also apent two winters in the State Printing Office at Harriaburg. In printing ahopa he supplemented the advantagea he had received aa a boy in the common achoola.

Mr. Harvey removed to Parkersburg in October, 1878, and for two years was associated aa publisher with the West Virginia Walking Beam, a weekly periodical devoted to the oil industry. His associates were Van A. Zeveley, founder of the paper, and Watt Warren. The Walking Beam met an untimely death at the end of two years. After its obsequies

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Mr. Harvey found work with the Parkersburg Sentinel, and to that old and prominent West Virginia journal he has dedicated the best years of his life. He has been connected with every department of the paper, though primarily his interest is in the news and editorial department. The Sentinel was founded in 1875 by J. W. Hornor. At his death about two years later he was succeeded by his son, Rolla E. Hornor, who continued as publisher and editor of the Sentinel until 1909. The property was then sold to the Parkersburg Sentinel Company, of which Allan B. Smith was president until his desth in 1918. Mr. Harvey aucceeded Mr. Smith as president and general manager of the publishing company in addition to the duties he has long performed as editor.

Of his character as a newspaper man Judge Tavenner says: "Charles P. Harvey is the desrest lover of truth of any newspaper man I have ever known. He finds no work too arduous in order to arrive at the truth. This characteristic he exemplifies not only as a newspaper man, but as a private citizen."

It is noteworthy that Mr. Harvey has never taken & part in practical politics, though is a democrat when it comes to voting. He is a member of the Parkersburg Chamber of Com- merce, the local Kiwanis Club, the Benevolept and Protective Order of Elks, and is a Catholic. He married Miss Minnie McKona, of Piedmont, West Virginia. Their only son, Robert Emmet, was in the World war and died in 1920. Their two daughters are Marjorie Cecelis and Genevieve, the latter now Mrs. Merritt T. Duveresux, of Portland, Oregon.

STEPHEN CHESTER SHAW. While he never accumulated riches, Stephen Chester Shaw distributed the wealth of hia lifetime endesvor and his influence generously throughout the long period of his residence at Parkersburg, where he was justly esteemed as one of the city's foremost and most beloved men.

He was born in Lewis County, New York, in 1808, son of Philip Shaw. As & boy his health was delicste, and after reaching manhood physicians held out only a brief expectancy of life for him. To find & more equable climate he started South in 1832, but traveled only as far as Parkersburg, where he found the circumstances that combined & congenial atmosphere and eventually enabled him to live usefully for nearly fifty-eight years. Though an utter stranger, he secured employment in the office of the Circuit Court clerk. At that time John Stephenson was clerk and also kept a hotel. Stephen C. Shaw served as deputy clerk several years, and during that time married Fanny Edelen. The capabilities perhaps that brought him employment in the county clerk's office at first was his skill as & penman. While there be acquired a broad range of legal knowledge, particularly in drawing up legal papers, and subsequently for many years he made a regular profession of chancery work, probating wills, settling estates, and also acting &s expert accountant. At the beginning of the Civil war in 1861 he espoused the Confederate cause. Though past military age, he would have gone into the army but for feeble health. His blood relatives were all on the Union side.

Stephen C. Shaw could never have achieved the position of a man of wealth. He always had burdens that required all his income to satisfy. Besides supporting his own family he helped to rear a number of other children, and his love and devotion to his friends caused him to endorse & great deal of paper, frequently leading to losses. He was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and this church was benefited both by his advice and writings. He was & strong believer in temperance and organized the first Good Templar Lodge at Parkersburg. The social side of his life was also represented by membership in the Masons and Odd Fellows. Stephen Chester Shaw died at his home in Parkers- burg in 1891. and though thirty years have elapsed hia memory is still green there.

The next to the youngest of his six children is Robert M. Shaw, who was born on Friday, March 13, 1847, and has lived all his life in Parkersburg. He attended public schools but at the age of twelve went to work to earn his own living, being employed as a printer's "devil." At eighteen he entered merchandising, and was in that lins for twenty years and for twenty-eight years was on the road as a commercial

traveler. For several years past Mr. Shaw haa been gend manager of the two plants of the White Star Laundry Co pany. He has been identified with the Parkersburg Cham of Commerce, is & Mason, has been & life-long democrat, : is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

In 1868, at the age of twenty-one, he married Ann Logan, daughter of Randolph Logan. Of the nine child born to Mr. and Mrs. Shaw four daughters and two sons living.

CURTIS MILLER HANNA. A brainy lawyer of Parkersh who has in a brief number of years earned a high rank in profession, Curtis Miller Hanna haa also been interested some extent in politics, in public questions affecting community and state, and for over a year was in the serv of his country during the World war.

He was born on & farm nesr Charleston, West Virgil October 6, 1886, only son and child of Russell K. ¿ Katharine (Pfeiffer) Hanna. The parents were native W Virginiana and his father for many years conducted & m cantile establishment in one of Charleston's suburbs. died in 1891 and the widowed mother is still living.

Curtis Miller Hanns grew up in the vicinity of Charlest attended public schools, and finished his Isw course in University of West Virginia. He passed the bar examinatil in 1908, and for about five years practiced at Parsons Tucker County. From June, 1913, to March, 1915, he assistant insurance commissioner of the state, resigning t. work to come to Parkersburg and achieve a permanent & substantial place in his profession.

Mr. Hanna left his office and on February 25, 1918, enlia as & private in the Ordnance Department of the United Sts Army and in July of the same year was sent overseas. So eight months later, after the armistice was signed, he v returned home and received his honorable discharge April 1919. Mr. Hanna is a republican in matters of politics, a has kept in close touch with political issues and movements his home state. Besides his law practice he is secretary a counsel for the Rainelle Oil Company and the North a South Railway Company.

Mr. Hanna is a member of the Benevolent Protective Or of Elks and the Loyal Order of Moose. On November 1917, he married Mildred Dare, daughter of J. M. Dare.

HON. EDOAR R. STAATS, member of the State Senate, rep senting the Third District, is s lawyer by profession, & reside of Parkersburg, and was born in Jackson County, where 1 family of Staats has been one of prominence for a great ma years.

Senator Staats was born in Jackson County, January : 1878, son of George W. and Dians (Waugh) Staats. ] father was a Union soldier in the Civil war. Edgar Sta acquired a common school education, attended Marsb College, and spent five years in West Virginia Universi paying his own expenses while there. He graduated in law 1903 and in 1905 began his practice at Spencer. He v elected in 1907 prosecuting attorney for Rosne County, ho ing that office until 1912. In 1913 he was sergeant-at-ar in the House of Delegates, and in the same year removed Parkersburg, where a favorable reputation having preced him, he at once entered into a law practice that has grown volume and importance in successive years.

The Third District, comprising the counties of Pleasan Ritchie, Wirt and Wood. elected him to the Senste in 19 His record of service in the Senate was one of more th routine importance. He was chairman of the committee privileges and elections and a member of the judiciary a good roads committees. He has always been a student of 1 good roads problem, and has contributed perhaps the m constructive measure in recent times to the good ros program. In the session of 1919 he introduced the propo for a Constitutional Amendment taking the Class A ros that is, those leading from county seat to county sest, ( of the hands of the County Court and placing them under 1 charge of the state. The measure carried by a majority 118,000, and in the session of 1921, following the Constin tional Amendment, the Legislature gave unanimous appro" in both Houses of the hill creating a State Road Commissic which was a thing unprecedented in the annals of state leg lation. Mr. Staats is a republican. He is a member of t

Rosso Stout.

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s and the Parkaraburg Chamber of Commerce. April 16, I, he married Mrs. Edith (Jones) Rosser.

:OSS FARIS STOUT. While in former years and at present number of diverse interesta claim his attention-mer- ndising, farming, stock dealing, coal operating-the dis- ·tive accomplishment most widely associated with the le of Ross Faris Stout is as a horseman, breeder and er of some of the most notable animals owned in West ginia. His home and business offices are in Clarksburg, the citizenship of Harrison also recalls his record as a ner sheriff of the county.

Ie was born on his father's farm five miles south of rksburg, October 2, 1864, being the oldest of the six ehil- n of Benton and Josephine (Faris) Stout. Five of these dren are living. The parents were also born in Harrison nty, and spent their lives here on a farm. Benton Stout a very successful farmer and a highly respected eitizen, d to the age of seventy, and his wife is still living at age of seventy-eight. They were active Methodists and ·ed their children in the same faith. Benton Stout was a iecrat, but never a seeker for political honors. His par- A were James M. and Celia (Basil) or (Bassel) Stout, ives of Harrison County. Josephine (Faris) Stout was aughter of Ross and Sarah (Green) Faris, also natives Harrison County.

oss Faris Stout, who was named for his maternal grand- er, grew up on the farm, and there learned lessons of iatry and perseverance that have been invaluable to him all his subsequent experiences. He was his father's gent helper on the farm until he was twenty-one and in meantime acquired a common school education, supple- ited by the training of the school of experience. His independent undertaking was as a merchant at Quiet l in Harrison County. The instinct and talents of a ler have always been prominent in Mr. Stout's character, while he was a merchant at Quiet Dell, he engaged in ling in horses and cattle, and gradually developed an Insive business buying and shipping cattle. The last · years ha was in this business he bought and shipped le for exporters. Beginning about 1896 Mr. Stout for years was in the lumber industry, operating a lumber p in Webster County. Fire eventually destroyed the hit bringing him heavy losses. About that time ha was suffering ill health, and his physician advised a change felimate since his physical condition suggested tuber- sis. Acting on this advice Mr. Stout went to Denver, prado, and for two years lived in the high altitude. The nd year of his residence there he became interested in El mining, and ever since has had some interests in the ing of this precious metal, though never on a large Te.

n returning to West Virginia Mr. Stout resumed the op- ions of his timher claim in Webster County for about · years and in the meantime again dealt in cattle. 'At end of this four years he was called back to Harrison Inty to take the management of the estate and affairs his father who had recently died, leaving a farm of over t hundred aeres and a number of other interests. Sinee date Mr. Stout's business affairs have largely revolved find the homestead farm. For years he was one of the ting dealers in cattle. In 1912 he was asked to stand democratie candidate for the office of treasurer and hi sheriff of Harrison County, was nominated and elected, official service of four years beginning in January, 1913, eg an interruption to his regular business as a farmer atock man and at the same time constituted a most lient service to the county. When he went out of de his books balaneed to a cent. The republican state .tor paid him the following tribute, "that his books the very best kept in the state."

rom boyhood Mr. Stout has been fond of horses and de racing. While still on the old farm as a boy he me the owner of a standard bred horse. He anapected his father's attitude toward horse racing was un- irable, and therefore the training of the horse was con- bed on a remote meadow at night. One night while

returning the horse to the barn, hla father inquired the meaning of the heavy pounding of the horse's feet on the turf, and the son gave a frank exposition of his plana to enter the horse in "the green ring" at the county fair. Mr. Stout will never forget his father's laconic reply : "Young man, horse racing is very uncertain." The truth of that statement has frequently been verified in his experi- ence, for he has won many races he never expected to win, and lost many he never expected to lose.

Mr. Stout began his active career as a racer about 1908. Since then he has owned and raced many standard bred horses ineluding the following: Major Hunter, M. F. D., Major Stout, Lord Stout, Blanche Carter, Lotto Watts, Birdona, Lady Venus, Lady Bennett, King Stout, L. Stout, El Canto and Lord Roberts. He has had a few pacers in his atablea. Besides owning a string of horses that have appeared at a number of circuits, Mr. Stout ia senior member of the firm Ross F. Stout and Brothers, and ranka as one of the leading breeders of standard bred horses in the East. Their stock farm embraces the old homestead in Harrison County. The brothers associated with him are Alfonso and Carl C. Stout. In their stables they own and keep several standard bred mares, including Blanche Carter and others, while their stallions are El Canto aired by San Francisco, and Lord Roberts sired by Aaron.

As noted above Mr. Stout has his home in Clarksburg, his business offices being in the Union Bank Building. He has a number of business connections, and some years ago became interested in coal mining, and as an owner has de- veloped some valuable property now leased. He is vice president and director of the Clarksburg Trust Company and president of the Greenview Brick Company of Clarksburg.

Mr. Stout is a Knight Templar and a thirty-second de- gree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, an Odd Fellow, and has been affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church sinee he was twenty years of age.

During a portion of his boyhood on the old home farm there lived in the same community Thomas Johnston and family. On leaving West Virginia, Mr. Johnston removed to Brooklyn, New York, taking his family, including his daughter, Minnie C., then about twelve years of age. Mr. Stout never forgot this companion of his youth and in later years through correspondence arranged a visit, and from that visit there resulted a marriage in 1893. Mr. and Mrs. Stout became the parents of three sons. The oldest Johnston Stout was killed at the age of thirteen in his father's lumber eamp. The second aon, Ross F. Stout, Jr., died at the age of two years. The youngest son and the only one now living is Edson Stout, age seventeen.

CORNELIUS KENNEDY. The record of a life of sturdy integ- rity and steady industry, and of even notable business auccesa, may he told in a few words, but its value to family and com- munity requires much greater space and even then may fall far short of doing justice. The life of the late Cornelius Kennedy, the original founder of the great business corpor- ation known as the Kennedy Construction Company at Parkersburg, West Virginia, illustrated the value of persistent industry, honorable business methods, and proper recognition and appreciation of the duties of good citizenship.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 176

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