History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 24

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ginia Central, and was later promoted to locomotive engi- neer, remaining with that road when it became the Chesa- peake & Ohio and continuing as one of its most trusted employes until his death at Clifton Forge, Virginia, in 1889. He was a democrat in politics, and a regular member and strong supporter of the Baptist Church. Mr. Murray mar- ried Mary Elizabeth Whitlock, who was born in 1833, at Frederick Hall, Virginia, and died at Clifton Forge in 1912. They became the parents of five children, as follows: Alice, who died unmarried at Clifton Forge at the age of twenty- one years; James, who died at the same place when twenty years of age; Elmo Austin, of this review; Robert F., who is engaged in the dry goods business at Clifton Forge; and Virginia, the wife of Harry E. Blaine, of Clifton Forge, a freight conductor for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway.

Elmo Austin Murray was educated in the public schools of Clifton Forge, which he left at the age of fourteen years to enter the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Com- pany, starting at Clifton Forge, where he served his appren- ticeship as a machinist. He was made gang foreman there, and subsequently was sent to Covington, Kentucky, as gen- eral foreman of the company's shops in 1903. In 1910 he was again promoted and sent to Lexington, Kentucky, in the capacity of master mechanic. In 1911 he was trans- ferred to Clifton Forge, where he remained as master mechanic until 1920, at that time being promoted to the post of shop superintendent of the company's shops at Huntington, his present position. Under his supervision there are 2,500 employes, his offices being situated at Twenty-seventh Street and Eighth Avenue. Mr. Murray maintains an independent stand in regard to political mat- ters, voting for the man rather than the party and using his own judgment as to principles and policies. As a fratern- alist he holds membership in Allegheny Lodge, A. F. and A. M .; Clifton Forge Chapter, R. A. M .; Stevenson Com- mandery No. 8, K. T., of Staunton, Virginia; and Acca Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Richmond, Virginia. He owns a modern and attractive home at No. 1227 Tenth Avenue, located in one of the preferred residence sections of the city.

In September, 1901, in Botetourt County, Virginia, Mr. Murray married Miss Willie Carper, daughter of William B. and Rebecca (Allen) Carper, the latter of whom still resides in Botetourt County, where Mr. Carper, who was an ex- tensive agriculturist, died in 1907. Mr. and Mrs. Murray are the parents of two children : Aline, a student at Stuart Hall, Staunton, Virginia, and Elmo Austin, Jr., who attends the Huntington High School.

CHARLES TRUEHEART TAYLOR, M. D. For half a century the name Taylor has been prominent in Huntington in con- nection with the law and medicine. Doctor Taylor is one of the leading surgeons of Huntington, and has practiced medicine and surgery there for over twenty years. He is one of the owners of the Huntington General Hospital and the Kessler-Hatfield Hospital, and is associate surgeon in both these institutions.

Doctor Taylor was born at Weldon, North Carolina, August 8, 1872, but his home since early childhood has been at Huntington. His grandfather was born in old Virginia in 1817, spent the greater part of his life there as a planter and was a slave owner before the Civil war. For a number of years he lived at Oxford, Virginia, and he finally retired to Huntington, West Virginia, where he died in 1897. He married a Miss Harrison, a native of Virginia, who died near Oxford in that state. The Taylors are a Scotch-Irish family who settled in Virginia in Colonial times.

Thomas Wallace Taylor, father of Doctor Taylor, was born in Virginia in 1833, was reared and married there, and for four years lived at Weldon, North Carolina, on a farm. He left the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during his junior year to enter the Confederate army, and was in active service about a year. He was severely wounded at the battle of Malvern Hill, and incapacitated for further field duty. Subsequently he graduated from the law de- partment of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, and in 1874 established his home at Huntington, West Vir- ginia, where he has since become one of the leading lawyers

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

of the state. He was judge of the Crminal Court of Cabell County for twelve years, from 1907 to 1919. He is a demo- crat and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. Thomas Wallace Taylor, whose home is at 1134 Sixth Avenue in Huntington, married Miss Maria Trueheart, who was born at Prince Edward Court House, Virginia, in 1843. Charles Trueheart Taylor is their oldest child. Mattie F., of 1136 Sixth Avenue, Huntington, is the widow of Rollo M. Baker, who was a Huntington attorney and general attorney for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and a member of the law firm of Enslow. Fitzpatrick & Baker. The third ehild, Thomas Wallace Taylor, died at the age of seventeen, Powhatan died at the age of fourteen, and William died at the age of four years. llarvey C., the youngest, is in the real estate business at Huntington.

Charles Trueheart Taylor attended the grammar and high schools at Huntington, Marshall College in that city through the junior year, and for three years was a student ia Center College at Danville, Kentucky. He pursued his medieal studies in the Hospital College of Medicine at Louisville, where he graduated M. D. in 1897, and again did post-graduate work there in 1899 and 1905. In 1997 he was an interne in the Gray Street Infirmary of Louis- ville. On returning to Huntington instead of beginning prae- tiee Doctor Taylor served a year as city elerk, but since 1599 has devoted himself completely to his growing practice. His offiees are in the First National Bank Building. Doctor Taylor is president of the Cabell County Medical Society and a member of the State and American Medieal Associa- tions. He is president of the Sovereign Gas Company of · Iluntington and a director in the Huntington-Oklahoma Oil Company. Besides his modern home at 1665 Fifth Avenue .1 he has an interest in the Beverly apartment building on Sixth Street.

Doetor Taylor is a demoerat, a member of Huntington Lodge No. 53, F. and A. M., Huntington Chapter No. 6, R. A. M., Huntington Commandery No. 9, K. T., West Vir- ginia Consistory No. 1, Scottish Rite, Beni-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston, and is also a member of the Knights of Pythias, Aneient Order of United Work- men, Modern Woodmen of America, Reese Camp No. 66, Woodmen of the World, and is a past exalted ruler of Hunt- ington Lodge No. 313, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elka.

During the war Doctor Taylor was chief examiner for the Cabell County Draft Board, a very important and burden- some responsibility, and he also gave his active influence to other patriotie eauses at the time.

In 1900, at Huntington, he married Miss Berniee Steven- son, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Stevenson, who were farmers and died at Beverly, Ohio. Mrs. Taylor died at Huntington in 1910, survived by two children: Berniee, a student in the National Cathedral School at Washington, D. C., and Charles Trueheart, Jr., born September 11, 1906 now in tho Huntington High School. In 1912, at Newark, New Jersey. Doetor Taylor married Miss Stella Moore, a native of that city. They have a daughter, Jane, born December 11, 1913.

ELI C. MORRIS. In the old Keystone State Eli C. Morris was born March 14, 1845, in Washington County. He was a son of Samuel Morris, a representative of one of the ster- ling old Pennsylvania families long identified with that gracious and noble religious organization, the Society of Friends, more commonly known as Quakers. In Pennsyl- vania Eli C. Morris was reared to manhood, received such educational advantages as were offered in the schools of the period, and in his youth learned the trade of millwright, in connection with which he assisted in the erection of many flour mills, besides eventually becoming a successful mill operator. In connection with his voeation he came to West Virginia, where for a time he operated a mill at Elizabeth. Thereafter he built and equipped a mill at Morristown, which was named in his honor, and after operating this mill for a time he removed with his family to Washington County. Ohio, where he passed the remainder of hia life and where he died at Lower Salem in 1914. He waa a birthright member of the Society of Friends, and in his unostentatious

career he exemplified the sterling characteristica ever anno- eiated with the name of Quaker. His father was implacable in his opposition to the institution of slavery, and the Morris home in Pennsylvania was made a station on the historic underground railway which enabled many slaves to escape bondage in the period leading up to the Civil war. Though the customs and teachings of the Society of Friends depre- cate war in all forms, the youthful patriotism of Eli C. Morris was such that be transcended these teachings when the Civil war was precipitated on the nation. He believed the preservation of the Union was of grenter importance than his observance of the tenets of the faith in which he had been renred, and recordingly he enl sted in Troop B, Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, with which he saw active service under command of General Sheridan in the historie Shenandoah campaign. llis first wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth MeDonald, is survived by one son. His second wife, Eliza J. (Winland) Morris, still resules in Washington County, Ohio. Of this union there are two sons and two daughters, and of the number Jamen G. is the only representative in West Virginia.

James G. Morris is a native of West Virginia, his birth having occurred at Morristown, Wirt County, but he was reared and educated in Washington County, Ohio. Hir is now president of the Arrow Lumber Company, one of the important industrial and commercial concerns of Parkers- burg.

Mr. Morris has completed the circle of Scottish Rite Masonry, in which he has received the thirty second de- gree, besides being affiliated with the Mystie Shrine. lle takes deep interest in all that concerns the welfare and advancement of his home eity and is essentially progressive and publie spirited. Mr. Morris wedded Miss Jennie E. Watson, and they have one son, Harold W.

RUSSELL WAIGHT is consistently to be designatedl ns one of the vital and representative young captains of industry residing in the City of Parkersburg, and he is not only a man of marked progressiveness and energy in connection with business enterprise of broad seope, but is also one of the loyal and vigorous advocates of measures and under takinga tending to advanee the interests of his home eity and native state. Mr. Wright is president of the Wright & Loper Oil Company, and also of the Shawnee Oil & Gas Producing Company, important corporations identified with the oil industry in West Virginia fields.

Mr. Wright was born on the homestead farm of his par enta in Doddridge County, West Virginia, and the date of his nativity was August 5, 1678. Ile is one of the four children of William L. and Ella (Allen) Wright, who still reside in Doddridge County, where the father was born and reared and where the Wright family made settlement in the pioneer days. Russell Wright gained his youthful education in the public schools of his native county, and continued his association with the work of the home farm until he was sixteen years old. He then began working in the oil fields of Doddridge and Tyler counties, and as he had the versatility that made his services of value in all manner of work and positions he gained a wide and varied experience. Eventually he began to assume a larger share of independent activities and in this way he both modle and lost money, according to the results attending his va rious exploitations. He extended his experience by associa tion with oil-production enterprises in the fields of Okla homa, Indiana and Illinois, but after un absence of two years he returned to West Virginia, where his operations have sinee been largely staged, though he has had and continues to have interests in connection with oil pro- duetion in Ohio. He has maintained his residence and business headquarters at Parkershurg sinee 1912, and since 1913 his business operations have been confined to the West Virginia and Ohio oil fields. He well merits the ex- presaive American title of hustler, and has made himself known as a vigorous and progressive factor in the great oil industry. He is a valued and influential member of the Parkersburg Chamber of Commerce, is affiliated with the Parkersburg lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elka, is a member of the Blennerhassett Club

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

and is popular in both business and social circles in his home city, where his name remains on the list of eligible bachelors.

FRED WILLIAM BARTLETT has been an oil operator thirty years, most of the time as an independent, and is one of the best known and most popular citizens of Marion County. His home during the greater part of his life has been at Mannington.

Mr. Bartlett was born at New Martinsville, Wetzel County, West Virginia, July 29, 1867, son of Martin and Sarah Ann (Beatty) Bartlett, both now deceased. His father was horn at Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1842, and was a Con- federate soldier during the last two years of the Civil war. The father's brother, Capt. Fred W. Bartlett, for whom Fred William Bartlett of this review was named, organized a company in Clarksburg for service in the Confederate Army, and served until the close of the war. Martin Bart- lett was a blacksmith and machinist, and was in that busi- ness at New Martinsville when he died in 1868. A short time before his death he had assisted in drilling the first oil well in the Mannington Distriet. He was a Seottish Rite Mason. After his death his widow returned to Martinsville, where she was born in 1846, daughter of Jeremiah Beatty, an early settler of Mannington. She died in 1916.

Fred W. Bartlett grew np at Mannington, acquired a com mon school education, and as a youth became a bread winner for himself and his widowed mother. At the age of nine he was selling papers on the streets of Mannington, and has had some active connection with serious business ever sinee. He has dealt in real estate, has been an oil and gas operator, and also well known as a hotel proprietor. Mr. Bartlett has accumulated two fortunes, and still retains the second and larger.

He began his career as an independent operator in oil in 1892. His work has been as an independent except for ten years, during which time he was president and sole owner of what was then known as the Home Gas Company, which supplied gas for manufacturing and domestie pur- poses at Mannington. He finally sold this company to the Standard Oil interests. Since then he has been extensively interested in the production of crude oil.

In 1896 Mr. Bartlett bought what was then the Com- mereial Hotel of Mannington. He rebuilt and remodeled the property and renamed it the Hotel Bartlett. This is now one of the best hotels in the state, second in size only to the hotels of the larger cities, to which it yields nothing in its equipment and service. With fifty rooms, alt with hot and cold running water, and many with private baths, with a fine dining room, and a spacious and beautifully decorated lobby, the Hotel Bartlett is both a surprise and delight to those making their first visit to Mannington.

October 8. 1892, Mr. Bartlett married Miss Harriet Brownfield Walker, who was born in Fairmont, November 19, 1871, daughter of the late Kephart Delvarem and Josephine (Wiggenton) Walker, of Fairmont. The Walker family is of Scoteh origin and has been in Pennsylvania for five and in West Virginia for two generations. The Amer- ican ancestor was Donald Walker, who married a Lane. Their son, Peter Walker, was born in Washington County, Maryland. He became a wealthy farmer of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. His son, John P. Walker, removed from Pennsylvania to Loudoun County, Virginia, and later to Ohio County, West Virginia, and died in the City of Wheel- ing in 1852. He married Margaret Lane, and of their ehil- dren Kephart D. Walker was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, February 14, 1838, and died at Fairmont in 1919.

Kephart D. Walker entered the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway as construction eamp clerk in 1853. During the next eighteen months he utilized his leisure opportuni- ties to acquire some knowledge of telegraphy, was then as- signed to the telegraph department of the Baltimore & Ohio, and subsequently became a brakeman and still later a con- ductor. During the Civil war for a time he was in the secret service, in the armies of Gen. Stonewall Jackson and Gen. John B. Walker, the latter being a relative. After the war he resumed railroad work for the Baltimore & Ohio,

and for ten years was station agent at Fairmont, was super intendent of the Fairmont Division, and when the Fairmont Morgantown & Pittsburgh line was undertaken he wa! assigned the task of securing the right of way between Fairmont and Morgantown. During the construction he was pnrehasing agent. He had charge of the first train rnn over this line into Pittsburgh. After this service he resumed his work as a passenger conductor until 1906, when he was retired on a pension.

Kephart D. Walker became a Mason in 1870, and in 1875 was chosen grand master of West Virginia Grand Lodge and at the time of his death was a supreme honorary thirty third degree Scottish Rite Mason. He married in 1859 Josephine Wiggenton, daughter of Presley and Sarah Wig genton, of Loudoun County, Virginia.

THOMAS L. SHIELDS was distinctively a man of ability and of those sterling attributes of character that ever beget popular confidence and esteem. Through his owr' efforts he achieved substantial suecess in connection with the practical affairs of life and by his eharaeter and achieve- ment he honored his native state. He died at his attractive suburban home at Parmaco, near the City of Parkersburg. on the 28th of Jannary, 1904, and had been retired from active business for some time prior to his demise.

Mr. Shields was born in Taylor County, West Virginia on the 18th of December, 1856, and was a son of Zaddoek and Penelope (Asbury) Shields, both likewise natives of Taylor County, where they passed their entire lives and where the respective families settled in the pioneer period of the history of that section of the state. Zaddoek Shields heeame a merchant at Pruntytown, Taylor County, and was influential in public affairs in that part of the state, which he represented in the State Legislature, besides which he served as sheriff of his native county, each of these official preferments having come to him after he had been a gal- lant soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war. Both during and after the close of the war his pleasant home was a favored stopping place for his old comrades in arms.

Thomas L. Shields was but thirteen years of age at the time of his father's death, and thus he did not attend selioel with any appreciable degree of regularity after that time, as he found it incumbent upon him to find em- ployment that should enable him to aid in the support of his widowed mother and the younger children, he having been a member of a large family of children. His broader edneation was that gained throngh self-discipline and through the lessons gained in the school of practical ex- perience. After the death of his father Mr. Shields found employment in a maeline shop at Grafton, the county seat of his native county and his receptiveness enabled him to acquire marked skill as a meebanie, the while his exe- cutive ability and his trustworthiness led to his eventual advancement to the position of superintendent of this establishment. Later he became district superintendent of a chain of water stations on the line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, in the service of which he continued some time. About the year 1891 he removed with his family to Parkersburg and became proprietor of the old Com- mercial Hotel, which he condueted with marked success as did he later the Jackson Hotel, which under his manage- ment gained high repute and was a favored stopping place for commercial travelers and others who visited the city. He finally retired from active business and, as already stated, he passed the closing period of his life in the suburh of Parmaeo, where he had purchased a tract of ten acres of land and developed one of the most attractive homes of this beautiful district.

While a resident of Grafton, Taylor County, Mr. Shields became one of the organizers and charter members of the lodge of Free and Accepted Masons at that place, and he continned in active affiliation with this fraternity until his death. At Parkersburg he was an appreciative and popular member of the lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His political allegiance was given to the democratic party, and he was a member of the First Baptist Church of Parkersburg, of which his widow likewise is an earnest member. She remains in the attractive home at 215

Fu Bartlett

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

lirteenth Street, the same being under her care a center gracious hospitality.

Oa the 21st of May, 1885, was solemnized the marriage Mr. Shields with Miss Grace M. Dudley, daughter of late John W. Dudley, to whom a memoir is dedicated other pages of this publication. Mr. and Mrs. Shields frame the parents of five children: Dudley L. is the sub- 't of individual mention in the sketeh that immediately flows this review; Inez is the wife of Frederick Hopkins, D .; Emma P. is the wife of Lee Powell; Mildred is wife of Nowrey Smith; and Thomas L. is the youngest the number.

DUDLEY L. SHIELDS, eldest of the children of the late " omas L. Shields, to whom a memorial tribute is paid in to review immediately preceding this article, was born at fafton, judicial center of Taylor County, West Virginia. c the 2Sth of August, ISS6, and he was about five years cage at the time of the family removal to Parkersburg, in tich city he continued his studies in the public schools ¿til his graduation in the high school as a member of the css of 1903. For two years thereafter he was a student in t . University of West Virginia, and upon the death of his fher he left this institution and assumed active control c the substantial wholesale produce business which his father Hd established at Parkersburg. Later he was employed 2 years as a teller in the Parkersburg National Bank, and i 1917 he engaged in the automobile business, of which he la become one of the prominent and successful representa- tes at Parkersburg, where he operates a large and well ripped garage and repair shop, in which he handles a full le of automobile accessories, besides which he has developed aprosperous business as distributor in this district of the le Buick and Cadillac automobiles. His modern garage ia łated at the corner of Eighth and Avery streets.

Mr. Shields is one of the alert and progressive young busi- Lis men of Parkersburg, is a member of the local Board of ( mmerce and the Kiwanis Club, is a democrat in politics, ad he and his wife hold membership in the First Baptist ( urch of their home city. In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Fields has attained the Scottish Rite degrees and is a thirty- Bond degree Mason, besides being affiliated also with I mesis Temple of the Mystic Shrine and with the Parkers- Erg Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. I is an active and appreciative member of the Parkersburg ( untry Club. The first wife of Mr. Shields bore the name r Greek Douglas, and she is survived by one son, Douglas. Ir his second wife Mr. Shields wedded Miss Lois Partridge, al they have two children, Dudley L., Jr., and Grace.

JOHN W. DUDLEY was a citizen who made for himself E ure place in the confidenee and high regard of the people c Parkersburg, West Virginia, in which city he was reared im boyhood and in which he achieved prominence and seess as a business man, the while his sterling character El fine eivic loyalty caused him to wield mneli influence, tough he was signally averse to all that smacked of ostenta- tn or self-seeking. His life was one of exalted personal E wardship, and his kindliness and generosity endeared In to all who came within the compass of his benignant iluence. He was one of the well-known and best loved cizens of Parkersburg at the time of his death, which oe- cTed on the 3d of July, 1906.

Mr. Dudley was born in Oswego County, New York, but vs a child when his parents came from the old Empire fite and established their home in West Virginia. He Is reared to manhood in Wood County, and such were the € gencies of time and place that his early educational ad- Vitages were very limited, but his alert and receptive Ind enabled him effectually to overcome this handicap, and } became a man of broad information and mature judg- Int. As a boy he drove the first milk wagon placed in ( ration at Parkersburg, later he engaged in gardening, ¿1 finally he established himself in the wholesale and mail flour business, in which he built up a substantial and lisperons enterprise. Mr. Dudley was twice elected sheriff ( Wood County, and his able administration in this office f is covered a total period of eight years. He lived a clean, Vol. II-9

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 24

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