History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 53

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In 1899 Doctor Peters married at Camp Creek, Mercer County, Miss Rose Elizabeth Shrewsbury, daughter of L. C. and Naney (Rose) Shrewsbury, the former a native of West Virginia and the latter of North Carolina. Doctor and Mrs. Peters have five children, named Bernard Por cell. Nellie French, Gladys Mae. Joseph Elwood and Fire Rowena. Doctor and Mrs. Peters are members of the Meth odist Episcopal Church, South. He is a member of the Mc Dowell County, West Virginia State. American Medical an I Southern Medical Associations, is a Royal Arch and Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, an Ek and Knight of Pythia", and is a charter member of the Princeton Country Clut. The reereations and interests that refresh and take hi mind from his daily duties are hunting, fishing and mot r ing.

HOMER WISEMAN is one of the younger business men f Charleston, but enjoys that substantial element of soc-

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cess due to associations in an executive capacity with one of the most substantial of the city's industries, the West Virginia Brick Company, of which he is secretary and treasurer.

The West Virginia Brick Company is a local indus- try of some years' standing. Through the special qual- ity of its product "Charleston Brick" has a reputation among building engineers as being one of the highest grade fire brick manufactured anywhere. It has proved superior to the usual product, as shown by the most rigid tests. This brick fuses only at the exceedingly high temperature of 3146 degrees. It is made from a superior clay which the company mines on its own property. The plain brick is used mostly for boiler room construction. The pressed face brick has a widely distributed sale in many cities, chiefly New York, and many architects give it first choice for exterior brick in the most beautiful modern structures.

Mr. Wiseman was born at Elliott in Fayette County, West Virginia, in 1887, son of Benjamin F. and Eliza- beth (Crist) Wiseman, natives of this state. He grew up in Fayette County, attended public schools there, and when past the age of fifteen he came to Charles- ton and attended business college. For some five or six years he was in the employ of the firm Crawford & Ashby and with the South Charleston Land Company.

Mr. Wiseman in 1912 went into the brick manufac- turing business as a member of the West Virginia Clay Products Company, which had been founded in 1910 and which has since become the West Virginia Brick Com- pany. As secretary and treasurer he is also active head of the company, since the president of the cor- poration lives at Louisville. The West Virginia Brick Company has a modern plant adjacent to Charleston, at Elk Two Mile, on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Mr. Wiseman has devoted his best efforts to the build- ing up of this essential industry, and his part therein is a record of which many ambitious business men might well be proud. He is a member of the Charleston Ki- wanis Cluh and the Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Wiseman married Miss Elizabeth Crookshanks, also a native of Fayette County. Their two children are Homer Clyde and Claude Franklin.

DAVID H. THORNTON, M. D. Engaged in the practice of. medicine and surgery in Mercer County for nearly thirty years, and for twenty years of that time a specialist in eye, ear, nose and throat diseases, Doctor Thornton has in addition to his character as a high minded and proficient doctor exerted a helpful influence in community affairs and particularly in behalf of the simplicity of original Chris- tianity and the application of the Bible to the common life and affairs of mankind.

Doctor Thornton was born in Mercer County, June 30, 1865, is of English and Irish descent and of Virginia stock, both his parents, William M. and Eliza J. (Hatcher) Thornton, being natives of Virginia. His father was a farmer, served as a soldier in the Civil war with a Virginia regiment under Colonel French, and was all through the fighting to the end. In the battle of Clark, near Princeton, he was wounded in the arm, but recovered and rejoined his command. After the war he returned to his farm, and lived there, manifesting a commendable interest in public affairs, and was a member of the Primitive Baptist Church, but be- fore his death became attracted to the study of the Bible with his son, Doctor Thornton.

David H. Thornton acquired a common school educa- tion, attended the State Normal at Athens, and, leaving there, went to Janesville, Wisconsin, to the Valentine School of Telegraphy. After mastering the technique of the telegraph key be entered the service of the Norfolk & Western Railway as clerk of the Clinch Valley Division while it was under construction. Doctor Thornton was a railroad man for three years, and following that bought a store from his brother at Elgood and was in the general mercantile business two years. He sold out and used his capital to prepare himself for the profession of medicine.

In 1893 he graduated M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, and began practice at Athens, where he remained twenty years, and since then has had his home and professional headquarters at Princeton. Doc- tor Thornton began specializing in 1902 in the eye, ear, nose and throat, taking in that year a post-graduate course at the Chicago Post-Graduate School and also a private course on the ear under Albert Andrews and on the eye under R. S. Pattillo. In 1912 he did other work along his special lines in the New York Post Graduate School and Hospital; and for a number of years bis practice has been limited to his specialties.

In 1889, at Graham, Virginia, Doctor Thornton mar- ried Mary Jennings, daughter of William H. and Isabel (Shanklin) Jennings, natives of West Virginia. Doctor and Mrs. Thornton had six children: Chauncey Bryan, Eu- nice Janetta, Mabel Clara, Paul Benson, Joseph Harry and David Jennings. Two of them are now deceased, Eunice and Joseph H. The daughter Mabel is the wife of C. J. Moore, an employe in the general office of the Norfolk & West Virginia Railway. The son Chauncey, who is an electrician with the Appalachian Power Company at Blue- field, married Hattie Meadow, daughter of Attorney J. H. Meadow. His son David is an electrician in the navy on the battleship destroyer Davis No. 65.

Doctor Thornton many years ago was attracted to the in- dependent religious movement of Pastor Russell, and has been an enthusiastic member of the International Bible Students Association and for several years has conducted a class for the study of the Bible, which is outside of all de- nomination and free from creeds, concentrating upon the essential teachings as presented by Cbrist and his followers. Some years ago, before the World war, in prosecution of his study of the Bible and his interest in Old World affairs, Doctor Thornton and his brother J. T. of Bluefield made a long and interesting trip abroad through Asia, Africa, the Holy Land, Germany, Italy and France.

Doctor Thornton is a member of the Business Men's Club at Princeton, belongs to the County and State Medical Society, is a Fellow of the American Medical Association, and was formerly active in Masonry, being a Royal Arch and Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. He served as master of his Lodge and as high priest of his Chapter.

FRANK ROACHE SCROGGINS, proprietor of the White Swan Laundry in the City of Wheeling, is one of the progres- sive and successful business men of his native city, his birth having occurred in Wheeling on the 17th of January, 1868. His father, George Washington Scroggins, was born at Wheeling in 1843 and here passed his entire life, his death having occurred in 1896. George W. Scroggins in- itiated his productive career by serving as a water boy around the local boat yards, and in the Civil war period he aided in the manufacturing of bullets. He became an expert stationary engincer, and served sixteen years as engineer of the city waterworks of Wheeling, of which position he was the incumbent at the time of his death. In his young manhood he was a member of the volunteer fire department of his native city. He was a democrat in politics and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as were both his first and second wives. Mr. Scroggins first wedded Caroline Nidick, who was born at Trail Run, Monroe County, Ohio, and whose death oc- curred in 1873. Of the children of this union the eldest is William J., foreman in his brother's White Swan Laun- dry; Allen C. likewise remains in Wheeling, and is steward for the local Theatrical Club and for the Fraternal Order of Eagles; Frank R., of this review, was the next in order of birth; Charles Scott is a foreman in the White Swan Laundry. For bis second wife the father married Lovenia Loverage, and she now resides at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Daisy, first child of this second marriage, died at the age of twenty-eight years; George is a resident of the City of Pittsburgh, where he is engaged in the trucking busi- ness; and Reed B. is a stationary engineer in the city waterworks of Pittsburgh.

The public school of Wheeling afforded Frank R. Scrog- gins his early education, and he was but eleven years old

Frank. R. Scroquis

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hen he found employement in a local glass factory. After e passing of five years he began an apprenticeship to the rade of machinist, and his service in this connection con- nued from the time he was aixteen until ho was twenty ears of age. From 1888 to 1891 he was stationary engi- eer in the employ of Lutz Brothers, and for aixteen months ereafter was in charge of the washing department and Iso served as engineer of the Troy Laundry. From 1892 1895 he was general manager of the Wheeling Laundry, nd he then established the White Swan Laundry, of which e has continued the executive head during the intervening eriod of more than a quarter of a century and which he as kept at the highest standard in equipment and service. he plices of this popular laundry are at the corner of enth and Market streets. Mr. Scroggins started his dependent lauadry business on a modest scale, in a base. ient at his present location, and his original corps of employes consisted of one man and one woman. Ile has ailt up one of the leading enterprises of this kind in the ate, the mechanical equipment and all accessories of the White Swan Laundry being of the most modern type and le establishment giving employment to seventy persons. Oa the National Turnpike, in the Tenth Ward of Wheel- hg, Mr. Scroggins purchased a fine lot, 140 by 330 feet 1 dimensions, on which he erected a modern laundry build- g 100 by 200 feet in dimensions, the only building in xistence, so far as is known of that dimension, whose in- Prior is not supported by a single post. It is a one-story nd basement structure, with a separate building for the ower plant. Here he will have one of the most complete nd modern laundry plants in West Virginia, in fact one f the show houses ia modera laundry construction in this ountry, and in connection with the general laundry busi- ess he will establish an up-to-date dry-cleaning and rug- leaning department. His success has been well earned, as e started in business with a capital of only $212, has been rogressive and energetic, has ordered his business with tmost integrity and fairness, and has developed an enter- rise that in 1920 represented gross earnings of $150,000. Iis new laundry plaat represents an investment of an mount equal to this.

Mr. Seroggins is independent in politics, is affiliated with the Royal Arcanum, and is one of the loyal and vigor- us members of the local Rotary Club, in which he is chair- man of the boys' work committee and takes lively interest 1 its work. The family home is an attractive modern ouse at 757 Market Street.

Mr. Seroggins was zealous in the local patriotic activ- ies during the World war period, aided in the campaigns 1 support of Government loans, Red Cross service, etc., nd supplied to the United States Navy a valuable set of inoculars, which were eventually returned to him, together ith $1.00 and a certificate as reward of merit from the favy Department. It is needless to say that he prizes oth the certificate and also the binoculars, the latter of which were in active use in the navy.

Although Mr. Scroggins left school when a mere boy, is alert mind and his appreciative instinet have enabled im through reading and study at home, which he still ontinues, and through other effective self-discipline, to ound out a symmetrical education of practical order. His aternal grandfather, John Peyton Scroggins, of Scotch- rish ancestry, was one of the pioneers of Wheeling, where e served a long period as bank messenger and where is death occurred, he having been a native of Ireland. In 1889 Frank R. Seroggins wedded Miss Catherine E. eimer, daughter of the late Philip and Margaret Neimer, f Wheeling, Mr. Neimer having been a shearman in the cal sheet-iron mills, in which he met his death in an acci- ent. Mr. and Mrs. Scroggins' only child, Franklin Pierce, ied at the age of 412 years.

JAMES ROBERT LAIRD. In a business way Jamea Robert aird is widely known both in West Virginia and old Vir- inia through his active associations as an organizer and xecutive in some very successful and financial organiza- ions. Business responsibilities have accumulated rapidly or Mr. Laird during the last fifteen years of his life,

while the period before that was evidently one of intensive training and preparation for these duties. lle is also con spicuous as a lay member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Mr. Laird was born in Tazewell County, Virginia, June 21, 1879, son of Samuel II. and Rachel (Witten) Laird, na tives of Virginia, where his father was a farmer and school teacher, and identified with the edu ntional affairs of Taze well County for many years.

James Robert Laird was reared in a home of m let comforts and had to make practical use of his taleuta before he finished his education. He left high school in 1996, ant then took up the general insurance business at Tuzene I, i business line he followed for several years. It was in 1911 that he began widening his scope of efforts, in which year, in addition to his insurance wurk, he established a mort gage loan and real estate agency at Bluefield, West Vir ginia, and an automobile sales agency at Tazewell, Virgınızı, each of these concerns requiring separate offices. Mr Laird is a prominent factor in the automobile business, having established the Tazewell Motor Company and several other motor sales companies and wholesale gas companies, and is vice president of all these growing and prospering con cerns.

Mr. Laird has been a resident of Bluefield since 1911, in which year he organized the Virginia Realty Loan Company of which he is president. Ile is also president of the Fed eral Lumber Company of North Tazewell, Virginia, and has recently organized and become the first president of the Bluefield Trust Company.

In 1901, at Tazewell, Mr. Laird married Miss Eva St. Clair Tynes, daughter of Maj. A. J. and Ilarriett ( Fudge) fynes, natives of Virginia. Major Tynes established the first woolen mill in Tazewell County, about 1865. He wh- an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil war. his regiment being commanded by General MeCausland. Mr. and Mrs. Laird have four children: Houston T., a student in Washington and Lee University; Mary and Frances, twins; and James Robert, Jr.

Mr. Laird is a member of the Masopie Lodge Chamber of Commerce, Bluefield Country Club and the Old Colony Club. One of the causes nearest to his heart is the Mission Schools for the mountain boys and girls, and he has given liberally not only of his money but his time to this great work of education. As a member of the Methodist Ep14 copal Church, South, he had the honor of being elected on the first ballot as delegate for the General Conference of the Church held at Ilot Springs. This was the quadrennial conference in which is formulated the general policy of the business side of the church and its laws and rules govern ing the churches, and the election of Mr. Laird as a lay delegate is an honor that comes to but few men in a life time.

WADE HAMPTON ST. CLAIR, M. D., has from the first been the associate organizer and founder with Dr. John F. For in the Bluefield Sanitarium, one of the best institutions of the kind in the state. These very capable physicians and surgeons have kept adding to the facilities of the Sanita- rium from time to time until it now represents a large and complete modern hospital, and its clinics are attendel as part of the professional training routine by an increasing number of physicians and surgeons from this and mdlje n- ing states.

Doctor St. Clair was born in Tazewell County, Virginia. April 18, 1877, son of Alexander and Maria (Tiffany St Clair. He is of Scotch and Irish ancestry, and his have been in America for a number of generat one. His parents were both born in Virginia, and his father at the age of eighteen enlisted in the Confederate Army and served with a Virginia regiment two years. After the war he followed farming and planting, was a banker, and man of great influence in Tazewell County.

Wade Ilampton St. Clair attended the common and high schools of Tazewell County and completed his lit rary . cation in Randolph-Macon Academy at Bedford (ity and in Emory-Henry College at Emory, Virg na. Hle txk his preliminary medical course ip the University of Virginia.

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graduating M. D. in 1900. For about two years following he was in New York City as an interne, specializing in sur- gery at the New York Polyclinic Hospital. Following that he located at Bluefield and entered general practice, soon becoming associated with Doctor Fox in the building of the original Bluefield Sanitarium. In September, 1921, the Bluefield Sanitarium was incorporated with a capital of $200,000. Doctor St. Clair is known for his great thorough- ness and skill as a surgeon, and while he has been steadily engaged in practice for twenty years he has never lost con- tact with the progressive ideas and methods being worked out in the great medical centers of the world. Each year he has attended some clinics or professional course in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and the Mayo Brothers at Rochester, Minnesota. Doctor St. Clair has a personality that supplements his professional skill. He is a wholesome, genial gentleman, and his fine character has been a distinct asset to the sanitarium and to the commu- nity of Bluefield.

Doctor St. Clair is a member of the County and State Medical Societies of Virginia and West Virginia, the Ameri- can Medical Association, and the American College of Sur- geons. At Bluefield he is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club and Country Club.

At Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, in 1906, Doctor St. Clair married Elizabeth Armstrong, daughter of George W. and Bell (Boyd) Armstrong. They have two children, Wade H., Jr., and Alexander Armstrong St. Clair.

ALEXANDER ST. CLAIR. Though his home was always over the state line in Tazewell County, Alexander St. Clair was associated in many of his interests with the industrial district of which Bluefield is one of the most prominent centers. Bluefield is also the home of his sons Drs. Wade H. and Charles T. St. Clair.

Alexander St. Clair was born at Jeffersonville, now Tazewell Court House, April 15, 1845, son of Alexander and Martha (Tabler) St. Clair. His father died while the Civil war was in progress and the mother survived him over thirty years. Alexander St. Clair found his work within a close radius of his birthplace, and for many years was one of the prominent farmers and cattlemen of Southwestern Virginia, and practically always had some active interests in merchandising, banking and other affairs. He was one of the organizers of the Bank of Clinch Valley at Tazewell, served as president of the institution, was connected with the First National Bank of Pocahontas, and at one time he owned the land on which the town of Pocahontas was built.

Alexander St. Clair was a boy when the war came on, but he served during the last two years of the Confederate Army as a member of Company I, Forty-fifth Virginia Cav- alry, under Colonel Graham, whose son, W. R. Graham, is now a resident of Bluefield. Mr. St. Clair left his studies at Roanoke College to join the army at the age of eighteen, and finished his education in that institution before taking up his business career. Mr. St. Clair was a consistent mem- ber of the Methodist Church and was affiliated with the Masonic Order.

September 26, 1871, he married Miss Maria J. Tiffany. They were married at the old Tiffany homestead on Blue- stone in Tazewell County, and they lived there until about fifteen years ago, when they moved to a handsome home on the edge of Tazewell Court House. Here on September 26, 1921, they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, and it was less than a month later that a wide circle of friends and business associates who had learned to esteem Alexander St. Clair as a safe business guide and adviser felt an intimate personal loss in his death, which occurred October 21, 1921. Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair were the parents of eleven children, two of whom, Rosalinda and Janie, died in childhood. The nine who with their widowed mother survive are: Drs. Charles T. and Wade H. St. Clair, of Bluefield; John, Frank and Alexander, of Bluestone; Glen M. and Roy, of Tazewell; Otis, of Welch; and Miss Maria, of Tazewell.

JAMES LEWIS CALDWELL. The First National Bank of Huntington is the largest bank in point of resources in the State of West Virginia. It was organized in 1884, the leading spirit in its organization being James Lewis Cald- well, who at that time was in the lumber business at Guyan- dotte, a suburb of Huntington. Mr. Caldwell was the first and has been the only president of this institution, and men in touch with its affairs are free to say that its great and solid prosperity is due in no small measure to the effective guidance and oversight of its honored president.

Its officers and directors comprise a number of the best known men in the commercial and professional life of Huntington. The vice presidents are R. L. Archer, D. I. Smith and L. V. Guthrie and the cashier is G. D. Miller. The First National Bank of Huntington has a capital stock of $1,000,000, surplus and profits of $600,000, deposits aggregating $5,500,000, and the total resources are over $8,000,000. It is a great financial institution, and ap- propriately enough it is housed in the largest and finest business building in Huntington, a modern brick and terra cotta twelve story building, the lower floor devoted entirely to the bank and the upper floors to offices.

James Lewis Caldwell is one of the most youthful of the surviving veterans of the Civil war, and his career since the war has been closely identified with the State of West Virginia. He was born at Elizabeth, in what is now Wirt County, West Virginia, May 20, 1846. His fa- ther, John T. Caldwell, was a native of Steubenville, Ohio, spent his early life in Kentucky, and was a life-long farmer. A few years before his death he retired to Parkersburg and lived with his son Charles T. in that city, where he died at the age of seventy-five. He began voting as a whig, later became a republican and was a very active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His wife, whom he married at Letart, Meigs County, Ohio, was Regina M. Burns, a native of that community, and she died there at the birth of her youngest child, at the age of forty-five. Her children were: William B., who helped operate the home farm and was a merchant at Letart, where he died at the age of seventy; Alfred B., who also assisted in con- ducting the homestead and died at Letart at the age of sixty. George H., who was superintendent of the Dingess- Run Coal Company and died in Logan County, West Vir- ginia, aged sixty-five; James Lewis; and Charles T., an attorney who died at Parkersburg in 1912.

James Lewis Caldwell was educated in the rural schools of Meigs County, Ohio, receiving the equivalent of a high school education. In the closing months of 1862, before he was seventeen years of age, he enlisted in Company F of the Sixtieth Ohio Infantry, and thereafter served until the rebellion was put down. He was in General Grant's army, participated in the battles of the Wilderness, Spott- sylvania, Cold Harbor, at the mine explosion in front of Petersburg, and thereafter was with the troops on Grant's right wing through the engagements at Weldon Railroad and minor battles until Appomattox.

Following the war Mr. Caldwell for a year and a half represented the Peabody Insurance Company of Wheeling, traveling over the state establishing agencies and paying claims. He then established his business headquarters at Guyandotte, now included in the City of Huntington, and for eighteen years conducted a prosperous lumber business. His home has been in Huntington since 1887, removing here three years after the establishment of the First National Bank.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 53

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