History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 54

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Banking has been only one of Mr. Caldwell's varied en- terprises in the business field. In 1892 he organized the Huntington Electric Light and Street Railway Company and built that pioneer electric railway line, but sold it soon after it was put in operation. He organized and built the Guyandotte Valley Railway, now a branch of the Chesa- peake & Ohio system. He was president and is still a director of the Consolidated Light & Railway Company at Republican, Illinois. He is president of the Dingess-Run Coal Company, which owns 30,000 acres of coal lands, with twenty active mines. He is secretary and treasurer of the Logan Cannel Coal Company, is secretary and treasurer of

J. L. Caldwell

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he Warehouse Land Company, and is a director and mem- er of tho executive committee of the Huntington Land Company, which owns a large number of vacant properties n the city, acquired from the estate of the late Collis P. Huntington for $350,000.

Mr. Caldwell bas been one of the standard bearers and caders in the republican party in the state for many years. He was delegate at large to the Republican National Con- vention of 1904 and a member of the committee notifying President Roosevelt of his nomination. He has been in many county and state conventions, and one time was pro- osed as candidate for the United States Senate, but he withdrew early from the race. Mr. Caldwell is a loyal mem- ver of the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with West Star Lodge No. 12, F. and A. M., at Huntington, and is a member of the Chamber of Commerce.

In 1871, in Kanawha County, he married Mias Mary O'Bannon, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholaa Smith, now ieeeased. Her father was a merchant at Louisville and Iso at Guyandotte, West Virginia. Mrs. Caldwell finished ier education at Louisville. Seven children were born to heir marriage. Ida Regina is the wife of William P. H. McFadden, a cattleman, rice grower and owner of rice mills at Beaumont, Texas. Ouida C. is the wife of Charles W. Watts, a wholesale dry goods merchant at Huntington, member of the firm Watts, Ritter & Company. Foree Dab- hey Caldwell, the oldest son living, was educated under the lireetion of the noted achoolman, Col. Robert Bingham, at Asheville, North Carolina, graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, and has since been actively associated with his father, being treasurer of the Dingesa- Run Coal Company and of several other business organiza- ions. George J., the second son, now in the insurance business at Huntington, is a graduate of the high school f that city. James L., Jr., graduated from West Virginia University at Morgantown, and for one year was in serv- ce as a lieutenant, being atationed near Houston, Texas, ind is now secretary of a mining, car factory and foundry corporation at Morgantown. Smith Caldwell, the youngest of the family, helped organize the noted machine gun ompany at Huntington, was commissioned a second lieu- enant and had a year and a half of service, chiefly in Texas. He now handles the collection of rents and other business interests of his father.

ARCHY S. BOOKER. A practical business man, whose or- ganizing ability bas been a factor in promoting some of the great coal mining, handling and shipping concerns located it Bluefield, Mr. Booker is also a polished gentleman, videly informed, in touch with life in many phases, and is one of the very prominent Masons of the atate.

Mr. Booker was born at Waynesborough, Augusta County, Virginia, October 20, 1871, son of John Davis and Mary Susan (Brooke) Booker. His parents were born in Vir- ;inia, and the Booker ancestry runs back into the early istory of the Old Dominion. In the record of Colonial af- 'airs in old Virginia there were several Bookers of promi- ience as soldiers, burgesses and men of affairs, particu- arly in Amelia County. Mr. Booker of Bluefield is named or Archy Stuart, his great-grandfather on his mother's ide, who was a law partner of Patrick Henry, and is said o have composed many of the great speeches of that fa- nous Virginia orator.

John D. Booker before the war was one of the largest obacco planters in Virginia. Hundreds of slaves were em- loyed in his fields. During the war he was for three years nd eleven months in the Confederate Army, most of the ime on scout duty. He had a number of very narrow es- apes. At one time he and two others, while being pur- ued by Federal troops, came to a fence barricade built by he enemy across the road, and from this trap there was 10 escape except to leap the fences. His two companions het deatb, while John Booker jumped his horse over the ence and escaped. He was under the command of Colonel IcClusky. He was once wounded, but fully recovered, and fter the war he resumed planting, though on a greatly re- uced scale.

Archy S. Booker attended the common schools in the

Valley of Augusta County, spent two years in the Military Vendemy at l'ishburno, Waynesborough, and after leaving school he was appointed assistant to the first postmaster of Basic City, Virginia. He did this work six months and for six months was in the hardware business at Waynesborough. Mr. Booker first joined the Bluefield community of West Virginia as shipping clerk for the Pocahontas Coal Com- pnny. For three years the duties of this position required night work, and altogether he remnined with the company four years. When he resigned he returned to Waynea borough and took charge of the construction of a new hon on the old family plantation. After completing that he in came assistant roadmaster on the Norfolk & Western Rail way, with headquarters nt Vivian, West Virginia, and wns in that service two years. While at Vivian he became ship- ping agent for the Pocahontas Coke Company, and held this position two years. IIe then bought stock in the Bluefield Coal & Coke Company, and this brought him again into ar tive connection with the industrial offnirs of Bluefield In 1898 be became Treasurer of the company, and continued with that corporation until 1904, when he resigned and or ganized the Flat Top Fuel Company, now one of the Inrgest operating and selling organizations in the South West Vir ginia coal fields. He sold his interests in the Flat Top Com pany in 1906, and then for several years did a very pro4- perous real estate business at Bluefield. Mr. Booker in 1914 was appointed assistant postmaster, and he was in the postoffice until April 1, 1920, and for the last two years vir tually was postmaster, owing to the death of the incuin- bent. In 1920, on leaving the post office, he became agent for the West Virginia Coal Company at Bluefield, but re. signed April 1, 1921, and is now in business for himself as a wholesale shipper of coal.

During the war in his official capacity as acting pout master Mr. Booker bad charge of the War Savings Stanijis campaign and sold over $100,000 worth of these Govern- ment securities in Bluefield.

In October, 1903, at Verdon, Virginia, Mr. Booker mnr- ried Miss Corinne C. Crosier, daughter of J. H. and Vir ginia C. (Cady) Crosier. They have ono son, . Archy S. Booker, Jr., who graduated from the Bluefield High School at the age of sixteen and is now a student in the Roanoke College of Virginia. Mr. Booker is a member of the Pres byterian Church. He is active in the Chamber of C'om merce, the Kiwanis Club, and is a member of the Elks.

His hobby is Masonry, and be is one of the best in formed Masons in the atate. He is a member of the Royal Arch Chapter, Knights Templar, the Shrine, and in the Scottish Rite has recently been elected to receive the thirty third degree. Mr. Booker was one of the organizers of the Lodge of Perfection at Bluefield on Mny 16, 1921, and was the first master.

EUGENE J. KING, who is vice president and active head of the Huntington Development & Gas Company, began his career as a telegraph operator, and before entering business for himself had reached the responsibilities of a division superintendent of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. He is very well known throughout the territory covered by that railway aystem, and his duties first brought him to Hunting- ton thirty-two years ago.

Mr. King was born in Union County, Ohio, December s. 1869. His father, Eugene King, was born in 1525 in County Kerry, Ireland, where the grandfather was a pron inent and wealthy contractor. Eugene King was there fore not under the necessity of achieving financial independ ence for himself. Soon after his marriage he came to the United States, living at New Orleans for a time, then in Delaware, Ohio, and in 1872 established his home at Miami- burg, Ohio, where he lived until his death in 1873. He wns not engaged in business after coming to the United States though he bought a farm in Union County. He was a dem ocrat and a member of the Catholic Church Eugene King married Miss Johanna Sheehan, who was born in County Kerry in 1827, and died at Jackson, Tennessee, in 19 6. Of their children the oldest was Patrick, who was a retired farmer when he died at Milford Center. Ohl, in 1918; John was a locomotive engineer and died nt Russell. Kentucky, in

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1913; Julia, living at Springfield, Ohio, is the widow of Daniel Clifford, a farmer who died at Milford Center, Ohio; Mary, who died at Marysville, Ohio, in 1887, was the wife of Michael Desmond, a retired locomotive engineer, also deceased; William S. is in the railway supplies business with headquarters at Chicago, and a resident of Green Bay, Wisconsin; and the sixth and youngest child is Eugene J. King.

After his father's death Eugene J. King lived with his mother at Marysville, Ohio, attended public school there, left high school at the age of fifteen and soon afterward was assigned his first dnty as a telegraph operator on a railroad that is now part of the Big Four System. In 1887, when he was eighteen years of age, he was made clerk in the general manager's office of the Big Fonr Railway at Cleveland, Ohio. He was there two years, and in 1889 was promoted to assistant train dispatcher for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad at Cincinnati. A year later he was trans- ferred to Maysville, Kentneky, as ticket agent, and in 1891 came to Huntington as train dispatcher. Mr. King was on duty in that capacity at Huntington for ten years, and in 1901 was transferred to Richmond, Virginia, as chief train dispatcher one year, train master six years, and following that was promoted to superintendent of the Richmond Di- vision. He was division superintendent at Richmond four years and in 1912 returned to Huntington as superintendent of the Huntington Division.

On February 1, 1914, Mr. King resigned, after having spent thirty years in the railroad service, and after a vaca- tion of about seven months, hecame assistant to the presi- dent of the Huntington Development & Gas Company. Jnne 1, 1916, he was made vice president, and is now the active manager of the main offices of this corporation at Hunt- ington. The offices are at 918 Third Avenue. The company is a Delaware corporation, and the other executive officers are: G. L. Estabrook, of Philadelphia, president; W. B. Kurtz, of Philadelphia, vice president; Frank T. Clark, of Philadelphia, secretary; and G. A. Northcott, of Hunting- ton, treasurer. This is one of the important corporations in this section of the country producing and distributing natural gas, and from its sources of supply it distributes gas in Huntington Kenova, West Virginia, and Ashland, Kentucky. Besides his connection with this corporation Mr. King is manager of coal properties in West Virginia for the Commonwealth Power, Railway & Light Company of New York City.

He is essentially a business man, but at all times has sought to make his business a source of benefit to the pub- lic. He is independent in politics, a member of the Catho- lie Church, is president of the Guyan Country Club of Hunt- ington, a member of the Guyandotte Club and Huntington Chamber of Commerce. He owns considerable real estate in Huntington, including his modern home at 1203 Eleventh Street. In 1909, at Huntington, Mr. King married Miss Lide McClnng, daughter of Mason and Janet ( Alderson) McClung, now deceased. Her father was a farmer in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Mrs. King finished her education in Marshall College of Huntington.

WILLIAM OLIVER DICKEY controls in the City of Hunting- ton a representative business as a certified public account- ant, and has been a resident of this city since his boyhood, though he claims the old Keystone State as the place of his nativity. His paternal grandfather, Marmaduke Wilson Dickey, passed his entire life in Pennsylvania, was for many years in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, but retired a number of years prior to his death, which occurred at New Florence, that state, in 1887.

William O. Dickey was born at Altoona, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1875, and is a son of John C. and Elsie May (Rhodes) Dickey, both likewise natives of Pennsylvania, where the former was born in 1852. Their home is now maintained at Huntington, West Virginia. In the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad John C. Dickey was stationed first at Hollidaysburg, later at Altoona and finally in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has been at Hunting- ton, West Virginia, since 1882. Here he is auditor and cashier of the American Car & Foundry Company, with the

local plant of which he became identified when the busi. ness was here conducted by the Ensign Manufacturing Company, later merged into the great corporation known as the American Car & Fonndry Company. He is a democrat, and while he has had no desire for public office his civic loyalty was shown in six years of effective service as a member of the Huntington Board of Education. He and his wife are zealons members of the Presbyterian Church, iu which he is an elder. He is a member of the Early Set- tlers Association of Huntington, and in the Masonic fra- ternity is affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 53, A. F. and A. M .; Huntington Chapter No. 6, R. A. M .; and Huntington Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar, his son William O., immediate subject of this review, being likewise affiliated with each of these organizations, as is he also with Beni-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charles- ton, and with West Virginia Consistory No. 1, A. A. S. R., at Wheeling, in which he has received the thirty-second degree. Of the children William Oliver is the eldest; A. Ford is an architect by profession and is engaged in the work of this profession in the City of Huntington; and Miss Bess R. remains at the parental home.

William O. Dickey was a lad of seven years at the time when the family home was established in Huntington and after his course in the public schools he here entered Mar- shall College. He engaged in the general insurance busi- ness, which he continued until 1905, and he has since been actively and successfully engaged in the general auditing business as a certified public accountant. His offices are maintained at 707-8 First National Bank Building. He is president of the West Virginia Association of Certified Public Accountants, and is a member of the American So- ciety of Certified Public Accountants. In politics he is a democrat of independent proclivities, and in local affairs he supports men and measures meeting the approval of his judgment, without reference to partisan lines. He is an active member of the local Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club, and holds membership in the Guyandotte Clnh and the Gnyan Country Club.

September 12, 1899, recorded the marriage of Mr. Dickey and Miss Elizabeth Ward, daughter of Robert and Eliza (Jarvis) Ward, of Huntington, where Mrs. Ward still re- sides, her husband, a retired employe of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, having here died in 1906. Mr. and Mrs. Dickey have one daughter, Katherine W.

GEORGE WARDER KELLER, who is one of the successful oil and gas operators in the West Virginia fields, is actively identified also with the coal-mining industry in this state, his residence and business headquarters being maintained in the City of Huntington.

Mr. Keller was born at Massanetta Springs, Rockingham County, Virginia, on the 8th of September, 1880. His pa- ternal grandfather, Samuel Keller, was born near Toms Brook, that state, in 1780, and died at Newmarket, Vir- ginia, in 1840, his entire life having been passed in Shenan- doalı County, where he was a successful planter. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Baxter, was born in Spott- sylvania County, Virginia. The ancestral line of the Keller family touches Dutch, German and French strains, and the first American representatives settled in Pennsylvania in the Colonial era. One of the members of the family was an aide on the staff of General Washington in the War of the Revolution. John Henry McLeod, maternal grandfather of George W. Keller, was born at Milton, Nova Scotia, in 1812, and was a young man when he removed to Virginia and became a farmer near Dayton, where he remained until his death, in 1892. John Henry McLeod organized the Wann Springs Turnpike Company and built one of the first macadam roads ever constructed in that state. He married Elizabeth Fishburn, who was born near the "Old Stone Church" on Middle River, Augusta County, Virginia, in the year 1813, and who died at Dayton, that state, in 1893.

George W. Keller, Sr., father of the subject of this re- view, was born near Toms Brook, Shenandoah County, Virginia, in 1840, and died at Massanetta Springs, Rock- ingham County, September 1, 1880. As a young man he removed to Rockingham County and engaged in farm enter-

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rise, of which he there continued a successful representa- ive during the remainder of his life. He was a democrat, raa a member of the Masonie fraternity, and he aerved hree months as a Confederate soldier, in Captain Sipes' ompany, in the Civil war. Ile married Elizabeth Rebecen MeLeod, who was born at Dayton, Virginia, in 1844, and who died at Bridgewater, that state, in September, 1913. Their eldest child, Clara MeLeod, became the wife of Eras- nus R. Harrison, of Elkton, Virginia, where she died at he age of fifty-six years, Mr. Harrison being still a resident f that place; Stella Everett is a teacher in the Masonic chool at Oxford, North Carolina; Margaret Bruce is the widow of J. A. Raum and resides at Elkton; George W., of his sketch, is the youngest of the number and is the only OD.

The public schools at Bridgewater, Virginia, afforded George W. Keller his early education, and thereafter he at- ended Washington & Lee University one year, and special- zed in economies and chemistry. There also he became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. He had pre- riously worked as a pharmacist, in 1903, at Harrisonburg, Virginia, and after leaving the university, in 1904, he was pharmacist four years at Lewisburg, West Virginia. Ile hen, in 1908, purchased an interest in the Frederick Phar- naey at Huntington, which was then one of the largest re- ail drug stores in the state, and he continued his active as- sociation with this enterprise until 1916. In the meanwhile he had become interested in oil and gas production in the West Virginia fields, and he was one of the leaders in the organizing and the development work of the Sovereign Gas Company, which has become one of the largest independent operators in the natural-gas fields of the state. Of this corporation he is secretary and office manager, the offices of the company being in suite 14, 15, 16 Miller-Ritter Building, Huntington. Mr. Keller was one of the organizers also of the Huntington-Oklahoma Oil Company, which is engaged in development work and which has a fair oil production in Western Kentucky, besides being engaged in development work in Osage County, Oklahoma. He is also secretary, treasurer and office manager of the Midlothian Jewel Coal Company, operating in Clay County, West Virginia.

Mr. Keller is a democrat in polities and he and his wife are communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church. His basic Masonie affiliation is with Huntington Lodge No. 53, A. F. and A. M., and he has received the thirty-second degree in West Virginia Consistory No. 1, A. A. S. R., at Wheeling. He is a member of the Huntington Lodge of Elks and of the Guyan Country Club.

On the 3d of June, 1908, at Huntington, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Keller and Miss Mary Simms, daugh- ter of Henry C. and Katherine (Lyons) Simms, her father, who died December 6. 1906, having been a distinguished member of the West Virginia bar and his widow being still a resident of Huntington. Mrs. Keller received the ad- vantages of the Lewisburg (Virginia) Female Institute and the National Park Seminary at Forest Glen, a suburb of Washington, D. C. Mr. and Mrs. Keller became the par- ents of two children, Katherine Elizabeth, who was born April 2, 1910, and whose death occurred September 6, 1912, and George Simms, born June 26, 1921.

R. P. DEVAN was educated as a civil engineer, but in- stead of practicing that profession has utilized his busi- ness talents successfully in real estate and the stock and bond business, and during the past half dozen years haa built up the largest general insurance ageney at Charleston. Mr. DeVan, one of the popular citizens of Charleston, and present exalted ruler of the Elks Lodge, was born in Kansas City but represents an old New Orleans family of French origin. His father was a native of New Orleans. R. P. DeVan was born while his parents were temporarily living in Kansas City, and was reared and educated in New Orleans. He attended McDonough School No. 23 on Car- rollton Avenue in that city, and finished his preparatory education in Brown's School at Charlottesville, Virginia. Mr. DeVan graduated in 1907 with the degree Civil En- gineer from the University of Pennsylvania, but instead of seeking opportunities in the- engineering field he eagaged

in the stock and bond business. For three years he was at Oklahoma City in the real estate business.

Mr. DeVan located at Charleston, West Virginia, In 1911, and for one year was secretary of the Chamber of t'om merce. Since 1915 he has been in tho general insurance business, at first na a member of the firm Scherr, Morton and DeVan, but in 1917 he bought out his partner's inter ests and founded the DeVan & Company agency. This In an organization handling all branches of general insurance. fire, casualty, life, etc. It is no small achievement that under Mr. DeVan's direction thia hos become the largest and best equipped agency in Charleston. He has made t a business vitally and essentially a part of the commercial and industrial life of the city.

Mr. DeVan was elected exalted ruler of the Charleston Lodge of Elks in March, 1921, beginning his official dut os in April. Ile has been prominent in the national affairs of the organization. lle organized the company which bu lt the Rialto Theater, Charleston's leading playhouse, and ia president of the theater company. He is an active mem- her of the chamber of commerce and the Edgewood C'oun. try Club. Mr. DeVan married Miss Louise M .Cosh, of Hanover, Pennsylvania. Their three children are William Todd, R. P., Jr., and Naney Elizabeth.

CASSIUS CLAY BROWN, cashier of the Farmers and Mer chants Bank of Morgantown, Monongalia County, was born at Brown's Mills in Clay District, this county, September 23. 1563, and is a son of the late Dr. Alpheus Wilson Brown and Anna (Nicholson) Brown. Mr. Brown ia of the fourth generation in direct descent from Wendell Brown, who, with liis son Manus, was one of the first white settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. Adam Brown, great-grandfather of the subject of this review, married in 1784, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, a sister of Jacob Statler, and in 1796 they settled near the site of Brown's Mills, Clay District, Mouongalia County, West Virginia, as now constituted. Andrew Brown, grandfather of Cassius C. of this sketch, became a prosperous farmer and miller in this county, served as justice of the peace from 1832 to 1851, and in 1846, as a whig in a strong democratic distriet, he was elected to the Virginia Legislature or house of dele- gates, to which he was reelected in 1859. lle built and operated Brown's Mills, long a landmark of Monongalia County, and also had the supervision of his fine farm prop- erty in that locality. July 5, 1821. he married Martha Worley, and they became the parents of five children, all now deceased.

Dr. Alpheus Wilson Brown was born at Brown's Milla, August 9, 1822, and died February 22. 1590. In his youth he attended Greene Academy at Carmichaels, Greene County, Pennsylvania, and thereafter he continued his studies for several years at Monongalia Academy, which eventually was developed into the University of West Virginia. Thereafter he studied medicine in the office of his uncle, Dr. Asbury Worley. at Washington Court House Ohio, after which he attended lectures at Philadelphia and further fortified him- self for his chosen profession. Hle initiated practice at Washington Court House, Ohio, where he also conducted & drug store. Ile remained in Ohio ten years and then, at the request of his father, returned to the old home in Monon. galia County. Here he built up a large and representative general practice and gained prestige as one of the leading physicians and surgeons of his native county, besides which he was an honored and influential figure in public affairs of a local order. He was a delegate to the Wheeling con- vention at which the new State of West Virginia was organ- ized, and later he served two terms as a member of the Legislature of the new commonwealth, besides having been a member of the Board of Supervisors of Monongalina County, which under a new law was in time supplanted by the Board of County Commissioners. of which latter he was a member ten years, his death having occurred while he was the incumbent of this office. Ile and his wife were earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in the same he served as steward, trustee and Sunday school superintendent. Shortly after he located at Washington Court House, Ohio, Doctor Brown married Elizabeth Dorsey,

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 54

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