History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 76

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Mr. Hugus is a member of the Official Board of the Fourth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, is president of the Wheeling District Epworth League Soonty, a member of Wheeling Lodge No. 5, F. and A. M., is an eighteenth degree Scottish Rite Mason in West Virginia Consist ry No. 1, and is a member of the Wheeling Country C'h .. University ('lub of Wheeling, vice president of the Wheel ing Council of Boy Scouts, and president of the Wheelis ; Tennis Club.

HON. THOMAS WALTER FLEMING Has played a large al 1 benignant part in the development and progress of his in tive eity of Fairmont, Marion County, and the broal scope and importance of his cive and business activities art hn publie service mark him as one of the repr sentat ve non f West Virginia. He was born at Fairmont on the 16th Ef December, 1846, a son of Allison nd Martha Loh ry Fleming. Allison Fleming was born on a pioneer farm noir Fairmont, July 25, 1-14, a son of Tlinhas, who was a somn cf

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Nathan, the latter having been a son of William Fleming, who immigrated to America from the North of Ireland in 1741. For many years Allison Fleming was engaged in the marble business at Fairmont, where he served a number of years as mayor, besides having been treasurer of the county one term. He was a stanch Union man during the Civil war, and he and his wife were zealous members of the Methodist Protestant Church, in which he served as trustee, and class leader, besides having been for many years a teacher in the Sunday school. January 19, 1837, he married Mary Vander- vort, who died November 2, 1842. April 11, 1844, he wedded Martha Louchery, who was born July 30, 1822, a daughter of James and Margaret (Keefore) Louchery.

Thomas W. Fleming was reared at Fairmont and received good educational advantages, in select and private schools. He gained his initial business experience by clerking in a local mercantile establishment, and in 1871 he became a member of the firm of Ridgeley & Fleming, the title of which was changed in 1876 to T. W. Fleming & Brothers, upon the retirement of the senior member of the original firm. Mr. Fleming continued as the head of this representative mer- cantile concern until 1890, when he sold his interest in the business. He then turned his attention to the real estate business, in which he became prominently identified with the handling and developing of coal and oil land in Marion, Monongalia, Harrison and Doddridge counties, he having opened up the important Fairview oil fields. He was one of the organizers and became president and secretary of the company which obtained the franchise for the first street car line in Fairmont, this line later becoming a part of the Fairmont & Clarksburg electric system and being now con- trolled by the Monongahela Power and Railway Company. He organized also the company which constructed the Fair- mont & Mannington street railway, now a part of the Mo- nongahela Power and Railway Company's system, and he was one of the promoters of the Farmers Bank of Fairmont, besides serving also as a director of the People's Bank. He was one of the organizers of the Fairmont Ice Company, of which he became vice president, as did he also of the West Chester Realty Company. He was one of the organizers and became a director of the Fairmont Development Company.

Mr. Fleming has been for many years a leader in the councils of the republican party in his state. In 1891, on a progressive independent ticket, he was elected mayor of Fairmont, and his administration was marked by vigorous promotion of local interests. Many important public im- provements were initiated within his service as mayor, notably the first paving of streets, the installing of a water- works system, at a cost of $20,000, the construction of a large viadnet, and the improving of all streets and side- walks. Mr. Fleming served one term in the State Legisla- ture, and by joint resolution of its two houses he was ap- pointed inspector to examine the various state institutions. At the time when Hon. James G. Blaine was serving as na- tional secretary of state he offered to Mr. Fleming his choice of three ministerships abroad, but on account of the exac- tions of his business interests Mr. Fleming declined this honor. In 1916 he was the republican candidate for repre- sentative in Congress from the First Congressional District of West Virginia, but he met defeat with the rest of the party ticket. In 1920 he was a delegate from the same dis- trict to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, and there was selected as a member from West Virginia on the committee on permanent organization, and there, on each of seven ballots, he cast his vote for Warren G. Harding, present President of the United States. Mr. Fleming is past master of Fairmont Lodge No. 9, A. F. and A. M., past high priest of Orient Chapter No. 6, R. A. M., past eminent commander of Crusade Commandery No. 6, and a member of Osiris Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. at Wheeling.

February 1, 1877, recorded the marriage of Mr. Fleming and Miss Annie Sweeney, daughter of the late Col. Thomas Sweeney, of Wheeling. Colonel Sweeney was born in the City of Armagh, Ireland, March 6, 1806, and died at Wheel- ing, March 9, 1900. He was second lientenant of the Pitts- burgh Blues at the time when that fine organization received and acted as escort to General La Fayette when the gallant French officer of the American Revolution visited Pittsburgh

in 1824. Colonel Sweeney brought the first colony of glass- blowers into the present State of West Virginia, and alfm Wheeling he operated large iron works. He served as mayor of that city and also as a member of the State Senate of Virginia. His second wife, Jane McFarran (mother of Mrs. Fleming), was a daughter of Lient. John McFarran who served in defense of Baltimore when the British at tacked Fort Henry in 1814, and Mrs. Fleming treasuresat as a valued heirloom the sword which her maternal grand father carried at that time. Mrs. Fleming is the anthor of a family chart entitled "Family Record of William Fleming onto the Fourth Generation," brought out in 1892. Mr! and Mrs. Fleming had three children: Allison Sweeney Fleming received from Yale University the degree of Bachelor of Arts and from the University of West Virginia the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Though a member of the bar he gives much of his time to his various business inter- ests, including the Fairmont Auto Supply Company, which he has developed into one of the largest and most prosperous concerns of its kind in the state. Jean Ferran, the second in order of birth of three children, is the wife of George M. Wiltshire, and they now reside at Fairmont, their two chil- dren being Thomas Fleming Wiltshire and Jean Fleming Wiltshire. The third child, Thomas W. Fleming, died at the age of eleven months.

CHARLES OLIVER HENRY, M. D., has been engaged in the successful practice of his profession in Marion County for forty years, and since 1903 has been one of the leading physicians and surgeons in the City of Fairmont. He was born in this city, then a mere village, on the 3d of December, 1856, and is a son of Lawrence and Mary Ann (Holmes). Henry, both natives of Scotland. Lawrence Henry was born July 22, 1810, in Ayrshire, and died at Newburg, West Vir- ginia, March 7, 1887. Upon the death of his father, in 1828, he became virtually the head of the family, he being the eldest of the children, five sons and three daughters. As a young man he was employed in the coal mines of his na- tive country, and by this means he aided in the support of the other members of the family. In 1845 he came to the United States and became identified with coal-mining opera- tions at Mount Savage, Maryland. Later he worked in the old Elkhart coal mines near Cumberland, that state, and in 1851 he entered the employ of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road Company, by which he was assigned to prospect for coal in the Hampshire hills of what is now West Virginia. In that year he opened a vein of coal near Piedmont, and March 18, 1852, he became superintendent of McGuire's Tunnel, in supervising the arching of the same, for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. In May of the same year he opened a vein of coal over the Kingwood Tunnel, and this supplied the requisite coal in connection with the completion of that railroad tunnel. In August, 1852, Mr. Henry opened the Palatine Mines, and in May of the fol- lowing year he shipped an eight-ton gondola car of coal to Gen. Columbus O'Donnell, of Baltimore, who was then president of the Baltimore Gas Company. This figures in the history of the coal industry of West Virginia as the first shipment of coal from this state. During the winter of the same year Mr. Henry furnished coal for the third and fourth divisions of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, besides making !! shipments to Baltimore. In 1854 the railroad company sold the Palatine Mines to General O'Donnell, by whom Mr. Henry was retained as superintendent of the mines. Two years later he took charge of the Newburg coal properties purchased by General O'Donnell, and he continued as super- intendent of these mines about thirty years. On the 16th of March, 1860, he was run over by a 1,250-pound coal car, and though the injury crippled him to a certain degree, he | was still able to continue his active executive service. He was a man of fine character and of marked technical ability in connection with coal mining, and his name is written large in the history of the developing of the great coal industry of West Virginia. He was one of the founders and served as an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Newburg, and in a fraternal way he was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His marriage to Mary Ann Holmes was solemnized June 16, 1837, his wife having been born at

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rvin, Scotland, December 16, 1817, and her death having ccurred October 9, 1899.

Dr. Charles O. Henry gained his early education in the ublic schools of Fairmont, and thereafter was here a atu- eat two years in the State Normal School. He continued is studies three years in the University of West Virginia, ad hia initial study of medicine was prosecuted under the receptorship of Drs. Hugh W. and Luther S. Broek, of [organtown. In 1882 he graduated from the College of hysicians and Surgeons in the City of Baltimore, Mary- ind, and after receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he as for twenty-one years engaged in auceessful practice at hinnston, Harrison County. He then, in 1903, established is residence and professional headquarters in his native city f Fairmont, where he controla a substantial and representa- ve general practice. He served six years, 1904-10, as ealth officer of Marion County, and in his home city he is ow a member of the medieal staff of Cook Hospital. He is le of the honored members of the Marion County Medical beiety, of which he was president in 1919, and of the West irginia State Medieal Society, of which he served as presi- ent in 1911. He is an active member also of the American [edical Association. In 1918 Doctor Henry volunteered for erviee in the Medical Corps of the United States Army in oneetion with the World war, and his service was accepted y the Government. He was one of the six members of the Vest Virginia State Committee of Medical Defense, and ave to the work of the same much of his time. In 1921 e was appointed assistant superintendent of State Hospital o. 3 at Fairmont, in which position he is giving characteria- cally loyal and effective service. The doctor is president £ the Lambert Run Coal Company, and in the Masonic paternity his affiliationa are with St. John's Lodge No. 24, . F. and A. M., at Shinnston, and Orient Chapter No. 9, . A. M., at Fairmont. He and his wife are active members : the First Baptist Church of Fairment, in which he ia a Bacon.

May 6, 1885, recorded the marriage of Doetor Henry and 'isa Virginia Lee Hood, who was born in Marion County, ugust 4, 1862, a daughter of William and Hannah Coombs) Hood. Mr. Hood was born at Grenada, Pennsyl- ania, and from West Virginia went forth aa a soldier of the onfederacy in the Civil war. He was captured and for a me held as a prisoner of war. In conclusion is given brief cord concerning the children of Doctor and Mrs. Henry: dith Holmes, born July 6, 1886, was afforded the advan- iges of the State Normal School at Fairmont, and she is ow the wife of Milton R. Frantz, of this city, their two ildren being Miriam Browning and Virginia Lee. Agnes ee, the second daughter, was born August 28, 1887, and fter taking a special course in kindergarten work at Wash- gton, District of Columbia, she became a popular teacher the public schools of Fairmont. She became the wife of dwin V. Duffy, of Sydney, Australia, and they now reside ; Fairmont, their two children being Bertha Virginia and dwin V., Jr. Ruth O'Donnell, the third daughter, waa orn August 16, 1890, graduated from the Fairmont State ormal School and also attended Randolph-Macon Seminary. he is now the wife of William E. Brooks, who completed engineering course at Cornell University and now reside Fairmont, West Virginia. Mary Ellen, born January 16, 894, graduated from the Fairmont Normal School and is w a successful and popular teacher in the public achools Fairmont. Robert Mckenzie Henry was born August 22, 396, was graduated, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 'om the University of West Virginia, class of 1917, and was student in the law department of the university when he tered the Officers Training Corps at Camp Sherman, Ohio, here he gained commission as first lieutenant. Thereafter was in service in turn at Camp Lee and Camp Hancock, ad though several times selected for overseas service he as retained on duty in the drilling of soldiers at Camp ancock until the aigning of the armistice brought the Terld war to a close. He received his discharge in Decem- er, 1918, and he is now sales agent for the Standard Garage : Fairmont, besides being a stockholder in the Henry Coal ompany. Andrew Luke Henry was born August 6, 1899,

attended Bucknell College two years and Columbin Univer aity one year, and is now a salesman for the Fairmont Wall Plaster Company. His wife, Katherine W., is a daughter of T. W. Arnett, of Fairmont. As all six of his children were graduated from tho Fairmont High School Doctor Henry claima an unparalleled record in this respect for his family, no other one family having equalled the record in the local high school.

PHOEBIA G. MOORE, M. D., of Mannington, is the only woman graduato physician practicing in Marion County, and one of a comparatively amnll group in the entire state While a pioncer of her sex in this profession, her work repre. aents a finished standard fully in keeping with the best standards of the profession.

Doctor Moore was born on a farm near Mannington, daughter of Theophilus and Prudence (Varney) Moore. Her father was born at Mineral Wells, near Parkersburg, in 1813, son of Joseph and Naney (Tennent) Moore, and he served in the Civil war as a member of the Seventh West Virginia Infantry. After the war he located in Monongalia County, where he met and married Prudence Varney, who was born at MeCurdysville in that county in 1951, daughter of Wil- liam and Eleanor (Wilson) Varney. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Moore settled in what is known as the Fint Run district of Marion County, and were among the first to improve the land and build a home in that section. They introduced the first cooking stove to their community, and this utensil was an object of great curiosity to their neigh. bors. They are still living on the old homestead and are active members of the United Brethren Church.

Phoebia G. Moore grew up on thia farm, attended the com- mon achools, also the Fairmont State Normal School, and having determined to make her talents available for the medical profession she regiatered for the course in the med :- cal department of West Virginia University. She was the first woman to register there and remain, all others becom ing discouraged by the obstacles arising from the general prejudice existing against women medical students and n more or less active persecution on the part of the male atudents, who resented the presence of a woman in that department. Doctor Moore received her credits for a year's work in West Virginia University, and to finish her course she then entered the Bennett Medical College of Chicago, where she was graduated with the class of 1903. Since then Doctor Moore has taken special laboratory work in Balti- more and Chicago. She began practice at Mannington in 1903, and has apecialized in obstetrics and gynecology. . 1 large practice has come to her in successive years, in np- preciation of her marked ability and skill. Her practice is not only localized in Marion County, but extends to the cities of Fairmont, Clarksburg and Morgantown as well.

Doctor Moore is a member of the Marion County Medical Society, West Virginia State Medical Society and American Medical Association, and is chairman of the committee on social hygiene of the West Virginia State League of Women Voters and is the Red Cross physician of Mannington Chapter. She is also a member of the Women's Club and the Methodist Episcopal Church of Mannington.

CHARLES HOWARD LONG has been a resident of Manning ton since 1905, identified with the business life of the city and for a dozen years an independent merchant.

He was horn at Dayton, Ohio, February 2, 1-79, son of John and Ella (Heffner) Long. His grandfather, Amo. Long, was a native of Maryland, and as a young man re- moved to Pennsylvania. John Long while living in Dayton, Ohio, was extensively engaged in the nursery business for a number of years, and there met and married his wife, a native of that city. She died at the birth of her son, Charles Howard. Failing health subsequently caused John Long to return to Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in 1858, and he died there in 1890.

C. Howard Long was reared in Bedford County from the age of nine, attended public schools there, and in 1896 hegar his business career as a clerk in n store at Everett, Bedf rd County. A few years later he returned to Cumberland,

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Maryland, subsequently spent two years in New York City, where he continued elerking in a large leather belting manu- faeturing concern.

When Mr. Long came to Mannington in 1905 he entered the service of H. R. and F. E. Furbee, merchants, as a elerk, and remained with that firm until 1909. He then resolved to put into effeet the long cherished purpose to become a busi- ness man on his own account. With limited eapital he opened a small clothing and men's furnishing goods store, and the business has steadily grown from year to year until now it is the leading establishment of its line in Manning- ton. The business occupies two floors and basement in a substantial three-story brick building which Mr. Long owns having purchased the property in 1911.

He keeps in elose touch with the commercial affairs of the state, being a member of the West Virginia State Retail Clothiers Association. lle is a charter member of the Mannington Kiwanis Club and is affiliated with the Elks and Odd Fellows. He and Mrs. Long are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1907 he married Miss Grace Priehard, a daughter of Charles Prichard of Man- nington. Mr. and Mrs. Long have two children: Naney, born in 1909, and John, born in 1915.

DAVID A. BURT. As president of the LaBelle Iron Works David A. Burt has one of the most distinctive posts in the industrial affairs of the Upper Ohio Valley. The La- Belle Iron Works was one of the pioneer iron and steel industries of the Wheeling District, has been in business seventy years, and is now a great corporation with thou- sands of employes and owning and controlling not only two great manufacturing plants, but iron ore mines and coal and coke resources.

The Burt family has been in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia considerably more than a century. The great-grandfather of David A. Burt was William Burt, who was born near Philadelphia and at the beginning of the nineteenth century entered the district around Wells- burg in Brooke County, Virginia, where he lived ont his life as a practical farmer and business man. The grand- father of David A. Burt was David Burt, a lifelong resi- dent of Wellsburg, where he died when little past thirty years. He was an Ohio River pilot. John L. Burt, father of the Wheeling industrial leader, was born at Wells- burg in 1839, was reared and educated there, and as a youth ran away from home to enlist in a Pennsylvania regi- ment. He served all through the Peninsular campaign, was severely wounded at the battle of Fair Oaks, and after sev- eral months in hospital was discharged for physical dis- ability and did not entirely recover for several years. About 1866 he located at Wheeling, where he married and where he entered the iron industry with the LaBelle Trou Works as sales manager. Later, in a similar capacity, he was with the Benwood Iron Works, and continued in the service of that industry until his death in 1887. He was a demo- crat and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1875 John L. Burt married Martha MeKelvey, who was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1850, and is still living at Wheeling. David A. is the oldest of their children. Jean- nette is the wife of Arthur L. Irwin, of the firm Lippin- cott & Irwin, real estate and investments, at Cleveland, Obio; William T. is comptroller of the Wheeling Steel Cor- poration and is unmarried; Helen, twin sister of William, is the wife of Raymond S. Clark, partner in William Skin- ner & Sons, silk importers and manufacturers of New York, their home being at Great Neck, Long Island.

David A. Burt was born at Wheeling, December 25, 1876. He graduated from the Wheeling High School in 1892, when he was sixteen, and soon afterward became an office boy in the Whitaker Iron Works under Senator Nelson E. Whitaker. That employment was practically an apprenticeship in the iron and steel industry. He worked in the mill and office, was paymaster, and in 1898 went with the Aetna-Standard Iron & Steel Company at Bridge- port, Ohio, as shipper. He remained in the service of this corporation five years, and in 1903 joined the LaBelle Iron Works in the Steubenville, Ohio, plant as general book- keeper. He was successively promoted to auditor, treasurer

and vice president, and since the spring of 1920 has been president and director of the LaBelle Iron Works, com- prising all the plants and industries of this corporation. The corporation offiees are in the Steel Corporation Build- ing at Wheeling. The oldest plant is the Wheeling plant on Thirty-first Street, manufacturing steel cut nails and steel plates. Normally 400 hands are employed in the Wheeling plant. A still larger plant is that at Steuben- ville, which employs 3,500 hands. The corporation also owns and operates iron ore mines in Minnesota, employing 350 hands, and its coal mines and coke ovens in Pennsyl- vania furnish employment to approximately four hundred.

In addition to being executive head of this business Mr. Burt is vice president, treasurer and director of the: Wheeling Steel Corporation; director of the Woodward Iron Company at Woodward, Alabama; director of the Dollar Savings & Trust Company of Wheeling; director of the Wheeling Bank & Trust Company; director of the Fidelty Investment Association of Wheeling; director of the Farmers State Bank of Wellsburg; treasurer and man- ager of the W. T. Burt Company of Wheeling; and is in- terested in a number of other business undertakings.

Mr. Burt has one of the fine homes of the suburban dis- triet of Wheeling at Eeho Point, and also a country home near Wellsburg în Brooke County. In politics he is a republican, but has been too busy for politics. He is a trustee of the Presbyterian Church, a member of Wells- burg Lodge No. 2, A. F. and A. M., is a fourteenth de- gree Scottish Rite Mason in West Virginia Consistory No. I at Wheeling, and is a member of the Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh, Fort Henry Club, Wheeling Country Club, Steubenville Country Club, Twilight Club of Wheeling, and belongs to the American Institute of Mining and Metal- lurgical Engineers, the American Academy of Political Science, and is a director of the Ohio Manufacturers As- sociation and of the West Virginia Manufacturers Associa-) tion. Mr. Burt concerned himself chiefly with war activities in his native county of Brooke. He was on the War Board of the county, which had control of all war drives for the county, and was chairman of the Liberty Loan work and also active in the Red Cross drives.

In 1901, at Wheeling, Mr. Burt married Miss Elizabeth MeLain, daughter of Thomas B. and Sidney (MeMecben) MeLain, residents of Wheeling. Her father is now prac- tically retired, but still owns what is known as the Mc- Lain Dental and Surgical Depot, doing a state wide busi- ness in dental and surgical supplies. Mr. and Mrs. Burt are the parents of four children: David A., Jr., born February 22, 1903, now a student in Yale University at New Haven, Connecticut; Martha S., born February 11, 1907, a student in the Triadelphia High School District of Wheeling; Elizabeth M., born in December, 1908, and died November 7, 1921; and William L., born in June, 1910.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 76

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