History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 146

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Their son, James Ulysses Hamilton, was born at Fair- tont January 12, 1839. In 1843 the family established heir home at Salt Lick in Marion County, where James U. [amilton grew up and lived his active life as a prosperous armer and influential citizen. He died on his farm there 1 1915. He married Malissa Yost, daughter of Nicholas 'ost, of Fairview and member of the old and prominent amily of that name in Marion County. Malissa Hamilton ied January 1, 1916, in her seventy-ninth year.

Millard Fillmore Hamilton spent his early life on his ather's farm, attended common schools, the Fairmont Tormal School, and began the study of medicine under the receptorship of his uncle, Dr. P. D. Yost, of St. Louis, Missouri. Doctor Hamilton in 1883 graduated from the merican Eclectic Medical College of St. Louis. He began ractice in Mercer County, Missouri, but in 1883 returned ) West Virginia, and has been a leading physician and urgeon at Mannington sinee that date, except for a period f six months during 1885-86 when he was on the Pacific oast in practice at Fort Ross, California. Doetor Hamil- on has held the post of district surgeon for the Baltimore , Ohio Railway for thirty-eight years, and for the past wenty-five years had been a member of the United States board of Examining Surgeons for Pensions, and president f the board during the last five years. He is a member f the Marion County, West Virginia and American Medical Associations, has served as vice president of the West Vir- inia Eclectic Medical Association, and is a member of le Baltimore & Ohio Railway Association of Surgeons.

He was one of the organizers and incorporators of the pera House Company, and helped organize and was presi- ent during its existence of the Mannington Development Company. He was one of the promoters of the Mannington lass Company, and has always taken a deep civic pride in Il matters pertaining to the welfare of Mannington and icinity. For sixteen years he was president of the Bank of lannington. He is owner of a number of houses in Man- ington, several farms, and on one of these at Salt Lick e built a beautiful home, where he and his family spend he summer months. In 1921 at their bungalow in the ountry were entertained the members and their wives of he Marion County Medical Society. This place is one f the notable horticultural projects of the county, Doctor [amilton having developed an orehard of between 1,800 and ,000 fruit trees.

Doctor Hamilton has been a member of the City Council f Mannington, and in the spring of 1918 was elected mayor. [e was in the office during the World war. In that time ne streets were filled with thousands of drafted men and leir relatives and friends, Mannington being the drafting enter for Marion County outside of Fairmont. Under such onditions the city was so well policed that there was not single accident, tragic or otherwise. In 1918 Doctor [amilton was elected a member of the West Virginia Legis- tture. In the session of 1921 he introduced a joint resolu- on, adopted, requesting the Federal Government to select erkeley Springs in Morgan County as the site for one f the five soldier sanitariums which the Government con- emplated building in different parts of the country. This ibject is still pending, only one of the sites having been elected to date. Doctor Hamilton was appointed a member f the Board of Trustees of Berkeley Springs by Governor [organ.

In August, 1888, Doctor Hamilton married Miss Bessie . Basnett, daughter of Festus D. Basnett, of Mannington. octor and Mrs. Hamilton have two sons. Dale H., born ugust 25, 1894, is a graduate of agriculture and borti- ilture from West Virginia University and now has charge f his father's fruit farm. During the World war he was 1 the Government's Spruce Division on the Pacific Coast, here he had charge of eight hundred men in getting out

spruce timber for airplane building. Dale H. Hamilton married Carla Lee Yorgersen, of the State of Washington, and they have one daughter, Phyllis Jean, born October 19, 1921.

Dewey Dallas, born March 17, 1898, is now a student in the Eelectic Medical College of Cincinnati. He took two years of preparatory work for his medical course in West Virginia University, and was there during the war, and had volunteered and entered the Officers Training Camp at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, hut the armistice was signed before a commission was issued.

MARSHALL COLLEGE, which is Huntington's largest institu- tion contributing to the reputation of that eity as an educational center, is primarily a teachers' college, pre- paring students to teach and supervise, but a great many men and women have received a portion of their general education there in preparation for business or professional careers.

The present institution is the outgrowth of Marshall Academy, established in 1837, shortly after the death of Chief Justice John Marshall, of the Supreme Court of the United States, in whose honor the school was named. It was organized as a private institution. In 1856 the work of the Academy was enlarged and reorganized, and the name changed to Marshall College.

The Civil war greatly affected the fortunes of the school. So serious was the situation at its elose that a number of leading citizens in this section of the new state of West Virginia succeeded in having the Legislature take it over as a state normal school; normal in name, but wholly acadeinic in organization and in fact, and such it remained with varying fortune, save a little teaching of pedagogy, school management, etc., until 1897, when a practice school of one grade was organized; but the state refused to sup- port it, and, accordingly, this nucleus was abandoned after two years of unappreciated effort to develop the normal training feature, and the school continued as an academie institution as before.

In Jannary, 1902, the department of education was or- ganized, and a model or practice school for teachers was opened. This was the first step toward normal school work in the state, and the school has since then been officially known as Marshall College.

The school was established on the site of the present eastern section of College Hall thirty-four years before the founding of the City of Huntington. None of the records of the school during the period of time it was an academy are preserved. During the time of the war they were lost or destroyed, and it has been impossible to bring together any reliable data concerning the early days. All reliable statistics with reference to Marshall College date from the year 1867.

The president of Marshall College is Frederic R. Hamil- ton, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. The vice president and professor of literature is C. E. Haworth, a graduate of Colgate University.

MOSES TAMBURINI. This is the name of the veteran merehant of Bayard, Grant County, where he has been selling goods and building up a fine mercantile service in that mining community for nearly thirty years. His career is an interesting example of an American of foreign birth who came to this country with neither capital nor influen- tial friends and has made good both in business and good citizenship.

He was born at Trentino in Tyrol of Austria, April 23, 1859. His father, John Tamburini, was born in the same locality and his ancestors had lived there for generations. John Tamburini married Margaret Bertini, and both died and were buried near their old home. The father was a farmer and millwright. Of their four children three grew to mature years: Mary, who married Bartholomew Girar- clini and lives in Tyrol; Moses; and Henry, who after spending some years in the United States and West Vir- ginia returned and is now living in his native country.

Moses Tamburini as a boy learned farming as practiced in the mountain country of Austria, also the trade of mill-

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wright, and had a limited education in the common schools. On leaving home he spent a year or so in France, chiefly employed in and near the City of Paris. His last work in that country was quarrying stone for the building of high fences to enclose the vast estate of the wealthy Rothschilds near Paris.

Leaving France, he started for New York, and passed through old Castle Garden with his wardrobe as his chief capital. He arrived in this country March 23, 1883. He and a shipmate who had traveled with him went to Phila- delphia, and there through an employment office they were directed to a farmer who wanted help. Eleven dollars a month and board was the highest wage offered, less money than they were making in France, and they finalty decided to look elsewhere. They took the pike leading to Cincinnati, and followed it until their money was exhausted. This brought them within about a mile of Bayard and to a point where the old West Virginia Central Railroad was then in progress of construction. They seeured their first employ- ment in America with the construction company, and did common labor until the road reached the top of the moun- tain. Remaining with the same company, the two young foreigners labored in the stone quarry and also in the mines of the company until January, 1885.

At that date Mr. Tamburini started off to see more of America, and going by way of Chicago and Minneapolis and over the Great Northern reached Portland, Oregon. Business was dull there, and further travel and investigation offered no special opportunities in California. He spent a couple of days at Seattle, Washington, and while there vis- ited the Yakima tunnel, then in process of construction, saw Tacoma, and after several months of very intermittent employment and little beyond the pleasure of travel to re- ward him be returned to West Virginia in April, 1885.

Then for a few months he again did railroad work, and was in the mines digging coal until February, 1893. At that date he went back to his old home in Tyrol, but in April again came to America, and resumed work in the mines for the West Virginia Central. In 1894 occurred the great industrial strike, and he then gave up mining for good. About that time he decided to marry the young woman of his choice and who had consented to travel life's highway with him. They were married at her old home at Keyser, and set up housekeeping in Bayard.

In 1894 Mr. Tamburini opened his first stock of mer- chandise, a stock of groceries in Bayard, and his splendid mercantile enterprise today is located on the very spot where he started in that year. From groceries his trade gradually expanded to general merchandising, including departments of millinery, furniture and building material, and his is the most popular place to supply the needs of merchandise in the little mining town.

Besides his work as a merchant Mr. Tamburiui helped organize the First Bayard National Bank, and has served as president of that prosperous institution from the be- ginning. He has declined public office, having no inelina- tion for politics beyond voting as a good citizen. He took out his first papers as a citizen at Keyser in 1887, and two years later received his final papers in the same court. He has been a democrat throughout his voting career. He was reared a Catholie, and is still in the same faith.

The date of his marriage was August 9, 1894. The name of his bride was Margaret Hughes. She was born in Min- eral County, West Virginia, about a year younger than her husband. Her father, Terence Hughes, was born in the town and county of Longford, Ireland, where he mar- ried Mary Kenny. They came to the United States during the administration of President Andrew Jackson, and after moving about the country several years settled at old Hamp- shire, West Virginia, where Mrs. Tamburini was born. Terence Hughes helped build the tunnels in the construc- tion of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, and in later life was a coal miner. He died about the elose of the Civil war and was buried in the cemetery at Frostburg, Maryland. His widow survived him until 1899, being about ninety- five years of age when she died. There were ten children in the Hughes family, the four survivors being: Mrs. Elizabeth Moore, of Washington, D. C .; James, of Western

Port, Maryland; Franeis Hughes, of Mount Savage, Mar land; and Mrs. Tamburini. Of the deceased children Pete the oldest, left two sons; Mary, who married Michael Mu phy, was survived by ten children; Mrs. Bridget Halp was survived by five children.

Mrs. Tamburini was educated in the public schools West Virginia, attended the Shenandoah Normal Scho and was a very popular and successful teacher for elev years. She was teaching when she met her husband at E Garden, Mineral County. Of the four children born to M and Mrs. Tamburini three survived. Mary Josephine, graduate of DeSalles Heights Academy at Parkersbur and who finished a normal course in the preparatory scho at Keyser, is a teacher in the Bayard schools. The so John is a graduate of DuQuesne University of Pittsburg and his brother Terence graduated from the same schod The sons are actively associated with their father's businc at Bayard.

JAMES O. SHINN is president of the Point Pleasant N tional Bank, at Point Pleasant, the judicial center of Masc County, an institution of which specifie record is given ( other pages of this work, so that further deseription is no demanded in the present article.

Mr. Shinn, known and valued as one of the influenti citizens and representative business men of Mason Count was born in this county, on the 19th of February, 185 His father, George W. Shinn, was born in Harrison Count Virginia (now West Virginia), and was a representativ of the family in whose honor the Town of Shinnston, the county, was named. About 1830 he accompanied his pa ents on their removal to what is now Mason County, when the parents passed the remainder of their lives, the fathe Samuel Shinn, having developed one of the excellent farn of the locality and period and having been somewhat pa! the age of eighty years at the time of his death. As young man George W. Shinn married Miss Elizabeth Ston of Jackson County, and he became an extensive farmer i Ripley District, that county, where he owned a landed es tate of about 1,000 acres. He was a republican in politic and on the tieket of his party was elected a representativ of Jackson County in the Lower House of the State Legi! lature, in which he served three terms. Ile was for eigh een years a member of the County Court of Jackson County an organization made up of three commissioners, who so lect one of their number as presiding judge, this honorable preferment having come to Mr. Shinn. He was one of th leading citizens of Jackson County at the time of his death when sixty-three years of age, and his widow passed away at the venerable age of eighty-five years, she having re tained splendid mental and physical powers and havin frequently ridden horseback after she was eighty years old Both were earnest members of the United Brethren Church and their pleasant and hospitable home was ever open t extend welcome and entertainment to the clergymen of th church. Their five sons and one daughter all survived th loved mother: Frederick is a prosperous farmer in Jack son County; Mrs. Permelia Randles likewise remains i Jackson County; James O., immediate subject of this re view, was the next in order of birth; Reuben P. resides a Ripley, Jackson County, where he is president of the Firs National Bank and he is, in 1922, a member of the Stat Senate; Jolin A. and Nathan N. are associated in the own ership and operations of a fine farm estate of 1,300 aerc in Jackson County, including the old homestead of the par ents.

James O. Shinn was reared on the home farm in Jackson County and received the advantages of the schools of the period. He served one term as sheriff of that county, and in this capacity conducted in 1897 the last public execu tion in the state, his earnest efforts having been the princi pal influence in causing the laws of the state to be so changed that all criminals sentenced to death are executed at the state penitentiary. In 1908 Mr. Shinn was elected to represent the Fourth District in the State Senate, his constituent senatorial district comprising Roane, Jackson and Mason counties. In the Senate he was assigned to various important committees, including that on agricul

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HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

re, of which he was made chairman. Through his ef- ctive championship was effected a valuable amendment the seed law of the state, greatly to the advantage of friculturists, and he obtained also a change in the city arter of Point Pleasant, by which the power to license loons was transferred from the jurisdiction of the city uncil to that of the County Court, the result being the imination of the saloon business at Point Pleasant. In is connection an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court 'the state, which upheld the law as enacted, Point Pleas- it having thus become a prohibition town prior to the en- tment of the national prohibition laws. Mr. Shinn made spirited campaign in Mason County in favor of submit- ng the prohibition amendment to the voters of the state, id the county gave a strong support to the movement. As member of the Senate he was active in the deliberations the floor of the Upper House and in those of the vari- s committees to which he was assigned. As a speaker took an active part in the attempts to effect an organi- tion of the Senate at the memorable time when its mem- rship was so equally divided between republicans and mocrats as to defeat such organization for a consider- le period, the conflict between the opposing forces being ch that fifteen republican members of the Senate went Cincinnati, Ohio, and there passed several days. Sena- r Shinn opposed this action of the colleagues, and at st refused to leave the capital city, but he finally con- nted to accompany the republican members of the Senate Cincinnati, though he felt at the time that the move as wrong, both politically. and as a matter of justice to s constituents. He participated in the deliberations in e Ohio city and finally determined to return alone to the est Virginia capital if necessary, but the other senators ally yielded to his counsel and returned to Charleston, here was effected with the opposition a compromise that sulted in an excellent organization of the legislative body id also in much wise and constructive legislation in the suing session.

Mr. Shinn has maintained his residence in Mason County nce 1910, is the owner of a valuable farm property of 0 acres adjoining the city limits of Point Pleasant, and giving special attention to the breeding and raising of ttle of superior types, his farm having an average herd 150 head of fine cattle. While still a resident of Jack- a County Mr. Shinn was president of the Valley Bank Ripley, an institution later reorganized as the First Na- nal Bank, his brother R. P. having succeeded him in the esideney. Of his becoming president of the Point Pleas- t National Bank due record is given in the sketch of e history of that bank elsewhere in this publication. He s proved a most careful and conscientious bank executive, th a fine sense of personal and official stewardship and th full appreciation of the responsibilities involved. On 3 farm he has a fine rural home, and this attractive resi- nee, with its beautiful grounds, he purposes ultimately endow as a home for orphan children. He continued a der in the local councils of the republican party, has fen affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows · virtually a quarter of a century, is a past noble grand the same and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge of e state. He places high estimate upon the work and serv- of the various religious bodies, and is liberal in his pport of the churches of his home city, where his wife is active member of the United Brethren Church.

The maiden name of Mrs. Shinn was Mary Krebbs, and was born and reared in Mason County, where her father, t: late Charles Krebbs, was a successful farmer. Mr. and A.s. Shinn have no children, but in their home they have Fred six children and given to each of them excellent edu- cional advantages. Cora, Clara and May Krebbs and rry Carter have now departed from the home of the ter parents, but Adam Krebhs still remains with Mr. a1 Mrs. Shinn at the time of this writing, in the spring 0 1922.

WILLIAM J. WALDIE is one of the progressive business na of Point Pleasant, county seat of Mason County, vere he is president of the Point Pleasant Lumber Com-

pany, a corporation that was formed in 1921 and that bases its operations on a capital stock of $50,000. In addi- tion to being president of the company Mr. Waldie is also its treasurer and general manager, E. H. Woelffel being vice president and M. G. Tyler, the secretary of the cor- poration. The large and well equipped retail yard of the company at Point Pleasant has already built up a most substantial and prosperous retail trade in the handling of lumber and general lines of building materials.

Mr. Waldie was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in 1865, his father having been engaged in the meat-mar- ket business at Carnegie, that county. Mr. Waldie early gained practical experience in connection with lumber pro- duction, and as a youth was employed in the lumber woods and yards of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Oregon. IIe finally became a lumber salesman and later engaged in the retail lumber trade in his old home city of Carnegie. In 1907, at the height of the oil boom in Hancock County, West Virginia, he engaged in the lumber business at Hol- lidays Cove, that county. Later he went to the State of Oregon, where he had charge of lumber yards operated by the Stanley-Smith Lumber Company, in the employ of which corporation he continued five years. In the ensuing two years he built up a fine trade for the retail lumber yards of which he had charge at Norwalk, Ohio, and he next went to Houghton, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where he was placed in charge of the retail department of a lead- ing lumber concern, besides having general supervision of logging operations, with a force of 100 men. His service in this connection continued three years. In the course of twenty-five years he had made not infrequent visits to friends in West Virginia, and the impression he thus gained of the advantages and attractions of this state finally led him to establish his home at Point Pleasant and to organize the lumber company of which he is now the president and the business of which, under his vigorous management, has grown to substantial volume, with con- stantly cumulative tendencies. The yards of the company are situated in the north part of the city, above high-water mark on the river and thus immune from flood damage. Mr. Waldie is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife are active members of the Methodist Church at Point Pleasant, which he is serving as a stew- ard and as teacher of the men's class in the Sunday school. He is an enthusiast in hunting and fishing, and while re- siding in Northern Michigan was a member of the Hough- ton Gun Club. He has many fine trophies acquired in his hunting expeditions, including deer heads handsomely mounted, and he has made many interesting hunting trips, in Michigan and other states, in his vacation periods, the while he is deeply concerned in game protection and preser- vation and the proper enforcement of game laws.

Mr. Waldie married Miss Elizabeth Dawson, of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and they have three children: Thomas is associated actively with the lumber company of which his father is president. He was identified with the Govern- ment ship-building activities at Portland, Oregon, and after the close of the war he was identified with business inter- ests at Hood River, that state, until about the opening of the year 1922, when he came to Point Pleasant and became associated with his father's lumber business. Stanley en- tered the nation's service, from Michigan in connection with the World war, and was assigned to the Motor Trans- port Corps. Jean, the only daughter, is the wife of Jamie Miller, of Norwalk, Ohio.

JAMES HENRY FELTON, who resides at Belington, Barbour County, was born and reared in this county and is a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of this section of West Virginia. He was born September 30, 1859, on the old homestead farm in Philippi District, this county, five miles northeast of Philippi, in the beautiful valley of the Tygart River. His father, Daniel Felton, was born in Frederick County, Maryland, Jannary 19, 1807, and in 1814 the family home was established in what is now Preston County, West Virginia, where his father, John Fel- ton, became a pioneer farmer on the Cheat River, near Kingwood. Of John Felton further mention is made in

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the personal sketch of another grandson, Capt. John C. Felton, on other pages of this volume. Daniel Felton was reared under the conditions and influences of frontier life in the western part of the Old Dominion State, and in Barbour County was solemnized his marriage to Lucinda England, a daughter of John England, who was reared in Belington Distriet and who, as a loyal supporter of the Union, was a member of the Home Guard during the Civil war. Daniel Felton became one of the substantial farmers and honored and influential citizens of Barbour County, and remained on his old homestead farm until his death, on the 24th of September, 1894. His widow, who was born in September, 1837, is still living (1922) and is eighty-four years of age at the time of this writing. Of their children James H., of this review, is the first born; Samuel D. is a farmer near Arden, this county; Sarah A. is the wife of J. E. Moore, a farmer in that locality; and Mary Ellen is the wife of Israel P. Fry, their home being in the State of Pennsylvania.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 146

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