History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 159

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November 7, 1904, recorded the marriage of Mr. Baldwin d Miss Eleanor Lawrence, of Baltimore, aud they have ur children, three sons and one daughter.

WILLIAM REYNOLDS THACHER. An educator with a mis- on and with high ideals and ideas as to the sort of "vice the schools and their teachers ought to render the uth of a modern community is the superintendent of hools at Davis. Mr. Thacher's personal education is the oduct of some of the best schools and universities in the id, but more important than his formal scholarship are e energy and resourcefulness he brings to bear in ndling all the problems connected with teaching and hool administration.

Mr. Thacher was born at Williamsburg, Greenbrier unty, West Virginia, October 3, 1885. His father was prominent physician, Dr. Charles A. Thacher. He was rn at Poughkeepsie, New York, was one of the early aduates of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadel- ia, and served as a Federal surgeon in the Civil war, ing with General Meade's troops at Gettysburg. He acticed for a long period of years in Greenbrier County, est Virginia, and died at his home in Williamsburg in 93, at the age of eighty-four. He was honored with : office of state senator from Greenbrier County in 1867, presenting the Ninth Senatorial District. He was a re- blican and a Methodist. Doctor Thacher was three times rried. His first wife was a Miss Wilson, and the sur- ing children of that union are Mrs. Luch W. Upham, St. Petersburg, Florida; Mrs. Mattie Hovey, of the ne city, whose husband was at one time member of the ulty of the old college at St. Albans, West Virginia, 1 Mrs. Mary McClintic, of Ohio. W. R. Thacher, of vis, is the only child of his father's third marriage.

His mother, still living at St. Petersburg, Florida, bore the maiden name of Sarah C. Lovern. She was born in Floyd County, Virginia, and her father, William Lovern, was a Uuion soldier in the Civil war.

William R. Thacher lived on his father's farm near Wil- liamsburg, and attended the village schools there and did his preparatory work in Morgantown. This was followed by the regular university course and he graduated A. B. in 1911. He was a member of the Columbia Literary Society at Morgantown.

Before completing his university course Mr. Thacher began teaching in the schools of his native town in 1909. After graduation he was principal of the Belington High School one year, was teacher of science in the Moundsville High School a year and for two years had charge of the department of history in the high school at Benwood. After these four years as a teacher he entered the Univer- sity of Chicago, where he pursued postgraduate work, re- ceiving the Master of Arts degree in 1916. He then taught history in Marshall College at Huntington, but resigned to take another year of postgraduate study in history and social science at the University of Chicago, where he had a library fellowship. Supplementing his work at the Uni- versity of Chicago, he did considerable research work in the history of West Virginia, and one of the theses he presented as a test of his scholarship was on the Pierpont Government of Virginia, treating the provisional govern- ment of the western counties before the organization of the new State of West Virginia.

On leaving Chicago Mr. Thacher became principal of the high school at Paxton, Illinois, but a year later re- turned to West Virginia and has since been superintendent of schools at Davis. Since coming here he has done much to modernize and stimulate interest in the general school work, and has introduced such subjects as vocational guid- ance, sanitation, chemistry, botany, and has emphasized project work rather than the formal teaching from text- books. Another popular feature he has introduced has been a lyceum project. The teaching force of the Davis public schools are twenty in number, including one colored teacher.

In the work of teachers meetings and educational asso- ciations Mr. Thacher has always taken an active part, and is a member of the First Teachers Association organ- ized by a county in the state, that of Tucker County. He has also participated in some of the programs of the West Virginia State Teachers Association, and is a member of the National Educational Association.

During a portion of the World war and while at Paxton, Illinois, Mr. Thacher organized the boys working reserve and he also organized and drilled a company of high school boys, some of whom later were called into the regular service and found the preliminary training valuable to them. He was connected with and did much to inspire an interest in Virginia Red Cross work.

Mr. Thacher as a student of history and political science has studied political questions of the present day, and has aeted independently in politics. He is a member of the Methodist Church and interested in the Sunday School.

At Morgantown, June 24, 1913, he and Miss Mary Gray Knapp were married by Dr. Charles K. Jenness, now a prominent pastor of the City of Boston. Miss Knapp was born and reared in Greenbrier County, and is a graduate of the Fairmont Normal Sehool, did work in West Vir- ginia University and the University of Chicago, and for several years was a teacher. Her last work was done in the Davis High School. Mr. and Mrs. Thacher have one son, 'William Reynolds, Jr., born in Paxton, Illinois, No- vember 5, 1917.

JOHN RAESE. The town of Davis in Tucker County has been a center of lumber and timber, mining and tanning industries for nearly forty years. No one business man or citizen perhaps has had a closer connection with and par- ticipation in the varied life and affairs of the community than John Raese, the veteran merchant who has sold goods there longer than any of his present contemporaries. The record of his own activities and the witness he bears to

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that of others comprises an important chapter in the his- tory of the locality.

Mr. Raese was born at Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland, April 14, 1857. His father, also named John Raese, was born in Hesse Cassel, Germany, and came to the United States in 1851, settling at Frostburg, Mary- land. During the greater part of his active life he fol- lowed his trade as a carpenter, and was a very skilled and competent workman. However, for many years he lived on a farm. His last days were spent at Davis, in the home of his son John, but he died at Romney, West Virginia, with his daughter, Mrs. Louis Beckman, in May, 1903, when almost eighty-two years of age. He married in Ger- many, Ann Alizabeth Knease, and she died at the age of fifty-one. Their children were: Mary, who married Louis Beckman, of Romney, West Virginia; Louis, of Davis; John; Mrs. Sophia King, who died at Paw Paw, West Virginia; Kate, Mrs. Thomas Durst, of Hampshire County; and Lizzie, wife of L. D. Fowler, of Gormania, West Virginia.

Mr. John Raese for the first twelve years of his life lived in the town of Frostburg, and then for eleven years was in the country with his parents. He learned farming as his vocation, though he followed it very little after leaving home. He had only the advantages of the coun- try schools. On leaving Maryland he went to Pennsyl- vania, and being without capital he sought an opportunity to earn a living by manual labor. For a time he worked in a saw-mill near Myersdale, then became a team driver in the woods for the company, and subsequently bought the team and began in a small way as a contractor in the logging district of Pennsylvania. Afterward he did simi- lar work in Maryland, and this experience eventually brought him to West Virginia and to Tucker County.

In 1885 he arrived at Davis, when the townsite was covered with logs and stumps and standing timber. He helped to clean off and log and stump the site. Mr. Raese has some interesting memories of the pioneers whom he found active in the community at that time. One of them was Col. Bob Eastham, one of General Mosby's men. Gus Finely was agent of the railroad. F. S. Lanstreet when a young man was working at the station. Doctor J. W. Johnson was just beginning his career as a physician. Mr. W. E. Weimer accompanied Mr. Raese to Davis, and is one of the men who witnessed the pioneer efforts of the citizenship and is still among those who do things for Davis and Tucker County. There were also a few miners in the locality, a little mine having been opened just be- low Davis. A lumber mill was built soon after Mr. Raese came by a Mr. J. L. Romberger. For two or three years this mill confined its eut to wild cherry timber. The woods was then full of deer, and plenty of bear and other game abounded. Colonel Eastham spent some of his time enter- taining people from the city, furnishing them with wild meat and fine trout taken from the waters of the valley.

While Mr. Raese came here with teams and some other equipment for continuing his business as a contractor, and his first work was logging off the site for the tannery. He also did the town hauling, handled coal and feed, and moved people in and out of the locality. This was his regular work for about five years. In that way he accumu- lated a capital that started him in business as a merchant. His first store was on the same street where he is located today, but diagonally across from his business house. In his pioneer venture he was associated with C. W. Sutton, and their combined investment was hardly more than $2,000. A year later Mr. Raese bought out his partner and became sole owner. He improved his present store site in 1890, a year the first newspaper, the Davis City Times, was published, edited by J. P. Minear. On this site Mr. Raese has now been carrying on business success- fully for over thirty years.

In addition to merchandising and for limited periods he has been a farmer, has bought and sold properties and has developed local real estate, was one of the first stock- holders in the Peoples Bank of Davis and is still on its Board of Directors, and has twice been a member of the Town Council and one term was mayor. He was reared

a democrat, but has always voted as a republican. Both he and his wife are active members of the Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Raese being a charter member. He has served as an elder for many years.

At Cumberland, Maryland, December 8, 1886, Mr. Raese married Miss Minnie LaRue, a native of Allegany County, Maryland, and daughter of Henry and Rebecca (Chrisner) LaRue. Her father was born on the National Pike near Frostburg, of French ancestry. For many years he was a watchman with the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, and he served as a Union soldier until the close of the war. For a dozen years or more he has been a resident of Davis and is now past eighty. Mrs. Raese was born in Septem- ber, 1865, the oldest child of her parents, the others be- ing James H., John and Albert, of Davis, and Mrs. L. D. Thomas, of Elkins. Mrs. Raese acquired her early edu- cation in Hampshire County.

Mr. and Mrs. Raese have been married over thirty-five years, and they became the parents and reared a family of six sons and five daughters, and they also have eleven grandchildren at this writing. Their oldest child is Cleon W., associated with his father in merchandising. He gradu- ated from Davis and Elkins College. He had established himself in business at Davis before the World war, but had to sell it when he entered the army. He was on duty at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and later was commissioned second lieutenant of Light Artillery and was on duty at Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky, until dis- charged in November, 1918. The second child of the fam- ily is Lela, wife of C. M. Shannon, of Mount Jackson, Virginia. The second son, Curtis, also connected with his father's business, is an ex-service man, entering the Med- ical Department aud serving chiefly in the Base Hospital at Camp Sevier at Greenville, South Carolina. From there he was sent to the Yale Armory Laboratory School at New Haven, Connecticut, and finally to the Army Museum at Washington, where he was discharged in August, 1920. The other children of the family are: Mary, who married Edgar Bane, of Harmony, Pennsylvania; Reba, in her father's store; Virginia, wife of Harry Parsons, of Fay ette City, Pennsylvania; Elizabeth, Robert, Walter, Rich- ard and Firman.

CHARLES L. ESTEP retired from the bench of the Circuit Court for the Seventh Judicial District of West Virginia, January 1, 1921, and has since been engaged in the practice of law at Logan, judicial center of the county of the same name. He is one of the able and representative members of the bar of his native state and is eminently entitled to recognition in this history. He is one of the leading law. yers of this part of the state, and is a scion of sterling old Southern families, both of English lineage, his paternal ancestors having been early settlers in Kentucky and his, maternal ancestors having established themselves in Vir- ginia at an early period in the history of that fine old commonwealth.

Judge Estep was born at Hewett, Boone County, West Virginia, April 9, 1884, and in the same county were born his parents, Lewis and Louisa (Stollings) Estep, who now live in the state of Kentucky, whence they moved in 1905. Both are members of the Church of Christ, and the father is actively identified with farm and Jumbering enterprise. Judge Estep supplemented the discipline which he received in the schools of his native county by faithful private study of higher branches, and for six years he was a successfu' teacher in the rural schools of Boone County. In the mean. while he applied himself earnestly to the study of law, and thereafter he passed about two years in the law department of the University of West Virginia. He passed a specially successful examination and was admitted to the bar in 1908, in which same year he had the distinction of being elected prosecuting attorney of his native county. After retaining this office one term of four years he was made the democratic candidate for representative of the Eighth District (Boone, Logan and Kanawha counties) in the State Senate, his defest having been compassed by a fusion of the progressive and republican parties in support of his opponent in the election of 1912. Thereafter Judge Estep was established in the suc-

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ful practice of law in Boone County until the autumn 1918, when he was elected to the bench of the Cireuit rt of the Seventh Judicial cirenit, comprising Boone, yne and Logan counties. He made an excellent record his important judicial office, and upon the expiration of term he established himself in the practice of his profes- at Logan in January, 1921. He controls a large and ortant practice in Logan and Boone counties, and much is professional service is in connection with cases bronght re the Federal Courts. The Judge continues a leader in councils of the democratic party in this part of the e, he has received the thirty-second degree in the Seot- Rite of the Masonic fraternity, besides being a member he Mystic Shrine, and he is a member also of the Inde- lent Order of Odd Fellows, the Benevolent and Protective er of Elks and the Knights of Pythias. Both he and wife hold membership in the Baptist Church.

t Madison, Boone County, in 1910, Judge Estep wedded s Lettie Miller, danghter of Manderville and Aliee ker) Miller, of that county, where the father is a repre- ative farmer. Judge and Mrs. Estep have three chil- 1: Hazel, Loraine and Charles L., Jr.

EORGE. B. THOMPSON. Postmaster of Davis, Tucker nty, George B. Thompson only recently took up the es of this office, and for nearly thirty years previously been a leading figure in the lumber industry of which is was the center.

r. Thompson came to this region in 1893. He was 1 in Coos County, New Hampshire, at Berlin, August 870. He represents an old New England Colonial fam- This branch of the Thompsons came from England 1684, settling at Halifax, Massachusetts. The later endants moved to Maine. Samuel S. Thompson, of the braneli of the family, served as a soldier in the Revo- nary war. He left Maine after the war and moved New Hampshire, finishing his life at Berlin. He was great-grandfather of the Davis postmaster. The grand- er was Benjamin Thompson, lumberman and farmer, spent his life in the vicinity of Berlin. He married th Wheeler, of English ancestry, and they had a family even sons and one daughter, the only one now living g John Thompson, at Long Beach, California. Hiram Thompson, father of George B., was born at Berlin, · Hampshire, and died at the early age of twenty-six. married Aramautha Howard, daughter of George ard. Two children were born to their union, Mary, of A. N. Wetherbee, of Lyndon, Vermont, and George The mother of these children subsequently became the of R. W. Wetherbee and is now living at Lyndon, nont.

corge B. Thompson remained in his native town in · Hampshire until he was thirteen, when he aecom- ed his widowed mother to Lyndonville, Vermont. He uded the Lyndon Institute, a college preparatory ol, and subsequently completed a course in stenography commercial school at Boston. Soon after came the ortunity to identify himself with the lumber industry 'ucker County, West Virginia.

his opportunity grew out of the fact that he was the lew of A. Thompson, one of the pioneers in the timber ness of this section. A. Thompson was founder of the kwater Lumber Company in 1888, and was the builder he first large mill on the West Virginia Central and sburg Railways for the manufacture of spruce and hem- lumber. This mill at Davis was conducted by Mr. mpson under the name of the Blackwater Lumber Com- for twenty years. In February, 1907, all the inter- of the company and those of A. Thompson in the tim- and lumber interests of this section were sold to the cock Lumber Company. George B. Thompson had ed his unele's enterprise in 1893, beginning as tally and time-keeper, and subsequently was promoted to etary and treasurer. With the transfer of the inter- he was retained as general manager of the Babeock pany until 1918.

or several years after leaving the lumber industry Mr. mpson engaged in farming at Davis. Then, in Janu-

ary, 1922, he was appointed postmaster, succeeding W. E. Patterson. His assistant in the office is Miss Eva Wilhelm, who has the unusual distinction of having been elected a eity recorder. Mr. Thompson has always been more or less interested in polities, and the only break iu his allegianee as a republican came in 1912, when he followed Colonel Roosevelt's leadership in the progressive party. He was appointed postmaster at Davis by President Harding. He has been a member of the Common Council and the School Board, and in 1914 was elected to the House of Delegates. During the session of 1915 he served under Speaker John- son, and was a member of the committees on taxation and finance, mines and mining, roads, redistricting of the state, forestry and fish and game. Dne to his long practical con- nection with the lumber industry he had a teehnieal and general interest in forestry legislation, and the forestry service of the preservation of the timber resources of the state have become a sort of hobby with him. He seenred the passage of a bill making the game and fish commis- sioner ex-officio forestry commissioner to look after and prevent the destruction of forests by fire. As a member of the Finance Committee of the House he was in a posi- tion to aid the educational matters of the state through generous appropriations for their maintenance.

When Mr. Thompson first came to Davis he found a vil- lage in a wilderness of woods, a lumber camp with mills and great business activity, though the town had no streets, water system, sewers and few other improvements to make it a desirable place in which to live. In the thirty years he has lived here he has seen a billion feet of lumber shipped from this point, and has witnessed the destrue- tion of more than a hundred thousand acres of timber nearby.

In May, 1901, at Cumberland, Maryland, Mr. Thompson married Miss Elsie J. Pryor, daughter of Henry L. Pryor, of Perry County, Pennsylvania. Her father was a Union soldier in the Civil war and five of his descendants were represented in the World war. Mrs. Thompson was born at Blaine, Pennsylvania, and is one of a family of seven danghters and four sons, all still living. The five children of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are Avilda, Benjamin F., Albert J., Ruth E. and Paul E. The three youngest are students in the Davis schools. Benjamin is attending West Virginia University, and Avilda is assistant to her father in the Davis Post Offiee.

WILFORD E. WEIMER is one of the men who have been identified as active citizens and business men with the growth and prosperity of Davis in Tucker County from almost the beginning of its existence as a center of trade and population. While a busy man for upwards of forty years in the material affairs of the place, and still active therein, his name is especially well known in the politics and civic relations of the town and county.

Mr. Weimer was born in Allegany County, Maryland, February 11, 1864. His father, Perry Weimer, was a na- tive of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and he moved from there to Maryland and lived at or near Frostburg in that state until his death in 1912, at the age of seventy-six. In early life he was a tanner, and from 1870 until his death was engaged in the lumber business. He was a democrat, actively interested in several campaigns, and served as justice of the peace. He was a Lutheran by religious training, but for many years was a member of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, South. Perry Weimer married Catherine Zebaugh, whose father was a Swiss cheese maker, and on coming to this country settled near Grantsville, Maryland, and while erecting a cheese factory was acei- dentally killed. Mrs. Perry Weimer is now living at Cum- berland, Maryland, at the age of eighty-four. Her children were: Wilford Edgar; Charles H., who died at Elkins, West Virginia, leaving a family; Mrs. Anna Morris, of Elkins; Harvey T., of Morgantown; Ira J., deceased; Cora L., wife of George Payne, of Cumberland; Maggie M., wife of Lee Shaw, of Cumberland; and Catherine M., wife of Drape Wilcox, of Cumberland.

Wilford E. Weimer was born at Frostburg, but was reared on a farm near that town in Maryland. He acquired

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a country school education during short winter terms, and found plenty of work to do on his father's small farm. At the age of sixteen he went into the woods and the saw milling industry, acquiring his first experience in that line in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. His father being con- nected with the same employment, he readily acquired a knowledge and expert skill in saw-milling and the Inmber business, and from a common laborer was given responsi- bilities so that in the end he had a knowledge of nearly everything connected with logging and lumbering. On November 26, 1885, Mr. Weimer located at Davis in Theker County, and after a time he became a clerk in a store at Davis, spending about two years with the firm of Ash & Lashley, and another year with J. N. Oliver, and for eleven years was in the service of the Thompson-Wilson Company. On leaving that firm he returned to the timber business as a contractor, taking contracts for furnishing pulp wood, for logging and peeling tanbark. He also had facilities for heavy draying, and gradually got into business as a local dealer in coal, wood and ice, and still continues in that line. Since 1916 he had also been in the automobile and garage business. For a time he was local agent for the Ford car, and he now represents the Buick car and is sole owner of the Mountain City Garage.

When Mr. Weimer came to Davis there were only fifteen buildings on the present townsite, including the railroad building. The first year he and his party were here they lived in camp cars. The whole region was a cut-over tract, with hemlock and spruce stumps and logs covering the ground and forming an almost impassable barrier. Mr. Weimer helped organize and incorporate the town, was a member of the council two years and at different times for nine years was mayor. When he entered the council the village had a debt of $5,500. When he left the office of mayor the tax levy for city purposes was 25 cents on the hundred dollars instead of a dollar on the hun- dred, and the city treasury had a surplus of $2,300. That is a record of municipal administration that few towns can equal, and Mr. Weimer may take a justifiable pride in the accomplishment. Besides this fact of economical handling of the city resources the town had received minch sewer con- struction and a new bridge across Beaver Creek, and other improvements had been made and paid for.

Mr. Weimer has also been in county office, and while road development and improvement was getting started he had charge of the county roads for five years. When he began this work there was not a highway adopted for use of the automobile or automobile traffic. He built a number of dirt roads through the county, and continued his work until he became a member of the County Court. He was elected county commissioner in the fall of 1918 as the successor of Hayes Ashelman, and is now one of the seven members of the court. During the four years he has been in office nine miles of concrete road have been completed and other contracts have been let under the State and Federal aid arrangement. The streets on two sides of the Court House have been paved by the county, and a Court House clock installed.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 159

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