History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 176

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Thomas Judson McBee the youngest of the family, passed his earlier years on his father's farm near Halleck, West Virginia. He attended public school there, was a student in the University of West Virginia during 1900-01, and in 1905 received his M. D. degree from the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons at Baltimore. Following this his hospital experience was in the Mercy Hospital at Baltimore, and from 1906 to 1911 he practiced his profession at Elkins. For the past ten years his home and professional headquarters have been at Morgantown.

At the time America joined the allies in the war against Germany Doctor MeBee was appointed by the Governor as medical member of the Monongalia County Draft Board. He resigned in August, 1917, to become a casual officer in the Medical Corps of the Army, and was soon assigned to the British Royal Army Medical Corps. With the British he saw service in England, Ireland and Italy, and later was recalled to the American Army and assigned to the New York Post-Graduate Unit at Base Hospital No. 8 at Savenay, France. One incident of his service was super- vising as medical officer the transport of a shipload of wounded soldiers back to the United States. He received his honorable discharge at Camp Dix on March 6, 1919, and at once returned to Morgantown and resumed his profes- sional work.

Doctor McBee is a member of the County, State and Amer- ican Medical Associations. He is a past commander of Gen- eral Daniel Morgan Post No. 548 Veterans of Foreign Wars, department surgeon of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of West Virginia, and is affiliated with Morgantown Union

Lodge No. 4, A. F. and A. M., and Morgantown Lodge No. 411, B. P. O. E. He is a member of the Kiwanis Club. His career as a professional man and as a medical officer in the World war is highly creditable to the MeBee family, which is one of the oldest and most honored in Monon- galia County.

GUY HERMAN BURNSIDE. The legal profession in Harri- son County finds one of its able and successful representa- tives in the native son whose name initiates this para- graph, Mr. Burnside having been born at Good Hope, this county, October 3, 1885, and being now well estab- lished in the practice of his profession at Clarksburg, the county seat. He is a son of William Calvin Burnside and Ada Melcena (Post) Burnside.

William C. Burnside was born in Lewis County, this state, March 8, 1861, and was a resident of Clarksburg, Harrison County, at the time of his death, April 8, 1919. He was a son of John S. and Jemima (Yerky) Burnside, the names of the other children of the family being as follows: Jacob Patterson, Mary R., John G., Robert B., Stephen M., Elizabeth A. and George W. John S. Burnside was a son of Robert and Rebecca (Bennett) Burnside, the former of whom was a son of John Burnside, who was twenty-one years of age when he left his native Ireland, came to the United States and established his home in the neighborhood of Good Hope, in what is now Harri- son County, West Virginia, where he passed the remainder of his life.

After having profited by the curriculum of the public schools William Calvin Burnside continued his studies in the State Normal School at Fairmont. In 1881 he began teaching in the schools of his native county, and he con- tinued his effective pedagogie service three years. From 1884 to 1888 he was manager of a general store at Good Hope, and he then became associated with his father-in-law, Isaac L. Post, in organizing the Economy Stone Company. They continued the business successfully until 1895, when they sold the property and business. Thereafter Mr. Burnside owned and operated a flour mill at West Milford for six years. In 1897 he became a traveling salesman, and in 1903 he removed with his family to Clarksburg. Here he was engaged in the mercantile business from 1906 to 1908, and later he continued his services as a successful traveling salesman for several years. He con- tinued his residence at Clarksburg until the time of his death, and was a man who commanded unqualified popular esteem and confidence.

On the 14th of September, 1884, William C. Burnside wedded Miss Ada Melcena Post, who still maintains her home at Clarksburg. She was born in Harrison County, on the 3d of April, 1865. Mr. and Mrs. Burnside became the parents of eight children, namely: Guy Herman, Enoch Ray, Roy Zelot, Howard Thaddeus, Martha Rachel, John Isaac, Celia Elizabeth and William Calvin, Jr.

Guy H. Burnside was graduated in the West Virginia State Normal School at Fairmont on the 13th of June, 1906, and thereafter was for two years associated with his father in the retail grocery business. In the autumn of 1908 he entered the University of West Virginia, where he took an academic course of one year and where he thereafter continued his studies in. the law department until his graduation, June 13, 1911, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Thereafter he held an executive posi- tion in the title department of the United Fuel & Gas Company at Charleston until October, 1913. On the 1st of January, 1914, he opened an office at Clarksburg, where he has since continued in the successful practice of his pro- fession, besides having developed a prosperous real-estate business, in which connection he is now vice president of the Stealey Realty Company.

Mr. Burnside has taken loyal interest in political affairs and has served as a member of the Republican Executive Committee of Harrison County. He has received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite of the Masonic fraternity, and is a knight commander of the Court of Honor, besides being affiliated with the Mystic Shrine. He

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is also a member of the Delta Tau Delta college fra- ternity. He and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

December 28, 1911, recorded the marriage of Mr. Burnside and Miss Ada Stealey, daughter of Andrew L. and Emma Jane (Baltzley) Stealey, of Harrison County. Mr. and Mrs. Burnside have a winsome little daughter, Emma Jane.

HERMAN GUY KUMP. The practice of the law has been the field in which Herman Guy Kump has made a dis- tinguished career at the city of Elkins. He is one of the prominent younger men at the West Virginia bar, was an officer in the War Department during the World war, is the present mayor of Elkins, and is a member of an old and prominent family in the eastern section of the state.

He was born at Capon Springs, Hampshire County, Octo- ber 31, 1877. His great-grandfather, Henry Kump, was a native of Pennsylvania of Holland-Dutch ancestry, served as a Virginia soldier in some of the early Colonial wars and was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. And was a pioneer settler in Hampshire County. His son, Jacob Kump, was born in Hampshire County and married Julia Milslagle. Benjamin Franklin Kump, father of the Elkins lawyer, was born in Hampshire County in 1841, served as a confederate soldier in Company K of the Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry, was a life-long democrat in politics and lived in close com- munion with the Presbyterian Church. He died in 1915, having spent his active years on the farm. He married Frances Rudolph, who was born in Hampshire County in 1841, the same year as her husband, and is still living. Her parents, Sylvester and Nancy (Clutter) Rudolph, were also natives of Hampshire County. Nancy Clutter's mother was a Miss Dewing, of a prominent Virginia family of Revolutionary stock. The four children of Benjamin F. Kump and wife were: Garnett Kerr.Kump, a lawyer and state senator, a leader in educational and good roads legis- lation, a resident of Romney; Herman Guy; Volunta, Mrs. E. V. Miller, of Petersburg, West Virginia; and Otelia, deceased wife of John Philip Harness.

Herman Guy Kump spent his carly life on the farm in Hampshire County, attended the common schools there, and subsequently entered the University of Virginia, where he completed his law course and graduated LL. B. in 1905. Mr. Kump has been in active practice at Elkins since graduation, and had made a successful record as a lawyer before he entered politics. He was elected as democratic candidate in 1908 prosecuting attorney of Randolph County. He was again elected to the same office in 1912. Mr. Kump was elected mayor of Elkins for a term of two years in March, 1921, and as mayor he has given that city a tho- roughly progressive, business-like and economical admin- istration of its affairs. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Is a past president of the Rotary Club, is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Elks, is a member of the American Legion, and attends the Presbyterian Church.

He volunteered for service in the World war in June, 1918, and received a commission as captain and was assigned to duty with the Ordnance Department at Washington, con- tinuing there until after the signing of the armistice. Mr. Kump married in 1907 Miss Edna Scott, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Scott, of Elkins. They have a family of six children, as follows: Cyrus Scott, Frances Irvine, Margaret Rudolph, Elizabeth Logan, Mary Gamble and Benjamin Franklin.

CLARENCE B. PIFER is mayor of Parsons and one of the most active of the business men and citizens of that River City. He is a man of good education, was a teacher until he entered merchandising, and possesses the qualifications that give the individual an opportunity for influence and service in a community.

He was born in Clover District of Tucker County, Oeto- ber 12, 1879. His grandfather, Andrew Pifer, was a farmer in the same district, and owned a large body of land there. His interests were rather closely confined to his farm and his immediate community. He was a republican and a Methodist. By his first marriage his children were: Frank;

D. S .; Caroline, who married Thomas Miller; Nettie, who married James Bolyard; and Mrs. John Carrico. His sec- ond wife was Elizabeth James and she was the mother of Lewis King Pifer; John Wesley Pifer; Keturah, who died at Parsons, the wife of Robert Murphy; and Spencer.

Lewis King Pifer, father of the Parsons mayor, was born in Tucker County, and devoted his active lifetime to the farm. He had a country school education, and he voted as a republican and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He died in May, 1895, when about fifty years of age. He married in Preston County Miss Belle Bishop, who lives at Parsons and is now Mrs. Belle McCoy. She was a daughter of Mack Bishop, a merchant of Fellowsville, Preston County, and member of a well known family in that section. Lewis K. Pifer and wife reared only two children: Clarence Bishop and Pearl, the latter of whom died as the wife of Porter Bennett at Tan- ner, West Virginia.

Clarence B. Pifer received a common schools education in Barbour County. At the age of seventeen he taught his first term of school, and he was active in the profession for a period of ten years, his last work being done as principal of the Parsons school at the age of twenty-seven. While teaching he carried on the highest studies of the West Virginia University at Morgantown for two years. After resigning as principal of the schools he engaged in the clothing business at Parsons, and conducts one of the leading stores in the county seat.

He has always been a republican in politics. He was elected mayor in April, 1920, and re-elected in April, 1922. He entered the office as successor to M. B. West. During his administration he cleared up the indebtedness left by the former administration, and his service has been one of general satisfaction to all good citizens. During the World war period he was a Four Minute Speaker in behalf of the Liberty Bond and Stamp sales and other auxiliary work. Mr. "Pifer is president of the Business Men's Club of Parsons, known as the River City Club. He has twice served as chancellor of the Parsons Lodge of Knights of Pythias and has sat in the Grand Lodge.

At Basic City, Virginia, September 10, 1914, Mr. Pifer married Miss Mildred Weaver, who was born at Madison Court House, Virginia, in 1891, daughter of E. D. and Bessie (Jones) Weaver. She finished her education in Powhatan College at Charles Town, and was a teacher in the schools at Parsons when she met her husband. Mr. aud Mrs. Pifer have three children, Lewis Weaver, Melba and Robert Theodore.

LEWIS H. PERRY. The oldest industry of the town of Parsons, established when there was practically nothing to distinguish the site from the surrounding region, is the Parsons Tannery, now operated as the J. K. Mosser Company and owned by the Armour interests. It is one of the largest and best equipped plants of the kind in West Virginia.

The founder of the business was Thomas B. Gould, a man of prominence in the public affairs of West Virginia and of extensive business connections. It was located in 1893, the plant being moved here from Milton, Northumber- land County, Pennsylvania. The first side of leather was turned out at the new location in July, 1894, by the present superintendent, Lewis H. Perry, who came here from Milton, Pennsylvania, and who has been in charge of the industry at Parsons for nearly thirty years. There has never been a real interruption to the continued operation of this in- dustry. Mr. Perry had been with the same plant at Milton for nearly ten years. before coming to Parsons, and when he closed the plant at Parsons temporarily at the end of the season in July, 1922, he will have spent almost forty years of his life as a tanner.

The Parsons plant has a capacity of 1,500,000 pounds of finished leather every thirteen weeks. The product is heavy oak sole leather. The run every day is 700 sides, and in the course of a year an enormous aggregate of steer hides are utilized. The raw material comes from the meat packers of the West and from the packing plants of South Amer- ica as well. In point of mechanical facilities this is one of

Will a. Quimby In P.

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the most modern tanneries in operation today. It is electrically equipped throughout, the entire plant having been remodeled during 1921.

Mr. Lewis H. Perry, the superintendent, was born in Chemung County, New York, February 5, 1860. His grand- father was also a tanner and died in the vicinity of Wirts- boro, New York. Simeon Perry, father of Lewis, was born in Connecticut, where he spent his youth and early man- hood, learned the trade of mason, and from Connecticut removed to Sullivan County, New York. He lived at Monti- cello in that county, and died there in 1866, when about forty-two years of age. He married Delila Gray, of Sullivan County, daughter of David Gray, a farmer in the Monticello community. Mrs. Simeon Perry died in 1904 at Elmira, New York, as Mrs. Lane. The children by her first mar- riage were six in number: Caroline, who married Nathan Brown and died at Corning, New York; Miss Lydia, deceased; Ida, wife of Jesse A. Mitchell, of Horseheads, New York; David K., of Elmira, New York; Lewis Horn- beck; and Edward F., of Elmira. The only one of these to have children of their own is Lewis H. Perry.

Lewis H. Perry grew to manhood in Chemung County, New York, and remained there until the age of twenty- three, when he moved to Pennsylvania. He acquired a com- mon school education. He became a foreman in the Milton Tannery at Milton, Pennsylvania, and joined that industry in 1889, about the time of the great Johnstown flood. Mr. Perry had the practical supervision of the removal and in- stallation of the machinery at the new plant at Parsons. He saw the site when it was a cornfield, and when there was not a wagon bridge in all of Tucker County. The entire delta on which the plant is built was then almost a sea of mud, and there was only one store in Parsons proper. He was here when the records of the county were removed from St. George to Parsons. When he brought his wife to this community one of his first acts in order to enable her to get around was to purchase a pair of gum boots.

Mr. Perry has performed a great service to Parsons as superintendent of the town's oldest industry, but has worked with other citizens in promoting matters connected with the general welfare. He has served on the city council, has been secretary of Parsons Lodge No. 39, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is a past master of Pythagoras Lodge No. 128, A. F. and A. M., and is a director of the Tucker County Bank. He has also been active in repub- lican politics. His first vote in West Virginia was cast for Gordon Dayton, candidate for Congress, in 1894. He has served on the Republican County Committee at various times and is still a member. He has attended senatorial and state conventions, and he cast his first vote for president in 1884, for James G. Blaine, while at Elmira, New York.

At Horseheads, New York, August 29, 1882, Mr. Perry married Josephine Chandler, who was born at Chester, New York, December 8, 1859, youngest of the six daughters of John Chandler and wife. She has four surviving sisters: Mrs. Helen Stanard, of Newark Valley, New York; Mrs. Sarah R. Jenkins, of Elmira; Mrs. Francelia Phelps, of Millport, New York; and Mrs. Harriet E. Farr, of Parsons.

The only child born to Mr. and Mrs. Perry was a son, Maurice M., born May 25, 1887, at Breesport, New York. He was educated at Parsons and at Keyser, was deputy county clerk of Tucker County, bookkeeper in the office of the tannery and finally assistant to his father. He died of the influenza October 22, 1918. His wife was Georgie V. Kee, and he is survived by a son, Lewis Philipp.

During the World war the Parsons tannery was operated by Mr. Perry at its full capacity, the Government taking all the products. Besides keeping the industry going he was associated with other patriotic citizens in promoting the success of the various loan drives and other campaigns.

DAVID WALLACE THURSTON, editor and publisher of the Parsons Advocate at Parsons, judicial center of Tucker County, was born at Waverly, New York, March 12, 1885, and was eight years of age at the time of the family removal to West Virginia, where the home was shortly afterward established at Parsons, he having here profited fully by the advantages afforded in the public schools, in-

cluding the high school. In his school vacations Mr. Thurs- ton gained his initial experience in the "art preservative of all arts" hy service in the office of the Mountain State Patriot. Later he was employed as a compositor and gen- eral workman in the office of the Mountain State Patriot, and in September, 1907, he became identified with the paper of which he is now editor and publisher. On the 1st of July, 1913, he leased the plant and business of the Parsons Advocate, and under this lease he continued the publication until November, 1919, when he became owner of the prop- erty. The Advocate was founded in 1896 by A. A. Dorsey, who in 1907 sold it to the Cheat Valley Publishing Com- pany, from which Mr. Thurston acquired it in 1919, as above noted. The paper has continuously been an influential local advocate of the principles and policies of the repub- lican party, and under the present control is an specially effective exponent of local and community interests, with an excellent corps of correspondents throughout Tucker County, of which county it is the official paper. The ex- cellence of the paper as a news vehicle and as a director of popular thought and action is shown in the fact that its circulation has been extended largely outside the limits of Tucker County. Mr. Thurston is secretary of the Republican Central Committee of Tucker County and chairman of the Parsons City Committee of the party. He has been influ- ential in the local councils and campaign activities of the "Grand Old Party," and cast his first presidential vote for Col. Theodore Roosevelt, in 1904.

Mr. Thurston is a stockholder in the Philippi Blanket Mill, the Dr. O. A. Miller Chemical Company, and with the local company engaged in development work in the oil and gas fields of Oklahoma. He has passed the official chairs in the Parsons Council of the Junior Order United American Mechanics, and in their home city he and his wife are active and valued members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Mrs. Thurston having charge of the cradle work of its Sunday school.

April 27, 1912, recorded the marriage of Mr. Thurston and Miss Vesta S. Kryder, who was born at Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, the fourth in order of birth of the nine children of Amos and Blanche (Moran) Kryder, who came to West Virginia when Mrs. Thurston was a child, she hav- ing been educated in the schools of Davis and Parsons, this state. Mr. and Mrs. Thurston became the parents of three daughters, Gladys and Grace, twins, the former of whom died March 26, 1920, and Lila Pet.

Mr. Thurston is a son of Daniel Wallace Thurston and Clarissa L. (Wiggins) Thurston, whose marriage was solemnized at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Daniel W. Thurston, who died at Parsons, West Virginia, November 18, 1920, at the age of seventy-nine years, was born and reared in the State of New York and represented the same as a gallant young soldier of the Union in the Civil war, he having been a member of Company I, One Hundred and Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry, which was assigned to the Army of the Potomac, and with which he served until the close of the war. He took part in many engagements, including the battles of Petersburg and Antietam, and having been once wounded in the hip. He was one of the honored comrades of the post of the Grand Army of the Republic at Parsons at the time of his death. His widow, aged seventy-one years (1922), still resides at Parsons. She is a native of New York State, a daughter of the late John Wiggins. Alta R., eldest of the children, is the wife of E. D. Shuck, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; LaPette LaFay is a valued assistant of her brother in the office of the Parsons Advocate, and this brother, the only son, is the immediate subject of this review.

WILL A. QUIMBY, M. D. A Wheeling physician, Doctor Quimby after several years of general practice specialized in X-Ray and Radium work, and through his. broad study and specialization of tho technical facilities on which he has concentrated has made his specialty an invaluable serv- ice to the public and to the medical and surgical profes- sion of Wheeling.

Doctor Quimby is a native of Wheeling, where he was born August 19, 1881. His father, Charles H. Quimby,

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was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1838, was reared in Massachusetts and Maine. In 1862 he moved to Marietta, Ohio, and in 1865 located at Wheeling. He was a tanner by trade, and continued to follow that work for some time after coming to Wheeling. He then engaged in the news- paper and stationery business, and was an active merchant of Wheeling until he retired in April, 1920. He is now living at Bridgeport, Ohio. He is a republican, and for many years has been a faithful member of the Baptist Church. He first married in Peabody, Massachusetts, but the two children of that union died in infancy. After coming to Wheeling he married Sarah Baker, who was born at Captine, Ohio, in 1841, and died at Blaine, that state, in 1905. To that marriage were born six children: A. Judson, an X-Ray specialist in New York City; Charles H., Jr., a civil engineer at Washington, D. C .; Miss Jennie C., a graduate nurse and superintendent of the Maternity Hospital at Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Will A .; Mary D., wife of Milton Kennedy, a contractor at Bridgeport, Ohio; and John C., a teacher of agriculture in the State Normal School at Dillon, Montana.

Will A. Quimby acquired his early education in the pub- lic schools of Blaine, Ohio. He graduated from Linsly Institute at Wheeling in 1903, attended the West Virginia State University, and subsequently entered Starling-Ohio Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, where he was gradu- ated M. D. in 1908. One year he spent as interne in the Miami Valley Hospital at Dayton, and also did some gen- cral practice there. Doctor Quimby has been a member of the medical profession at Wheeling since 1909. He was the first physician in Ohio County to use radium in the treatment of certain cases, and his work is practically con- fined to X-Ray and Radium practice, for which he has an equipment probably not excelled in any other city in the Ohio Valley. His offices are in the Wheeling Steel Corporation Building. Doctor Quimby is a member of the Ohio County, West Virginia State and the American Medical Associations, the American Roentgen Ray Society, the Radiological Society of North America, and is secre- tary and treasurer of the Curie Radium Society, Inc., of Wheeling.

In politics he is a republican, is a member of the Metho- dist Church. is affiliated with Bridgeport Lodge No. 181, F. and A. M., Wheeling Consistory of the Scottish Rite, Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and is a member of Fort Henry Club. His residence is at Lenox, Wheeling.

Doctor Quimby married at Bridgeport, Ohio, in 1913, Mrs. Helen Dunlevy Sprott, daughter of Major Seymonr and Emma (Rhodes) Dunlevy, both of whom died at Bridgeport.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 176

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