History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 178

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Samuel B. Wallace was born at Fairfield, Rockbridge County, Virginia, September 29, 1879, and until eighteen years of age lived there with his parents, John W. and Jennie (Tysinger) Wallace. He was educated in the pub- lie schools, attending the high school, after which for a time he was a clerk in a general store in his native town, subsequently finding a wider field for his energy and busi- ness enterprise as a traveling salesman for a Baltimore wholesale drug establishment, and still later in the same capacity was honorably connected with a Charleston whole- sale drug house.

In 1903 Mr. Wallace came from Charleston to Marlintou, and his interests have been centered here ever since. In June of that year he embarked in the retail drug business, to which he devoted close attention, and gradually, through business integrity and practical business methods, built up a prosperous trade, in the meanwhile taking advantage of a favorable opportunity for expanding into the wholesale line. The two departments were continued until 1910 as one business, but both were maintained until January 1, 1920, when the retail end of the business was entirely closed out, and since then Mr. Wallace has given his entire atten- tion to the wholesale business, in which he had earlier such excellent training and wide experience. In 1915 the busi- ness was incorporated as S. B. Wallace & Company, with a capitalization of $50,000. The company owns a fine brick

business home, gives employment to fourteen individuals, and has a trade territory that covers some eight counties in West Virginia and Virginia. This establishment and its volume of business would be creditable in a much larger place than Marlinton.

Ou April 30, 1902, Mr. Wallace married Miss Eleanor Virginia Bennick, of New Market, Shenandoah County, Vir- ginia. Mr. Wallace is a member of the Lutheran Church. He is active in good citizenship, is a member of the town council and president of the Pocahontas County Fair As- sociation, and during the World war was generous and helpful in advancing patriotic movements. He is a mem- ber of the Masonic fraternity.

SUMMERS HEDRICK SHARP. Pocahontas County has cit- izens of great worth, many of these being descendants of old pioneer settlers who did much in early days to substan- tially develop this section of West Virginia. A very early settler who left an impress because of his admirable traits of character, his industry, his reliability, his generous re- cognition of the rights of others and his devotion to church, family and friends, bore the name of John Sharp, and he was, undoubtedly, the first of his family to become au American citizen. Among his descendants is a distinguished citizen of Pocahontas County of today, no less a personage than Hon. Summers Hedrick Sharp, judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of West Virginia.

John Sharp, the great-great-grandfather of Judge Sharp, was a native of Ireland, but prior to the Revolutionary war he came to the American colonies with the tide of Scotch- Irish that spread throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other sections. He married Margaret Blaine and es- tablished a home in Rockingham County, Virginia. His rapidly increasing family led him to seek another house farther west, where land was cheaper, and thus in 1802 he came to what is now Frost in Pocahontas County, where he became a citizen whose sterling worth was appreciated and he survived into old age. His children are recorded as follows: John, Robert, Daniel, William, James, Joseph, Margaret, Anna, Isabella, Rosa, Elizabeth and Polly.

William Sharp, son of John Sharp, seems to have in- herited the sturdy qualities and admirable attributes that made him, like his father, a man of worth. He was nat- urally endowed with mental gifts, and was industrious, law-abiding and charitable. To his marriage with Margaret Nesbitt one son and two daughters were born: John, Mary Paulina and Eliza Jane. John Sharp remained with his parents until he established a home of his own. He mar- ried Elizabeth Slavin Wade, of Highland County, Virginia, and they had children as follows: Charles Osborne Wade, William Alexander Gilmer, John Benjamin Franklin, Aaron Uriah Bradford and Emma. All these children were born and reared near Frost and some of their descendants still reside there.

Charles Osborne Wade Sharp developed into a man cred- itable in every way to family training and tradition. From childhood he had been taught that the duties of an Ameri- can citizen meant veneration for the Almighty, just deal- ing with his fellow men, obedience to the laws of the land and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States. When friction developed between the North and the South in 1861 his convictions led him to become a soldier in the Federal Army, although many of his friends and neighbors saw duty differently and bad espoused the cause of the Confederacy. He had an honorable career as a soldier, and afterward re- tired to his farm and former occupations near Frost. In early manhood he married Miss Amanda Grimes and they became the parents of the following children: Hannibal Hamlin, Charles Hanson, David Franklin, George Winters, Summers Hedrick, Austin John, Trudie Montgomery, Isa Amanda and Esta Medora.

Summers Hedrick Sharp was born at Frost, West Vir- ginia, June 20, 1880, and spent his early years on the home farm. After completing the public school course he at- tended the normal school at Concord, and in 1907 graduated from Marshall College. In 1908 he entered the law school of the University of Michigan, at Aun Arbor, and in 1910

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graduated therefrom with his degree. In December, 1910, he was admitted to the bar and at once opened a law office at Marlinton and has maintained his home at the county seat ever since. In 1912 and again in 1916 he was elected prosceuting attorney of Pocahontas County, proving fear- less and exceedingly efficient in this office, but he resigned in 1917 in order to accept the appointment of judge of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit. In 1918 he was elected to this high office to serve ont the unexpired term of the for- mer incumbent. In the meanwhile the Twentieth Judicial Circuit, by legislative enactment, had become the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, and in 1920 Judge Sharp was elected cir- enit judge for the full term of eight years. Although one of the youngest sitting judges in the county, Judge Sharp has demonstrated great judicial ability.

Judge Sharp married Miss Grace Stewart, who is a dangh- ter of William J. Stewart, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they have two children: Jean and George. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he belongs to the Masonic fraternity. In political life Judge Sharp is a republican. During the World war he was foremost in all patriotic movements, and served as chairman of the Legal Advisory Board of Pocahontas County.

WILLIAM J. LEAHY, M. D. This family came from New England. William J. Leahy, M. D., a well known physician of Mannington, West Virginia, is the youngest son of John and Ellen (Lane) Leahy, of Ansonia, New Haven County, Connectient. Both his paternal and maternal an- eestry were of Irish origin and were among the early settlers of that seetion of New England, famous as the seat of Yale University and for its numerous and diversi- fied manufacturing industries. The old homestead in which Doctor Leahy was born, October 23, 1876, is still occupied by his married brother and is located in the center of the residential section of that now thiekly populated New England City. His father, who died January 19, 1922, at an advanced age, was by vocation a mechanical draughts- man and machinist. His mother died in September, 1901. Nearly all his male relatives were killed in the Civil war, being among the first to volunteer. His mother lost three brothers on the field of battle, only one brother, Capt. Maurice Lane, surviving the war.

William J. Leahy attended the public school at Ansonia and completed his literary and scientific education in the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1899 he graduated as an honor man from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore. The following year he served as resident physician of the Maternity Hospital of Baltimore and the next year was tendered the appointment of superintendent of the Bay View Hospital in the same city. He declined this appointment in order to enter private practice. He passed the West Virginia State Board examination July 10, 1900, being one of the yonngest graduates of medicine ever granted a license by this board. He immediately located in Mannington, where he has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession ever since. He is active in the affairs of his profession and entertains the most cordial relations with his brother practitioners. He is a member of the Marion County Medical Society, the West Virginia State Medical Society and the American Medical Associa- tion. He was president of the Mannington Medical So- ciety in 1910, and was re-elected president in 1911. In January, 1912, he was elected president of the Marion County Medical Society, being the first Mannington phy- sieian to receive that honor.

He served four years as city health officer. His investi- gation and public exposure of the deliberate contamination of the city water supply was an important step toward securing pure water for the city and improving the health conditions of its citizens.

He has a fine general and professional library, and is a frequent visitor to the clinics of the largest medical cen- ters. Although located in a small city, he maintains a modern office, fully equipped and with a complete X-Ray and Fluoroscopic Laboratory in connection. He is a med- ical examiner for about twenty-five life insurance com- panies and fraternal orders, is surgeon to the Marion Win-

dow Glass Company, and is a member of the surgical staf of Cook Hospital, Fairmont, West Virginia.

He is heavily interested on Mannington city real estate and owns a large, finely constructed modern office building in the center of the business section, a part of the Post Office Block. He is a member of the Mannington Build ing and Loan Association, an organization of twenty-five of the leading business men of the city who are endeavor ing to build enough good houses, in good locations, to sell at sneh fair prices as to encourage and increase the number of property owners and reduce the rents of all property to reasonable prices.

Fraternally he is connected with the Elks, Knights of Columbus and several other organizations. He is a mem- ber of the Fairmont Country Club and the Allegheny and Cheat Mountain Hunting Club.

Along with the dnties and engagements of a busy physi- cian and surgeon Doctor Leahy has constantly exercised during his twenty-two years of residence there a helpful and hopeful influence in community affairs. His pro- gressive character as a citizen led to his election and serv- ice as president of the Mannington Chamber of Commerce during its existence. Almost as soon as elected he began an active advocacy of good roads building, and helped per- sonally as an organizer of public opinion in securing the adoption of a bond issue for the improvement of the county roads. After a strenuons fight a bond issue for $350,000.00 was carried and twenty miles of briek road built. Fair- mont district immediately followed with a bond issue for $450,000.00 and today as a result of that first campaign Marion County has nearly two million dollars worth of permanently improved roads. Since that time the entire state has awakened to the needs and benefits of improved roads and recently the state voted $50,000,000.00 for state highways, but to the Mannington Chamber of Commerce, of which he was the active, hard fighting president belongs the credit of being among the pioneer Good Roads Boosters in the State of West Virginia. He was successful in locating several industries in Mannington during his term, such as the large Marion Window Glass Company and the James Haggerty Cigar and Machine Company, both of which are still prosperous and busy additions to the in- dustrial life of Mannington.

In 1899 he married Alice W. Golden, daughter of Hon. John and Cordelia Golden, of Washington, D. C. Mrs. Leahy died in 1918, no children surviving her. Shortly after her death he volunteered for service in the World war and was commissioned captain in the Medical Corps of the United States Army.

Upon his return from service he resumed the active prac- tice of his profession. His strenuous public spirit and willingness to help others was not forgotten, and he was three times elected post commander of Millan Post No. 40, American Legion. He organized and built this post up to a big membership, the morale of which is wonderful and which has the well wishes and baeking of every citizen of this community. He also organized a Women's Aux- iliary that has been of wonderful assistance. Upon his declining a renomination the 200 members of the Post presented him with an engraved Serviee Medal as a token of their appreciation of his services.

At present he is engaged in an effort to perfeet the local organization of Boy Scouts of America, and holds a com- mission as Scout Master of Troop No. 3. He welcomes this opportunity to aid this organization, sinee it has already "done much good, and will do more, for it is, in its essence, a practical scheme through which to impart a proper standard of fair play and consideration for others, and courage and decency to boys who have never been reached and never will be reached by the ordinary type of preaching, lay or clerical."'

CAPT. WILLIAM J. BRIGHTWELL. A remarkable record of service is credited to Capt. William J. Brightwell of Hinton. He has been in the service of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company fifty-two years. He helped lay tracks for this road through Hinton when there was only one house in what is now a thriving city. His home has been in

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Milliam & Ready

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HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

Hinton since 1890, and for over thirty years he has been in charge of the wrecking train or tool cars on the Hinton division.

Captain Brightwell was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, May 4, 1851, son of Charles William and Hopie Elizabeth (Epperson) Brightwell. Both were natives of Prince Edward County. Charles William Brightwell was a farmer, and early in the war between the states joined the Confederate Army under Gen. J. E. B. Stuart. He was a participant in Stuart's raid through Maryland, and for three days and three nights was in the saddle, swimming the Potomac River. Finally exhausted, he fell from his horse and was left under a tree in which hornets had built a nest, and it is said that the sting of the hornets revived him and enabled him to escape death from his enemies. After this terrific experience he was discharged, but was again mustered in and performed duty as a train guard between Lynchburg and Petersburg, on what is now a part of the Norfolk and Western Railroad. Later he joined the infantry as a member of the Prospect Grays, and was made a prisoner at Tarborough, North Carolina, being sent to Point Lookout, Maryland, and later to Elmyra, New York, and was exchanged thirty days before the close of the war. Throughout the remainder of his life he was practically an invalid, but lived to the age of seventy- three. He was a life long democrat, and before the war was a member of the Good Templars organization. By his first wife, Elizabeth Epperson, he had seven children, three now living: Capt. William J .; Joseph, carpenter foreman for the Chesapeake and Ohio at Milton, West Virginia; and Alice, widow of Jerry Jamison, a farmer who died at Farmsville, Virginia. Another son, Walter, was a carpenter for the Chesapeake and Ohio, and was killed in an accident. Charles W. Brightwell for his second wife married Betty Wilkerson, and there were two children by that union: C. T. Brightwell, bridge carpenter with the Big Four Railroad at Louisville, Kentucky, and Hattie, of Hinton, widow of John H. Jordan, one of the founders of the Bank of Summers.

William J. Brightwell attended school for only ten months during his boyhood and while living on the Virginia farm. As the oldest of the family he had to do most of the farm work while his father was in the army, and on account of the latter's invalidism he continued to be the main provider for some time after the war. However farming was not a vocation suited to his tempera- ment, and when he was about seventeen he began rail- roading. The story of his service is well told by an old friend in a copy of the Chesapeake and Ohio Employes Magazine, from which the following paragraphs are taken:

"He left home, boarded a train at Prospect Depot, on what is now a part of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, and went to Lynchburg, Virginia. Thence he went by Packet Boat, on the James River Canal, to Buchanan, from Buchanan he walked across the mountains, thirty-six miles, to Jackson's River and there took a train on the Chesapeake and Ohio to White Sulphur Springs, then the Western Terminus of our road. At that time the big Jerry's Run fill and Lewis Tunnel had not been finished. Jerry's Run was crossed by a temporary trestle, and a temporary track had been constructed over the mountain at Lewis Tunnel.

"From White Sulphur he walked to where is now Big Bend Tunnel, arriving there July 11, 1869. Preparations were made for the construction of that tunnel. On the , tenth of January 1870, the work of actual construction began. At the tunnel Mr. Brightwell fired a hoisting engine. When the tunnel was finished he went with the track layers, helping lay the track from Big Bend to Hawk's Nest, where were met the track-layers from the west. He had the honor of helping to drive the last spike, a ceremony that was participated in by Gen. William C. Wickham, vice-president of the road, and the veteran con- tractor, Claiborne R. Mason. Both of the latter named gentlemen struck the spike, the others present enjoyed the same privilege, so that the remnants of the spike were buried in the cross-tie. Thereafter Mr. Brightwell went to Richmond and ran a hoisting engine at Church Hill

Tunnell until the completion of that work. Mr. Bright- well says that those days spent in Richmond were 'great'. He was eating his 'white bread.' He arrived at Richmond with $140.00 in his purse. When the Church Hill Tunnell was finished he had $140.20.

"After this he went with the road carpenter depart- ment, under Mr. C. F. King, master carpenter, from Staunton to Hinton. In 1878 he was promoted to carpenter foreman in charge of work on bridges, trestles and general carpenter work. In 1880 the writer of this saw him do fine work on the trestles erected under some difficulties between Huntington and Big Sandy River. While carpenter fore- man Mr. Brightwell arched Big Bend Tunnel throughout with timber eight times, and, when the brick lining was put in, he had the difficult task of pulling down the timber lining, which was always attended by some danger because of the loose rocks and disintegrated material that fell as the timbers were removed.

"March 15, 1890, Mr. George W. Stevens, then general manager, assigned Mr. Brightwell to take charge of the Hinton tool cars. Thus has the subject of this sketch climbed by his own merits from the bottom upwards, until now he stands honored by the confidence of the officers of our fine organization and by the love of all who know him. Not a man killed, no one hurt seriously of all who have served under this Foreman of Men. Often he has gone where he would not risk the lives of men, and thus he practiced Safety First for his men."

Captain Brightwell entered the railroad service with a very meager education, but for a number of years in addition to working through the day he conducted his studies far into the night until he had made up most of his early deficiencies. He has been one of Hinton's most loyal and capable citizens, and in the aggregate has served on the City Council for fifteen years and as street com- missioner for eight years. He is a democrat, is a past master of Alderson Lodge No. 70, F. and A. M., is a Royal Arch and Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Shrine at Charleston and also of the Scottish Rite Con- sistory.

June 25, 1875, he married Dora Virginia Saylor, daughter of David Saylor. She was born in Augusta County, Virginia, October 3, 1857, and died August 8, 1918, after forty-three years of married life and companionship. Cap- tain Brightwell was the father of five children: Maud, wife of Dr. H. M. White, a druggist of Newport News, Virginia; Kate, of Parkersburg, widow of Dr. C. W. Plumley; H. A. general foreman of the Chesapeake and Ohio roundhouse at Thurmond; F. H., a Chesapeake and Ohio machinist at Hinton; and Pauline, wife of D. F. McClung, of Fayetteville.

While a resident of Hinton Captain Brightwell has built, bought and sold a number of houses, and he was also one of the organizers of the Bank of Summers, being asso- ciated with Judge J. H. Miller and John H. Jordan. He has continuously been a director of the bank from the beginning. He also served as director and vice-president of the Hinton Water Light and Supply Company until the plant was sold recently.

PERRY FRENCH MARKS, M. D. While he has very heavy responsibilities as the only physician and surgeon at Walton, Doctor Marks is also a leading farmer in that part of Roane County and is a prominent young man whose activities have earned him the highest esteem.

Doctor Marks was born at Burning Springs, Wirt County, West Virginia, May 10, 1879. He comes of frontier stock. His great-grandfather, named Thomas Marks, was a native of France, and was a follower of General Lafayette in the expedition to the American Colonies in their struggle for independence. When the war was over he remained in America and ultimately settled in Gilmer County, West Virginia, where he spent the rest of his life on the frontier. His son, Morgan, was born near Glenville and spent most of his career in Gilmer County, where he owned and conducted a large farm. He died near Arnoldsburg in Calhoun County in 1890. His wife, Sarah Jones, was also a native of Gilmer County, and died at Gandeeville in 1890.

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Cornelius J. Marks, father of Doctor Marks, was born near Glenville in Gilmer County in 1845, grew up there, and as a young man removed to Gandeeville in Roane County, where he married and where he owned and operated a large and valuable farm. He was a Union soldier at the time of the Civil war, enlisting in 1862 in Company B, of the 9th West Virginia Infantry. In the battle of Cloyd Mountain he was struck four times by enemy bullets, being wounded in the shoulder and in the chin. He voted as a republican, and was a member of the Masonic fraternity.

Cornelius J. Marks, who died at Gandeeville in 1912, mar- ried Louise Hays, still living at Gandeeville. She was born near Richardson in Calhoun County in 1844. Her children were: Howard, who operates the homestead farm and lives with his mother; Roanna, who died at Richardson in 1910, wife of Frank Connolly, a farmer in that section; Floyd, who died at the age of three years; Chessie, who is the wife of Dr. W. C. Camp, a prominent physician at Spencer ; Perry French; Harry, a barber at Blue Creek in Kanawha County; George, an attorney by profession and now doing the work of an oil company in Louisiana; William, a farmer near Walton; Walter, who died at Colorado Springs in 1911, was a teacher in Mingo and Roane counties; Nellie died at the age of twenty-one and Mckinley, at the age of fifteen.

Doctor Marks showed a studious disposition as a boy, and his inclinations were for a profession rather than the career of a farmer. He grew up in the country, attended the rural schools, and at the age of nineteen hegan teaching. This work he continued in Roane County for six years. He then entered the medical department of the University of Louisville, where he graduated M. D. in 1907, and took another general medical course at Louisville in 1910. Doctor Marks for a brief time in 1907 was contract physician for the Gauley Consolidated and Bell Creek Coal Company at Belva in Nicholas County, and during the same year re- moved to Walton, where now for fifteen years he has been the doctor for the community, the only member of his profession in that locality. His modern home and offices are on Cunningham Street, and he also has 140 acres of land there and eighty acres near Gandeeville. In farming he makes a specialty of fine stock, raising Hampshire sheep and Hereford and thoroughbred Jersey cattle.

Doctor Marks has served as president of the Board of Education of Walton for six years, and has represented his district in the county, state and senatorial conventions of the republican party. He is affiliated with Walton Lodge No. 150, F. and A. M., Spencer Chapter No. 42, R. A. M, Kanawha Commandery No 4, K. T., West Virginia con- sistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite at Wheeling, Beni- Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston. He is also an Odd Fellow, and is a member of the Roane County Medical Society. Doctor Marks is a stockholder in the Poca Valley Bank of Walton and the First National Bank of Spencer. During the war he was an active worker in behalf of the various patriotic drives, and was himself in the draft, but could not respond to the call to the colors because of influenza which he had contracted during the fall of 1918.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 178

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