History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 206

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band, George Watson, was killed in the same explosion a Seward, Pennsylvania, Mrs. Watson being now a residen of Dixonville, Pennsylvania; George Waddell; Alexande G., who is the other partner in the Waddell Coal and Cok Company ; Jennie, wife of Ed. Campbell, of Philippi James, mine foreman for the Shoemaker Coal Company a Casander, Pennsylvania; and Isabel, who is a stenographe in the offices of the Waddell Company and the wife 0 Ashley Hawkins, also in the same office.

George Waddell, Jr., acquired a common school educa tion, and did a great deal of night study to supplemen these early advantages. He was only nine when he entere the mines as a trapper-boy, subsequently was pump-mar then an actual coal miner, and received a certificate froi the State of Pennsylvania as a practical miner and min foreman. While with the Citizen Coal Company he wa made superintendent at Youngstown, then was superir tendent for the Randolph Coal Company, and held simila positions with different mines until he became associate with his brother Alexander as a mine owner and operatc at Philippi. Their first real interest in coal mining wa with the Dixonville Coal Company at Indiana, Pennsylvania They acquired the capital to engage in business for them selves by saving from their salaries. George Waddell i addition to being president of the Waddell Coal and Cok Company is a director of the First National Bank of Philippi. The Waddell Company maintains one of the bes equipped coal offices in the state, in the Citizens Nationa Bank Building.

The Waddell brothers married sisters. Mrs. George Wac dell was formerly Miss Nellie Bartley. They were marrie at Cumberland, Maryland, in September, 1907, and she wa horn at Deer Park, Maryland, December 15, 1884. The are the parents of three children: George, Jr., born Decen ber 12, 1908; Nina Lee, born Angust 29, 1911; and Vi ginia Rose, born April 24, 1919.

Mr. George Waddell is a Blue Lodge Mason at Indian: Pennsylvania, is affiliated with Philippi Chapter, R. A. M. Grafton Commandery, Knights Templar, Osiris Temple ( the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling, and is a member of th Elks Lodge of Grafton. He and his daughters and the families are members of the Presbyterian Church.

Waddell Brothers installed a coaling station at the Philippi mine to coal all the passenger and freight train on the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway fro: Charleston to Grafton, and also on the Elkins branch ( the same road. This station is one of the most efficient i existence. It is possible to coal a passenger engine j eighteen seconds. This is the result of the lever appliance they have installed. The introduction of this lever mec. anism had much to do with harmonizing the difference between the railroad and its firemen, since it abolished tl use of the pick or the hook, which was originally require when the firemen coaled a locomotive.

Reference has been made to the harmonious industri. relations which are perhaps the most conspicuous featu of the Waddell Coal and Coke Company. The company record has not been marred by any strikes or other ha rassing incidents of serious friction. Its managers an owners, as their record shows, grew up from boys to me in the business of mining, and became familiar with ever phase of it. They worked with Union cards and amor workers like themselves, and they learned to know int mately how a miner thinks and what he is most likely think about in his work. They adopted a few principl to govern them in their dealings with those who work f them, among which were to respect all agreements wi. employes to the letter, to investigate complaints, to remed them to the satisfaction of the aggrieved parties, to tre: the men as co-laborers with themselves, to meet their repr sentatives freely for the adjustment of differences and meet pay-day with the cash to satisfy their minds ai hearts and promote the full dinner-pail. The manageme. has done more than this for its men. It has lent encou agement to them to become home owners, to establish bar accounts, has urged the importance of paying obligatio: promptly, and advised them to beware of making deb beyond their ability to pay. They have taught fairness 1

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being fair themselves, and have impressed upon their co- workers the fact that these things are in turn expected of them as their part of the "fairness" in the game. Even from this very general and brief statement of industrial conditions it is hardly to be wondered that no strikes or labor troubles have occurred in the Waddell mines.

ALEXANDER G. WADDELL. The general manager and the secretary-treasurer of the Waddell Coal & Coke Company of Philippi is Alexander G. Waddell. For the splendid efficiency of this business he has been in no small degree responsible, and a brief sketch of his career is linked closely with most of the matters considered in the previous article.

Mr. Waddell was born in Allegheny County, Pennsyl- vania, April 29, 1881, but spent most of his boyhood in Clearfield County of that state and grew up in the home of a miner. He was educated in the common schools and, like his brother, entered the mines at the age of nine years. He helped his father, then dug coal, was advanced to mine foreman, to superintendent and finally mine owner. He and his brother George were associated as salaried em- ployes in several mines, and finally united their fortunes as proprietors of the business at Philippi.

Alexander Waddell has been a resident of West Virginia since 1902. At that time he located at Bayard, as super- intendent of the Buffalo Creek Cumberland Coal Company. Later he was superintendent for the Gatzmer Coal & Coke Company at Dobbin, and then superintendent for the Davis Coal & Coke Company. On leaving that corporation he came to Philippi in 1916, and he and his brother bought the property of the Logan Coal & Coke Company of Phila- delphia. Only a beginning had been made in the develop- ment of this property, and the production was limited to the loading of one "steel" per day. In a short time under their management the output increased to fifteen ""steels" per day. Another property has been developed by the company, adjacent to the old lease, formerly owned by the Hocking Valley Coal Company. This was opened by the brothers, and its output is now about three "steels" per day. Still another producing outfit belonging to and oper- ated by the brothers is the small mine at Berryburg, which they opened and which is now loading about one car a day. The labor employed in the three mines averages about 250 men a day at capacity. Notwithstanding the business depression that set in about 1920 and has worked so much hardship to coal mining interests in general, the Waddell mine, due in large part to the conditions described above, has kept up its production every week.

Waddell Brothers have also established at Philippi a station for the wholesale handling of gasoline. This sta- tion is close to the mine, and they handle about thirty-five cars annually of the product of the Standard Oil Company. Alexander Waddell is also financially interested in other business enterprises, and is one of the directors of the Citizens National Bank of Philippi.

He and his brother are republicans in politics. Alex- ander cast his first presidential vote for Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Fraternally he is an Elk and a York Rite Mason and a member of the Shrine at Wheeling.

In Bayard, West Virginia, October 25, 1905, Alexander G. Waddell married Laura Bartley, a native of Deer Park, Maryland. Her father was Dr. John Bartley, a veterinary surgeon. Mr. and Mrs. Waddell have five children: John, Ralph, Richard, Lloyd and Louise.

D. ROBERTSON WOOD, who is giving an excellent adminis- tration of his official duties as national bank examiner for West Virginia, with residence and headquarters at Mar- tinsburg, Berkeley County, is a native of Virginia, and both he and his wife are representatives of old and dis- tinguished families of that historie commonwealth. He has honored his native state by his character and achieve- ment, and a brief outline of his career is published in the work entitled, "Men of Mark of Virginia," by Tyler.

Mr. Wood was born at Turtle Rock, Floyd County, Vir- ginia, on the 1st of February, 1877, and passed his early years on the home farm of his father, his educational advantages of preliminary order having been those of the

local schools. In his native county he took a collegiate preparatory course in Oxford Academy, and he then en- tered William and Mary College, where he continued his studies. He was later graduated from the National Busi- ness College at Roanoke, Virginia, and from 1900 to 1903, inclusive, he was principal of the English department in this institution. In the latter year he became cashier of the Floyd County Bank, at Floyd, Virginia, a position which he retained until 1907, when he came to West Vir- ginia and assumed the office of cashier of the Union Bank & Trust Company in the City of Bluefield. His exceptional ability as a banking official eventually led to his resigna- tion of his position with the institution above mentioned in order to accept the important position of which he is now the incumbent, that of national bank examiner for Northern West Virginia and Western Maryland. He is one of the loyal and progressive citizens of Martinsburg, is a democrat in politics, holds membership in the local Rotary Club, and he and his wife are members of the First Presbyterian Church of Martinsburg.

Capt. Richard J. Wood, father of him, whose name initiates this review, was born in Montgomery County, Virginia, in 1828, a son of John Richard Wood, born in 1799, a son of Richard Wood, born in 1769, and whose father, John Wood, born in 1745, removed from Franklin County, Virginia, to Montgomery County, that state, in 1815, he having settled near the Blue Ridge Mountains, in that part of the county that is now included in Floyd County. Henry, a son of John Wood, became a pioneer in the State of Missouri.

Richard Wood, great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was twice married, his first wife, Rachel Cochran, having become the mother of two children, John R. and Annie. The family name of his second wife was Bram- mer, and they became the parents of six children: Alexan- der, German, Jeremiah, Edward, Peter and Henry.

John R. Wood married Lucinda DeHart, daughter of James and Ellen (Dennis) DeHart and a granddaughter of Aaron DeHart, who came from his native France and established his home in Virginia. John R. and Lucinda Wood became the parents of seven children: Annie, Stephen H., Mary, Delilah, Richard J., Leah and Rachel. The daughter Annie became the wife of Rev. John Hubbard. Stephen H. Wood married Rachel Thomas, daughter of Joseph and granddaughter of Charles Thomas, the latter of whom came to America from Wales. Mary became the wife of Perry Slusher. Delilah married Richard Hatcher. Richard Johnson wedded Judith Ann Shortt. Leah became the wife of George Slusher, and Rachel married Samuel F. Turner.

Capt. Richard Johnson Wood ambitiously made the best of his rather limited educational advantages in his youth, and took special pride in the fact that one of his teachers was Nathaniel Henry, a son of the distinguished Revolutionary patriot, Patrick Henry. Captain Wood passed his childhood and youth on the home farm and early became a member of the Virginia State Militia, in which he succeeded his uncle, Capt. Alexander Wood, as drillmaster and captain. When the Civil war was precipi- tated Captain Wood promptly tendered his aid in defense of the Confederacy and enlisted as a private in Company D, Fifty-first Virginia Infantry. He was in active service in the present West Virginia and also in Tennessee, took part in many engagements and nearly lost his life from an attack of fever while in the vicinity of Memphis, Ten- nessee.

On the 5th of February, 1852, Captain Wood married Judith Ann Shortt, who was born in 1832, a daughter of John Young Shortt and Judith (Thomas) Shortt, her pater- nal grandparents having been Reuben and Lydia (Clark) Shortt, and her great-grandparents, Obediah and Mary (Bilbo) Shortt. Obediah Shortt was born in Virginia, where his ancestors settled upon coming from Scotland in the early Colonial era. Of the children of Obediah Shortt were Susan, Reuben and Nancy, the last mentioned having become the wife of Isaac Robertson. Reuben Shortt became a clergyman of the Baptist Church. His wife was a daughter of John and Susan (Nix) Clark. Rev.

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Reuben and Lydia (Clark) Shortt had the following named children : John Y., Joseph Nix, Calvin, Mary (Polly), Lydia, Susan and Nancy. Jolin Young Shortt, maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1796, and his wife (Judith Thomas) was born in 1803, a daughter of Pleasant and Mary (Cannaday) Thomas and a granddaughter of Charles and Judith (Ripley ) Thomas, the original representatives of the Thomas family in America having come from Wales. Mary (Cannaday) Thomas was a daughter of James Cannaday, who was a patriot soldier in the command of General Greene in the War of the Revolution. The children of John Y. Shortt were: Lydia, Naaman J., Susan, Judith Ann, Martha Eliza- heth (Betty), Jolın P., Lycinda, Reuben, Charles and Pleasant. Calvin and Reuben, Jr., sons of Reuben and grandsons of Obediah, were soldiers in the War of 1812. Reuben died in service at Norfolk, Virginia.

Captain Richard J. and Judith Ann (Shortt) Wood he- came the parents of seven sons and two daughters, the daughters, Rachel and Susan, having died in infancy. The names of the sons are: Jefferson P., Daniel H., George B., Greenville D., Amos D., Sparrel A. and D. Robertson. Jefferson P. Wood married Malinda, daughter of Jonathan L. and Julina (Burnett) Brammer, and they had six chil- dren: Stanton H., Dora, John E., Benjamin Frederick, Ger- trude and Ethel. Jefferson P. Wood became a prosperous farmer and served a number of years as justice of the peace. Daniel Hillsman Wood first married Ruth Corn, the children of this union being Susan Della, George C., Katherine and Mai. By the second marriage there have been no children. Daniel Hillsman Wood is a farmer in Patrick County, Virginia, and has heen a representative in the State Legis- lature. George Bunyan Wood married Elizabeth Brammer, sister of the wife of his brother Jefferson, and he is a farmer in Virginia, with prominence in public affairs in his community. Greenville Darius Wood married Melissa, daughter of Andrew and Sonora (Turner) Graham, and she died without issue, his second marriage having been with Lillie Barnard, daughter of John C. and Mary Eliza- beth (Turner) Barnard, the children of this union being: Richard Hugh (a physician), Susau Lee, Elizabeth, Green- ville D., Jr., and John. Greenville D. Wood is a merchant and farmer. Amos DeRussia Wood married Ann Chap- man, daughter of Judge David E. Johnson, of Bluefield, West Virginia, and they became the parents of three children: Sara Pearis, Richard J. and John David. Amos DeRussia Wood is a successful physician at Bluefield. Sparrel Asa Wood married Jessie Scales and after ber death wedded India Goodwin, daughter of Judge Goodwin, of Nottawax, Virginia, the one child of this union being Judith Goodwin. Sparrel Asa Wood is now a teacher of Latin in the public schools of Washington, D. C., he being a graduate of William and Mary College.

February 18, 1908, recorded the marriage of D. Robert- son Wood and Miss Gertrude Christian Howard, daughter of Lieutenant Peter and Belle L. Howard, and a grand- daughter of Major and Caroline Amanda (Latham) Howard, a great granddaughter of Rev. Peter Howard and a great- great granddaughter of Sir William and Hannah (Psalter) Howard. Sir William Howard was born in the north of England and became a member of the British Army. His wife not being of the nobility, he was disinherited because of their marriage. About 1763 they came, with their two children, to Virginia, where Sir William engaged in the iron business, in Shenandoah County. He manufactured am- munition and guns for the Patriot Army in the Revolution. In the war period he served as auditor of accounts for the Continental forces at Richmond, Virginia. After the war he settled in Montgomery County, Virginia, where he passed the rest of bis life. He became a clergyman of the Bap- tist Church and was otherwise influential in its affairs. He was a man of fine presence, with the hearing of an Eng- lish gentleman and with a style of apparel that befitted his station. Peter Howard, second son of Sir William, was born September 4, 1762, became a Baptist clergyman, and in the Revolution he served in turn in the Fifth and Third Vir- ginia Regiments, under Colonel Buford. He died in Floyd

County, May 9, 1827. His second wife (Sarah Strickland) was born March 12, 1761, and died November 23, 1846.

Major Howard was born in Floyd County, September 8, 1795, and there he died July 26, 1869. His son Peter was born June 3, 1832, and became a merchant at Floyd Court House. He served as first lieutenant in the Fifty-fourth Virginia Infantry in the Civil war, and his death occurred September 16, 1893. His wife, born August 9, 1850, died September 10, 1892. They had eight children: Horatio Seymour, Peter Tazewell, Grover Latham, Hope Chapman, Gertrude Christian (Mrs. D. Robertson Wood), Maidai Ethel, Ola and Annabelle. The lineage of the mother of Mrs. Wood is thus traced: Daughter of Colonel Joseph and Annie Amanda (Smith) Howard; granddaughter of Colonel Ira and Pamelia (Lester) Howard; great-grand- daughter of Reverend Peter and Sarah Strickland Howard, the former of whom was a son of Sir William Howard, previously mentioned. Col. Joseph L. Howard was horn May 21, 1821, and died May 7, 1889, in Floyd County, Virginia, where he had heen a merchant. He was a Colonel in the Civil war, and later a member for three terms of the Legislature of Virginia. His wife was born February 3, 1830, and died in December, 1883. Col. Ira Howard was born April 6, 1797, was a farmer and merchant and was for twelve years a member of the Virginia Legislature, his death occurring May 21, 1865. His wife was born in 1798 and died June 25, 1835. The father of Mrs. Wood, a merchant at Floyd Court House, died September 16, 1893. His wife was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, a daughter of Col. Joseph Howard, mentioned earlier in this paragraph. Carolina Amanda (Latham) Howard, grandmother of Mrs. Wood, was a daughter of Henry and Mary Ball Latham, the latter a daughter of Robert and Hattie (Ball) Green and a repre- sentative of the distinguished Ball and Washington families of Virginia. Mrs. Wood was educated at Oxford Academy, Virginia College at Bristol and the Woman's College in the City of Richmond. She is an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and Daughters of the Confederacy. Mr. and Mrs. Wood have three children: Dexter Robley, horn January 27, 1910, Virginia Hoard, born December 28, 1912 and Catherine Ball, born August. 6, 1915.

IRA WADE COFFMAN resigned soon after the beginning of his third consecutive term as clerk of the Circuit Court of Harrison County to hecome clerk of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Virginia, with headquarters at Elkins. Mr. Coffman has made an excep- tional record of public service, and is also one of the most prominent members of the masonic order in the state.

He was born on a farm near the village of Cherry Camp in Harrison County, November 24, 1877. His family has been in Harrison County from pioneer times. His great- grandfather, Henry Coffman, came to this state from his native state of Pennsylvania, and settled in Harrison County, where he married a Miss Robinson. His son, George W. Coffman, was born in Harrison County, and married Sarah Ann Mcintyre. Truman James Coffman, father of 1. W. Coffman, was born in Harrison County in 1848, and for a number of years lived on a farm near the Village of Cherry Camp. In 1880 he moved to the town of Bristol on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, in the same county and for many years was successfully engaged in merchan dising there. He married Emma R. Meredith, and they now reside at Salem, West Virginia.

Ira Wade Coffman was reared at Bristol, attended the public schools there, completed the course at Salem Col lege, and as a young man taught three terms of country school. He then became associated with his father in the mercantile business at Bristol. From 1906 to 1908 he was proprietor and publisher of the Salem Herald, a weekly newspaper. Mr. Coffman early took an active interest in politics in his native county, and in 1908 he was nom inated on the republican ticket for clerk of the Circui Court of Harrison County. He was elected for a term o six years. The efficient manner in which he handled the

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records and business of the office gave him renomination in 1914 without opposition. In 1920 he was again nom- inated without opposition and re-elected for a third term of six years. That term began in 1921, but in August of that year he resigned to become clerk of the United States District Court for the Northern District, under appoint- ment from Judge W. E. Baker, who went on the Federal bench in the spring of the same year. Soon after taking charge of this office Mr. Coffman removed, in September, 1921, from Clarksburg to Elkins.

As a young man Mr. Coffman became a Master Mason, and from his initiation into the mysteries of the Blue Lodge he has been an enthusiastic member of the order. He has taken the work of both the Scottish and York rites, is a Knight Templar, and in 1921 the thirty-third, supreme honorary, degree of the Scottish Rite was conferred upon him. He is a member of the Mystic Shrine. After fifteen years of service as deputy lecturer Mr. Coffman was ap- pointed, November 17, 1921, grand lecturer of the Grand Lodge of West Virginia. He is said to be the best author- ity upon Masonry in the state

Mr. Coffman is affiliated with the order of Elks and is a Methodist. He married in 1901 Miss Sarah E. Williams, and their four children are Mildred, Myron Truman, Helen Virginia and Clarence Williams Coffman.

CURTIS GLANVILLE JACKSON, senior member of the firm of Jackson & Grow, who conduct a well equipped machine shop at Morgantown, has as his coadjutor in this enterprise Adam Grow, of whom individual mention is made on other pages of this work, together with definite record concerning the prosperous business of the firm. In addition to his alliance with this industrial enterprise Mr. Jackson holds the office of master mechanic of the Morgantown & Wheel- ing Railroad.

Mr. Jackson was born at Fairview, Frederick County, Vir- ginia, on the 30th of November, 1882. His father, Thomas R. Jackson, who is now a successful contractor and builder at Shinnston, Harrison County, West Virginia, became a resident of Grafton, this state, in 1884, and there engaged in the work of his trade, that of carpenter. He has been active and influential in local politics, and while a resident of Grafton he was at one time candidate for mayor of that city.

Curtis G. Jackson gained his early education in the public schools at Grafton, and there also he served an apprentice- ship to the trade of boilermaker in the shops of the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad, his efficiency early leading to his appointment to the position of boiler inspector in the service of this railroad system. In 1907 he engaged in independ- ent husiness at Grafton, but two years later he was called to Morgantown to take charge of the boiler department in the shors of the Morgantown & Kingwood Railroad, the line of which is now a part of the Baltimore & Ohio system. In 1917 he became associated with Mr. Grow in the opera- tion of the modest machine and repair shop which they have since developed into one of the substantial and pros- perous industrial establishments of Morgantown, and in the same year he accepted also his present position of master mechanic of the Morgantown & Wheeling Railroad, which was just opening the coal fields of the Scotts Run District. In the shops of this road at Morgantown ten men are employed under the supervision of Mr. Jackson, and here all repair work and rebuilding of the engines of the road are done. Mr. Jackson is not only a skilled mechanic and familiar with the various details of practical railroad- ing as touching the rolling stock, but as an executive he is popular with the men under his supervision and gains their loyal co-operation in all work. Mr. Jackson has been a close and appreciative student of the teachings and history of the time-honored Masonic fraternity, is active in the affairs of the various Masonic bodies with which he is affiliated, and is serving, in 1921, as senior warden of Morgantown Union Lodge No. 4, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

In 1902 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Jackson and Miss Ella Pearl Garlow, of Grafton, and they have five children: Bondaline (Mrs. C. E. Pierce), Audrey, Curtis Glanville, Jr., June and Bettie.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 206

Author: Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

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