History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 207

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HOWARD MASON GORE. The pure bred livestock industry of West Virginia recognizes as one of its fountainheads the noted Gore farm near Clarksburg, now owned and under the active management of Gore Brothers, one of whom is Howard Mason Gore.

One of Mr. Gore's ancestors was a settler in Harrison County before the Indians had been driven out of this wilderness. The Gore family for several generations lived in Loudoun County, Virginia. The great-grandparents of Howard M. Gore were Joseph and Susan (Lucas) Gore, of Loudoun County. Their son, Truman Gore, was born in that county April 10, 1794, and married Lydia George, of the same county. They had eleven children: George W., Elizabeth Roena, Susan L., Truman, Tilghman, Artha Malinda, Albert Wilson, Solomon D., Leah Louisa, Alice Jerusha and Lydia Esther. These children were all born in Loudoun County, and in the fall of 1846 most of them, with their mother, rode in a carriage over the Alleghany Moun- tains to Clarksburg, West Virginia. Truman Gore bought a large farm of 1,100 acres in West Fork River, and much of that property is still owned by his descendants, productive not only as a farming proposition but for its resources of coal, oil and gas. Truman Gore continued to live here, and bore the reputation of a splendid farmer and good citizen, until his death January 15, 1858.

His son Solomon D. Gore was born in Loudoun County, January 2, 1837, and was about ten years of age when the family settled near Clarksburg. He acquired by inheritance and purchase 530 acres of the old homestead. That is the Gore farm mentioned above, and Solomon Gore was the pioneer responsible for making it a center of the pure bred industry. He was a good business man, progressive in his citizenship, and his life was characterized by faithfulness to duty in all its relations. He died at Clarksburg, No- vember 19, 1907. On May 20, 1860, he married Marietta P. Rogers, who was born April 28, 1842, and is still living, in her eightieth year, and has been a life-long member of the Baptist Church. Her parents were Ludwell L. and Har- riet P. (Reynolds) Rogers. Her father was born in Loudoun County, October 3, 1793, and was a soldier in the War of 1812. . His uncle, William Rogers, was an early sheriff of Harrison County, and because he refused to imprison per- sons for debt he permitted his own property to be sold for such debts. Harriet P. Reynolds was born in 1805 in Har- rison County, where her father, Squire John Reynolds, settled as early as 1789. Solomon D. Gore and wife had four sons: William F. L., one of the proprietors of Gore Farm; Claude W., who became a lawyer; Dr. Truman E., a veterinary and business man; and Howard M.

Howard Mason Gore was born on the old homestead farm three miles north of Clarksburg, October 12, 1877. He had a rural school education. supplemented by attendance at the University of West Virginia at Morgantown, where he graduated A. B. in 1900. For the past twenty years he has devoted his energies and resources to the business and science of agriculture and stock raising as member of the firm Gore Brothers. The Gore farm has produced high grade cattle, horses and sheep, but is now largely a specialty farm for the production of pure bred Jersey cattle and beef cattle. This farm sent out the shipment of cattle which commanded the highest market price on the open market in Chicago. Mr. Gore is a director of the American Federation of Farm Bureaus, a member of the American Livestock Committee of Fifteen engaged in a study and investigation of meat distribution, and during the World war he was a Federal food inspector. He is serving as a member of the West Virginia State Board of Education, having been ap- pointed to that office in 1920 by Governor Cornwall. Mr. Gore is a republican, and is affiliated with the Masonic Order and Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a member of the Baptist Church.

September 30, 1906, he married Roxie C. Bailey, who was born May 23, 1884, and died March 5, 1907.

SAMUEL A. SHACKELFORD. A half century of labor, con- structive labor, the building of homes, schools, churches and places of business, is the achievement that marks out Samuel A. Shackelford of Grafton and confers upon him an

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unusual distinction. He is still in business, though its heavier burdens are now carried by his son and partner, L. R. Shackelford.

Samuel Andrew Shackelford was born near Morgantown, Monongalia County, June 4, 1851, son of John Alexander and Elizabeth (Kincaid) Shackelford. His mother was a native of Marion County and daughter of Moses Kincaid. Jolın A. Shackelford was born near Alexandria, Virginia, and while a youth acting as overseer of slaves for his uncle conceived a hatred of slavery that caused him to seek the free atmosphere of the West, leading to his settlement in Monongalia County. He cultivated a farm near Morgan- town, and also followed the trade of shoemaker. When well advanced in years he moved to Taylor County, and lived out his life at Grafton, where he continued the work of his trade. He was a strong republican and one of the most loyal Union men in the state, furnishing a son to the army and being liberal with his means and the hospitality of his home in entertaining passing soldiers. He and his wife had the following children: Mary Ann, who died in Marion County, wife of Henry Fast; Elizabeth, who died in Preston County as Mrs. Elza Turner; Lucinda, who married William Reed, and died in Grafton; Nancy, deceased wife of Martin Goff, one of the old residents of Grafton; John W., the Union soldier, who was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg and died some days later in Grafton Hospital; and Samuel A., the youngest child.

Samuel A. Shackelford while attending school at Grafton gained a knowledge of the common branches which had to suffice in absence of the more technical training that is now part of the curriculum in most of the better high schools of the state. At the age of eighteen he began his apprentice- ship at the carpenter's trade with William Morgan, of Grafton, and while working at the practical side of the busi- ness he attended a drawing school at night, and seized every opportunity to perfect himself in the varied arts used in the construction work. Before reaching his majority he took his first contract, and from year to year the scope of his work and its importance have broadened, so that it is a conservative estimate that almost half of Grafton has been built under his direction and supervision. The field of his business has been widely extended, including building con- struction as far away as Newburg. Business houses, resi- dences and public institutions too numerous to mention com- prise his record. Typical among them have been the West Side, the East Side and Fetterman schoolhouses, the Meth- odist and United Brethren churches, the residences of Judge Holt, Mr. McCormick and Tom Davis.

His energies have been quite fully expended in his busi- ness, but he was at one time a member of the council of West Grafton and on the city council after the two munici- palities were merged. He has voted his convictions as a re- publican, and is a Royal Arch Mason.

At Oakland, Maryland, in December, 1872, Mr. Shackel- ford married Miss Elmyra Jane Miller. She was born in Taylor County, West Virginia, in 1854, oldest of the chil- dren of George W. and Mary (Bowers) Miller. Mr. and Mrs. Shackelford have three children. The daughter Bertie is the wife of Neal Heflin, of Fairmont. Mabel May is the wife of John McCafferty, a Grafton business man, and they have a daughter, Lucile.

Lloyd Russell Shackelford, the only son, who has been personally associated with the building business at Grafton for over a quarter of a century, was horn in the city August 16, 1875. He attended the public schools, learned his trade under his father, and has put the best of himself into the business. He is now the responsible head of the enterprise.

He is a republican and a member of the Baptist Church. At Grafton in 1902 he married Mamie Gillian. By this marriage he had two daughters, Mary and Madaline. Later he married Anna Guseman, and they have a son, Lloyd, Jr.

MORRIS HARVEY BROWN. In comparison with many whose biographies are in this work, Morris Harvey Brown is still a newcomer into the business world, but though his years of experience have been few, they have been crowded with industry and crowned with success. As a real estate

dealer of Huntington he has been the medium through which a number of large and important transactions have been effected, and is also a well-known and active figure in the coal and oil industries. For a young man, he is bearing heavy responsibilities, but all are being discharged by him capably and expeditiously.

Mr. Brown was born June 11, 1898, at Charleston, West Virginia, and is a son of the late William Sherman and Fenton (Morris) Brown, and comes of Revolutionary an- cestry. His grandfather, Robert Brown, was born in Pennsylvania, and died in Coal River, in Kanawha County, West Virginia, where he had been a pioneer, coming there when a young man prior to his marriage. He passed the remainder of his life on the same farm and be- came an extensive landholder and substantial citizen, who had the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens and the warm regard of a wide circle of friends. During the Civil war he fought as a private soldier in the ranks of the Union forces. His wife, Eliza Brown, was a native of Kanawha County, where her death occurred.

William Sherman Brown, father of Morris Harvey Brown, was born in 1864, near St. Albans, Kanawha County, Virginia, now West Virginia, and died at Tornado, that county, in 1908. He was reared and married in his native locality, where as a young man he adopted farming as a vocation and raised tobacco in order to gain sufficient means with which to complete his education. Later he studied pharmacy and established a drug store at East Bank, followed by similar enterprises at Logan and Hunting ton, at which last-named place his pharmacy was one of the first in business. He came to Huntington in 1893, but about 1895, on account of ill health, gave up the drug business and returned to Kanawha County. In the mean time he had studied law, was graduated from an Olid college with the degree of Bachelor of Laws and was admitted to the bar and on his return to Kanawha County engaged in the practice of his profession until his death in 1908. In politics Mr. Brown was a stanch republican In his younger days he served as justice of the peace in Kanawha County, where he was also county surveyor at one time, aud during his incumbency of the latter office made his first map of the county. He was not a member of any church. Mr. Brown married Fenton Morris, who was born in 1871, at East Bank, Kanawha County, and survives him, residing in Atlanta, Georgia. They became the parents of the following children: Carl, connected with the advertising department of a leading newspaper of Detroit, Michigan, who was the first man to enlist from Huntington in the World's war, was attached to the United States Naval Aviation service, saw eightcer months of overseas service and was honorably discharged and mustered out as a second lieutenant; Opal, the wife of Robert T. McManeus, of Columbia, South Carolina general manager of a large building and supply company of Greenville, South Carolina, and representative of the H. W. Johns-Manville Company of New York City; Eril the wife of Harry L. Bishop, engaged in the bakery business at Atlanta, Georgia; Morris Harvey, of this record Eliza Jane, who is unmarried and resides with her mother aud Helen, the wife of Keller F. Melton, sole owner an operator of the Melton Construction Company, of Atlanta where his father is a professor at Emory University.

Morris Harvey Brown received his education in the rura schools of Kanawha County and the public school a Huntington, but left school at the age of sixteen years In the meantime, he had received his introduction t business methods at the early age of eleven years, whe he had spent one year at Jacksonville, Florida, with hi father, and while there had assisted in keeping the book of the Distilled Aerated Water Company of that city the plant being the property of his father. For a shor time the family resided at East Bank, and in 1909 th mother brought her children to Huntington, where Mo1 ris H. Brown attended school for about one year. H then became elevator operator for the Deardorff-Sisle Company, a department store concern, but after 11/2 year gave up this position to become a messenger boy in th Huntington shops of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Duil

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ing the four years that he remained with this road he worked himself up to be division storekeeper. , this time Mr. Brown became troubled with an illness which was diagnosed as incipient tuberculosis, and he gave up his position and went to Terra Alta, West Virginia, where he was pronounced cured after a stay and treatment of five months. He then returned to the Chesapeake & Ohio for a short time, after which he embarked in the insurance I usiness on his own account. A little later he added real ostate operations to his business and since then has been rvecessful in building up a large and flourishing realty clientele, with offices at 429 Ninth Street, Huntington.

Mr. Brown was one of the organizers of the Huntington Dr"1 Estate Board, served as its first secretary and treasurer for two years and as a member of the board of directors for a like period. He is a member of the West Virginia Real Estate Association, in the affairs of which he has taken an netive and helpful interest. He is likewise first vice president of the Realty Publishing Company, and was one of the originators of the "West Virginia Realtor, " a " ate publication, being also one of the three members ¡ rsigned to the realtors of West Virginia on the editorial . ommittee thereof. He is president of the Bellevue Land Company of Huntington, of the Brown Development Com- n ny, and of the Morris H. Brown Realty Company, is one 1.nlf owner of the Bowman-Brown Realty Company, also of this city, and is secretary and treasurer of the West Virginia Standard Coal Company and the Mary Elizabeth Coal Com- " ny. He organized an oil company and developed produc- ion on the farm of his grandfather, Robert Brown. This roved to be a very successful venture, although it has · ince been sold. Mr. Brown is an extensive holder of realty in Cabell County, and particularly at Huntington. lle belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club, and as a fraternalist is affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 313, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Politically he is a democrat and his religious faith is that of the Presbyterian Church.

On September 20, 1920, Mr. Brown was united in marriage at Louisville, Kentucky, to Miss Elsie Love Holsonbach, who was born at Somerset, Kentucky, and attended the National Normal School of Ashland, that state.

JOHN L. ELLISON, is one of the progressive and suc- cessful merchants of Summers County, his well equipped general store being at Avis, a tributary town to Hinton, the judicial center of the county.

Mr. Ellison was born at the family home at Ellison Post Office, in Jumping Branch District, Summers County, and the date of his nativity was September 23, 1875. He is a son of Lorenzo D. and Mary Jane (Wills) Ellison, and is a descendant of Joseph Ellison, who, in company with a brother, came from England to America about 1780 and became one of the early settlers in what is now Monroc County, West Virginia. He was captured by Indians and taken to Flat Top, but contrived to escape, this capture having been made in one of the last raids made by the Indians in this section. The Ellison family has been actively concerned in social and industrial development and progress in Monroe, Summers and Randolph counties, and the family name has been honored in the annals of West Virginia since the early pioneer period.

Lorenzo D. Ellison was born in Jumping Branch Dis- triet, Summers County, February 22, 1858, and he is now engaged in the mercantile business at Avis. His father, John F. Ellison, likewise was born and reared in Summers County, where his death occurred July 27, 1899, he having been a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war. His father, John Franklin Ellison, was born in 1790, and died in 1877, he having been a son of Joseph, the founder of the family in the frontier wilds of what is now West Virginia. The grandfather of the subject of this review had become a man of substantial wealth prior to the Civil war, but depredations made by Confederate soldiers, combined with other war depressions entailed to him large property and financial losses. Lorenzo D. Ellison conducted for two years a general store in Jumping Branch District, and

February 5, 1907, he became associated with his son John L. in the same line of enterprise at Avis, his interest in the business having been sold to his son John L. in 1911, and he later having engaged in business at this place, where he still conducts a general store. He has served as a mem- ber of the City Council of Avis, and is one of the influential citizens of this place. The marriage of Lorenzo D. Ellison and Miss Mary Jane Wills, daughter of Lee Wills, was solemnized November 4, 1874, and of the eight sons and two daughters of this union all are living except one son. Jolın L., the immediate subject of this sketch, is the eldest of the number; W. L. is chief clerk for the Loup Creek Coal Company at Page; W. H. is associated with his father in the mercantile business at Avis; C. E. is a resident of Avis and is a carpenter by trade and vocation; R. L. and Edward M. are in the employ of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, as is also Fred, who is a conductor, his twin brother, Lonnie B., having died at the age of eight years; Viola is the wife of D. L. Lane, of Avis; and Anna is the wife of Clay Shipp, who, like Mr. Lane, is in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.

John L. Ellison so profited by the advantages of the public schools of his native county that he made himself eligible for pedagogie service. For five years he was num- bered among the successful teachers in the rural schools of Summers County, at a salary of twenty-five dollars a month, and in the meanwhile he continued his association with farm enterprise. He gave five years to successful work as a traveling portrait salesman, and he then established him- self in the general merchandise business at Avis, where lie has built up a substantial and prosperous enterprise, based on fair and honorable dealings and effective service to an appreciative patronage. He has served as a member of the Republican County Committee, a member of the City Council of Avis, and has been influential in the local councils and work of his party since his early youth. In 1920 he was appointed a member of the Board of Equaliza- tion for Summers County for a term of six years, and he is serving also as a notary public. Both he and his wife hold membership in the Missionary Baptist Churchi.

May 27, 1894, recorded the marriage of Mr. Ellison and Miss Rosa E. Lilly, daughter of Samuel and Anna Lilly. She was born November 20, 1875, and her death occurred August 16, 1901. Of this union were born four children: William C., now a conductor on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, with residence at Avis, was for fifteen months in active service with the American Expeditionary Forces in France in the World war, he having been assigned to the medical department of the Sixth Division; Clara Mabel died at the age of ten years; Mina Claire is the wife of Frank A. Spades, a conductor on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, and they reside in the City of Charleston; and Ola likewise is a conductor for that railroad, with residence at Russell, Kentucky.

On the 17th of April, 1912, Mr. Ellison wedded Miss Stella Barker, who was born in Summers County on the 17th of April, 1882. Mrs. Ellison is a daughter of John W. and Mary Malissa (Meadows) Barker. His father, who had been a prosperous farmer and also engaged in the jewelry business, was a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, at the time of his death, March 7, 1911, his widow being now at the old homestead in Summers County. The Barker family was founded in Virginia in the Colonial period, and representatives of the same were pioncers in what is now West Virginia. Prior to her marriage Mrs. Ellison had heen for five years a popular teacher in the schools of Summers County. Mr. and Mrs. Ellison have two children, John O. and Mary Panline, aged respectively eight and six years, in 1922.

HARRY JAMES EDMONDS, is the popular general manager of the Hinton Fruit & Produce Company, which now controls a substantial and prosperous business, with headquarters in a well equipped establishment at Hinton, the county seat of Summers County. The enterprise was initiated by its present manager in the year 1908, and in 1910 the business was incorporated under the present title. All of the stock in the company is held in the possession of the

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Edmonds family, the other interested principals being Ed- ward T. and George A. B. Edmonds. The Edmonds family was founded on the east coast of Virginia prior to the war of the Revolution, and the family name has been one of prominence in connection with development and progress in what is now West Virginia. The old home was in Accomac County, Virginia, and thence came the represen- tatives in the western part of the Old Dominion, now West Virginia, members of the family having been active in the furtherance of coal-mining industry in the New and Kana- wha River Districts of the latter state.

He whose name initiates this review was born October 12, 1877, in Accomac County, Virginia, and he is a son of John W. and Nancy (Burton) Edmonds, the former of whom now resides at Hinton and the latter of whom passed to the life eternal in the year 1920. Harry J. Edmonds is indebted to the schools of his native state for his early education, and in 1900 he took a position in the office of G. M. Surpell, an executive of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, at Norfolk, Virginia, where he remained until 1908, when he came to Hinton and established, on a modest scale, the business of which he is now the manager and which has under his direction expanded to most sub- stantial proportions. The company has a branch house at Norfolk, Virginia, and another at Huntington, West Vir- ginia, where the business is conducted under the title of the Guyan Fruit & Produce Company, under the manage- ment of Edward T. Edmonds, the house at Norfolk being conducted under the management of John B. Edmonds.

Mr. Edmonds is a democrat, but has had no desire for the activities of practical politics, as he is essentially and unreservedly a business man. He is liberal and public- spirited in his civic attitude, is actively identified with the Rotary Club at Hinton, and he and his wife are zealous members of the Presbyterian Church in this city, he being an elder in the same and also the teacher of a large class in its Sunday School.

In the year 1909 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Edmonds and Miss Margaret Savage, daughter of J. A. D. Savage, of Accomac County, Virginia, and she is a popular figure in the representative social activities of her home community.

ANTHONY GARRETT LEWELLYN has lived his life in the noted Cheat Neck community, on Cheat River, close to the Pennsylvania-West Virginia state line. His postoffice is Cheat Haven, Pennsylvania, but his farm and home are in Union District of Monongalia County, West Virginia. Mr. Lewellyn is an honored and substantial citizen, honored for his high character and also for the patriotic service he rendered as a Union soldier during the Civil war, a war which enlisted several of his brothers as fighting men.

Mr. Lewellyn was born only a mile distant from his present home, on December 7, 1843. His parents were Jesse and Anna (Ryan) Lewellyn. Jesse Lewellyn was born in the same vicinity, on Morgan's Run, May 2, 1796. The grandfather was Doctor Lewellyn, who was born in the United States, of Welsh parentage, and as a young mar- ried man came to the Cheat Neck locality and lived out his life here. He was three times married. Jesse Lewellyn, one of his sons, married in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. His wife, Anna, was a daughter of John Ryan, who came from Ireland. Jesse Lewellyn lived all his married life at Cheat Neck and died at the age of seventy-five, while his wife passed away at the age of eighty. They reared a family of eight children, and of these Anthony G. is the only survivor. Among the other brothers, James O. was a soldier for three years in the First Pennsylvania Cavalry, was a carpenter and steamboat builder in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and died at the age of eighty-three. John R. was a soldier in the Seventeenth Iowa Infantry until the close of the war, and afterward removed to Kansas, where he died at the age of sixty-five. Stephen O., the third soldier brother, was with the Third West Virginia Infantry, which became the Sixth Cavalry, and was all through the war as a sergeant in his company. Still another brother, Asa, lived in Iowa.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 207

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