History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 209

Author:
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > West Virginia > History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3 > Part 209

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

and five years later he sold his stock and business at that place and, in September, 1899, opened a modest stock of goods in a small store room at Bnekhannon, West Virginia. With the gradnal expansion of his trade he removed to larger quarters, which still later required the addition of an act- joining room, and after there continuing his prosperous enterprise eleven years he removed to his present modern and well equipped establishment, in which he utilizes four sales and stock rooms and condnets a large business in the sale of ready-to-wear apparel for men and women. Mr. Levinstein has become one of the substantial business men of the city and is a stockholder in the Buckhannon Bank, besides having other capitalistic interests of local order. Ile is owner of one-half interest in the building adjacent to that in which his business is established, and has other real estate, both in Buckhannon and at Gassaway.

Mr. Levinstein is a valned member of the Buckhannon Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club, besides holding membership in the local Country Club. He is a republican in politics, and he and his wife retain membership in one of the leading Jewish synagognes in the City of Baltimore. Maryland. He is affiliated with the B'nai B'rith; with Franklin Lodge No. 7, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Upshur Chapter of Royal Arch Masons; and with the local organizations of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, and Modern Woodmen of America.

On the 22d of February, 1903, Mr. Levinstein wedded Miss Ida Rappeport, and they have four children: Morton, Leon, Eli and Bernice. The two older sons are, in 1921, students in the Buckhannon High School.

OLANDUS WEST. A native of Harrison Connty, it is the score of years since he established his home in Clarksburg that mark Olandus West as one of the men of achievement in this section of West Virginia. In that time he has been permanently identified with the production of oil and natural gas, is an official in several coal companies, and his name is connected in a vital way with the business and civic progress and prosperity of his home city and county.

He was born November 28, 1871, and was reared at the old homestead farm near MeWhorter in Harrison County. His parents, William Marshall West and Hannah A. (Davis) West, were horn and reared in the same connty and spent all their lives there, the father dying at the age of sixty-nine and the mother at fifty-five. William M. West was a son of Eli R. and Malinda West, while Hannah A. (Davis) was a daughter of Isaac and Frances Davis. Both these families were early settlers in Harrison County. The four children of William M. West and wife wire Araminta L., Mary F., Owen A. and Olandns.

Olandus West acquired a public school education, finishing in West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buckhannon, of which coll ge he is now a trustee. He spent some years as a teacher in the schools of his native district. He also served as presi- dent of the board of education for a term of four years. From teaching he went into the insurance and real estate business, and in 1902 located at Clarkshurg.

Soon afterward he became interested in the development of oil and gas, and soon became recognized as one of the most successful independent operators in his part of the state. He was the founder of the Vesper Oil and Gas Company and its president until he and his associates sold the corporation in 1920. He is also head of several other snecessful oil and gas corporations, and is still an operator on his own account.

In the coal industry his aetive connections are as president of the Peacock Coal Company and vice president of the Fairmont Big Vein Coal Company. Other important busi- ness enterprises that have sought his co-operation are the Clarksburg Trust Company, the Clarksburg Wholesale Com- pany, The Eagle Convex Glass Specialty Company, in all of which he is vice president, and he is a director in the Le- Flore Glass Company and the Jackson Store Company.

The political convictions of Mr. West have found expres- sion in effective service in behalf of the cause of the demo- cratic party. He has been chairman of the Harrison County Democratie Committee, and served as chairman of the Har- rison County Chapter of the American Red Cross, of which

634

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

he still continues a director. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1906 Mr. West married Miss Alma Mc Whorter, daugh- ter of John McWhorter, a well known citizen of Harrison County. Mr. and Mrs. West have no children.

C. K. McCALLY is secretary, treasurer and general mana- ger of the Cutright-Sharps Company, which has built up a prosperous industrial enterprise in the manufacturing of window-shade rollers and similar products, its modern plant being established in the City of Buckhannon, Upshur County.

Mr. McCally was born in Shelby County, Ohio, August 29, 1869, and is a son of William C. and Margery (McKerch- ner) McCally, both natives of Auglaize County, that state, where the former was born November 19, 1844, and the latter on the 12th of March of the same year. The father was reared on the home farm of his parents, received the advantages of the common schools of the locality and period, and was but sixteen years old when his youthful patriotism led him to enlist in Company B, Twentieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until the close of the Civil war. Mr. McCally was twice wounded, and was held as a Con- federate prisoner of war in the odious Andersonville Prison for five months. After the war he returned to his native county, and later engaged in farming and road contracting in Shelby County. Both he and his wife are zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His political support has been given to the republican party, and he served as commander of his post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Of the four children born to Mr. and Mrs. McCally the subject of this sketch is the second in order of birth; E. D. is associated with the Kansas Oil Well Supply Company of Fort Worth, Texas, in the capacity of field manager; Effie A., who became the wife of William A. Mardrie, is deceased; and Olive G., of Sidney, Ohio.

C. K. McCally passed his childhood and early youth on the old home farm in Shelby County, Ohio, and continued his studies in the public schools until his graduation in the high school. Thereafter he completed a course in the Tri- State College at Angola, Indiana, in which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then returned to his native county and engaged in teaching in the public schools, his continued pedagogic service having included his tenure of the position of principal of the high school at Wapakoneta, Ohio, one year, and two years' incumbency of the position of superintendent of the public schools of Fremont, Indiana. Thereafter he. was engaged in teaching in Ohio until he came to West Virginia, where for seventeen years he was traveling salesman for the Ruhl-Kobleg Com- pany, with which corporation he later became associated. For ten years Mr. McCally was engaged in the general merchandise business at Pickens, Randolph County, and he has been actively identified with the coal and lumber indus- tries in this state, in which his operations have been signally prosperous. His varied business experience and his execu- tive ability have come effectively into play in the developing of the important manufacturing enterprise with which he is now identified at Buckhannon.

Mr. McCally is a republican, is affiliated with the Masonic Fraternity, both he and his sons being members of Franklin Lodge No. 7, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Buck- hannon, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Church.

August 15, 1895, recorded the marriage of Mr. McCally and Miss Carrie C. Cole, of Steuben County, Indiana. Mrs. McCally is a graduate of DePauw University at Greencastle, Indiana, and prior to her marriage had been a successful teacher at Angola, that state. Her father, Major William H. Cole, enlisted as a private in an Indiana regiment at the inception of the Civil war and rose to the rank of major. Mr. and Mrs. McCally have one son, William C., who was born December 27, 1898, and who graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buckhannon, he being now (1921) a junior in the Western Reserve Medical College in the City of Cleveland, Ohio. He was a leader in athletic affairs at the West Virginia Wesleyan College, and is popu-

lar and prominent in the student circles of the medical school. He was for five months in service in the United States Army in the World war period, gained the rank of second lieutenant, and for a time was an instructor in military tactics.

DANIEL L. LARUE has been a vigorous factor in the com- mercial enterprise of Grafton for the past twenty years. In that time he has improved his opportunity and advanced himself from driver for an express company to the proprietor- ship of the Excelsior Mantel Company, owns a fine plant for the manufacture of sash, doors aud interior finish, and is a wholesaler and retailer of lumber and builders' supplies.

He was born on a Taylor County farm, but close to the line of Preston County, April 26, 1884. His grandfather was William Larue, a first cousin of Rolando and Hiram Larue, venerable business men of Kingwood and Independ- ence, respectively. Scott Larue, father of the Grafton busi- ness man, was a native of Preston County, and for many years conducted his farm five miles east of Independence and also carried on coal mining. He died in 1903, at the age of fifty-six. His wife, Lutitia Wolfe, represented one of the oldest families of Preston County, being a daughter of Eugenius Wolfe. She is still living on a farm near Newburg. Of her eleven children mention is made as fol- lows: Ida, now deceased; Annie, wife of Clarence Chidester of Newburg; Daniel Lyman; Gilbert, of Newburg; William E., Oscar, Leland aud a twin sister; Lora, of Fellowsville; Mrs. Cora MeDaniel, of Newburg; and Effie.

Daniel L. Larue grew up on Maple Run in Taylor County and was a farm boy until past his eighteenth birthday. He was educated in the public schools, and after coming to Grafton in 1902 he spent a year in the service of the express company as delivery man. He then transferred to the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, first as shipping clerk, and then as M. & W. storekeeper. During the eight years he was in the railroad company's service he saved his wages, paid for a home, and accumulated a very modest capi tal to start him in business for himself. This was the buying and selling of wood mantels. At the start he rented a space 15 by 40 feet from the Grafton Feed and Storage Company but in time he took over an entire four-story building, 80 by 100 feet, on Latrobe Street. In this was installed the machinery for the manufacture of mantles, sash and doors interior finish and others builders' supplies. Five years later he moved to his present quarters at 8 Latrobe Street where he occupies a five-story building with thirty-five thou sand square feet of space. At 914 Main and 930 Main he also has lumberyards, and his facilities are now adequate for all branches of his manufacturing, wholesale and retai. business. He carries everything needed for the construction of a building from foundation to gable, including paints and Reznor stoves. Among important contracts for which he has furnished materials were those for the erection of the Newburg High School, the J. N. Building at Fairmont and high schools at Barricksville and Bridgeport, the fair ground at Clarksburg, the Adamson High School, and the Jacksonville, Smithfield, Littleton and Middlebourne High Schools. At the start Mr. Larue had only three employes In January, 1922, perhaps the lowest point in a dull period his force of helpers numbered twenty-four.

Mr. Larue is also a stockholder and director in the South ern Window Glass Company of Grafton, and has an interest in a similar industry at Wheeling. He is an influentia member of the Chamber of Commerce, is a republican, and outside of home and business has cultivated few interests In Taylor County, October 6, 1906, he married Miss Fonds Ford, daughter of W. P. and Jane (Smith) Ford. Sho was born at West Union, West Virginia, and finished her education in the college at Salem, this state. Mr. and Mrs Larue have two sons, Ralph and Donald.

STANLEY B. WILSON is one of the prominent young at torneys of the Wheeling bar, where since the close of the great war he has succeeded in building up a fine practice and a clientele representative of some of the best interests in that city and vicinity. Mr. Wilson is an ex-service man

ـيم

hel

Hi Ea has

the

die

sing

ati of

Fse

the

tra

ing

635

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

and went into the army shortly after he was admitted to the bar.

He was born at Glendale, West Virginia, March 8, 1890. His father is Isaac B. Wilson, who was born in 1859 at Glen Easton, West Virginia, was reared there, was married, and has since resided at Moundsville, where for many years he has conducted a successful musical merchandise store. He is a republican in politics, is a trustee and supporting member of the Episcopal Church and is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Isaac B. Wilson married Lilly New- man, who was born at Glendale, West Virginia, in 1865 and died at Moundsville in 1897. Her father, Lewis Newman, was born in Virginia in 1825, as a young man removed to Glendale, and conducted his farming operations on an exten- sive scale. He died at Glendale in 1912. He was the lead- ing democrat in his section of the state. Lewis Newman married Clementine Pickett, who was born in 1830 and died it Glendale in 1912. Mrs. Isaac B. Wilson was one of their nine children.

Only child of his parents, Stanley B. Wilson grew up at Moundsville, attended publie school there, and after graduat- ing from the high school in 1909 entered West Virginia University, receiving his A. B. degree in 1914 and gradu- tting at the head of his law class in 1916. He is a member of the Beta Theta Pi college fraternity and belonged to several of the honorary societies at the university. Mr. Wilson practiced law at Moundsville with J. Howard Holt 'rom 1916 until he entered the First Officers' Training Camp n May, 1917, at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis. He vas commissioned a second lieutenant, and in August, 1917, was transferred to Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio, where he was made a first lieutenant and later promoted to cap- ain. In June, 1918, Captain Wilson went overseas with the 33rd Division, and was on duty in the Argonne sector and he onerations in the Meuse. After the armistice he was ransferred to the Thirty-second Division with the Army f Occupation, and was in Germany from November, 1918, until April, 1919. He returned home and was mustered ut at Camp Sherman in June, 1919.

Soon afterward Captain Wilson established his law offices .t Wheeling, and engaged in a general civil practice. His offices are in the Wheeling Steel Corporation Building. Cap- ain Wilson, who is unmarried, is a member of the Episcopal Church, is affiliated with Moundsville Lodge No. 282 Benevo- ent and Protective Order of Elks, is a member of the County and State Bar Associations, and belongs to the Fort Henry Club, the Wheeling Club and the University Club of Vheeling.

ASHTON FILE. As a strong and active member of the Beckley bar during the last twenty years, Ashton File wields n influence in his community that only men of marked trength of character and ability can exercise in a pro- ressive community where competitive genius points the ray and sets the mark of progress. He has been a witness o and participated in the rapid development of this great oal mining section of the state where he is justly looked ipon as a leading citizen and lawyer.

Mr. File is the fourth child in a family of nine children nd was born on a farm in Buckingham County, Virginia anuary 3rd, 1879, and is a son of Ashton and Elvira Tucker) File. Ashton File, Sr., is a son of William and larah (West) File and was born at Barham, County Kent, Ingland, in 1846 and came to America in 1869, locating in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where his wife was born December 1, 1848. They were married December 26th, 1871, nd in 1872 removed to Buckingham County, where they ave since resided with the exception of about four years pent in Chesterfield County. Mrs. File is a daughter of Ienry Tucker and Louisa A. (McGehee) Tucker. Henry 'ucker is a son of Joseph and Christiana Tucker and was orn in Prince Edward County, Virginia, September 10, 1797. Ashton File received his early education in the public chools of Virginia and worked on his father's farm until wenty years of age, when he came to West Virginia and ntered the office of his uncle, Henry J. Tucker, of Mount Hope, Fayette County, who was then a lawyer, but who, revious to entering the legal profession, had had a wide

experience as a civil and mining engineer and had been state mine inspector during governor Wilson's administra- tion. There Mr. File learned land surveying and read law, following which he attended the law school at West Virginia University, from which department he graduated as a mem- ber of the class of June, 1901, and was admitted to the bar in Fayette County, in September, following. For the first few years following his admission to the bar, the greater part of his time was spent in land surveying and in that way accumulated a sufficient competence to establish and maintain a moderate law office and keep the wolf from the door during the first years of his practice. In the spring of 1902 be removed to Beckley and formed a law partner- ship with Thomas K. Laing, who had been his class mate. This partnership was dissolved in 1907, and Mr. File formed a partnership with his brother William H. File, which con- tinued for ten years and was dissolved, and since that time he has followed his profession independently.

In recent years Mr. File has devoted himself to land and corporation law, in which he has a large and lucrative practice. He is a member of the Raleigh County Bar As- sociation, the West Virginia Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. He is a democrat and a member of the Presbyterian church-Mason and Elk.

On June 14th, 1911, Mr. File was united in marriage with Miss Frances Nancy Wiggin, daughter of Henry Dwight and Mary (Strutevant) Wiggin, of West Newton, Massachusetts. They have two children, Dwight Ashton and Mary Frances.

ERWYN ALBERT SMITH for a quarter of a century has had increasing responsibilities in the management of the primary industry at Hartford, the Liverpool Salt & Coal Company, Incorporated, of which he is now general manager. This is one of the industries contributing to West Virginia's large production of salt.

The owner of the industry is Albert Edward Smith of Cincinnati. He was born at Sunderland, Massachusetts, September 2, 1843, but from early childhood has lived at Cincinnati. He graduated from Oberlin College of Ohio, and for a number of years was a Cincinnati pork packer. His interests subsequently took a wide range, and for some years he was a commission broker in handling salt. In 1880 he began the manufacture of salt at both Hart- ford and Mason City, West Virginia, but a number of years later sold the latter plant. The Hartford business is the Liverpool Salt and Coal Company, Incorporated, and the plant is in Valley City, a portion of Hartford. About 125 persons find employment in this local industry. The salt brine is pumped from the ground and refined, the plant having a capacity of 300 barrels per day. The corporation also owns and conducts a coal mine, and Albert E. Smith is president of the Jackson Coal Mining Company of Hart- ford. He is one of the big business men of Cincinnati, where he owns a large amount of real estate. In polities he is a republican, and is a member of the Baptist Church and the Masonic fraternity. Albert Edward Smith married at Cincinnati Harriet L. Ferris, who was born in that city September 20, 1847. Their family consists of the fol- lowing children: Fannie, wife of George B. Goodhart, an attorney at Cincinnati; Horace F., secretary and treasurer of the Liverpool Salt & Coal Company, living at Hartford, West Virginia ; Clara May, who died at Cincinnati in 1898, wife of Dr. C. Davis, a physician and surgeon; Erwyn Albert ; H. Raymond, who is in the insurance business at Cincinnati.

Erwyn Albert Smith was born in Cincinnati February 26, 1876. He graduated from the Cincinnati High School in 1896, and soon afterward came to Hartford, West Vir- ginia, and has been continuously identified in some capacity or other with the Liverpool Salt & Coal Company. For a number of years he has been general manager of this cor- poration, and has full direction of its affairs.

Mr. Smith regards himself as a permanent fixture in this section of West Virginia, and has interested himself in local affairs. For several terms be was a member of the Hartford School Board, has a modern home in Hartford, is a republi- can, a past master of Clifton Lodge No. 23, F. and A. M., at Mason City, a member of Point Pleasant Chapter No.

636

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

7, R. A. M., a charter member of Point Pleasant Com- mandery No. 17, K. T., a member of Beni-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston, West Virginia Con- sistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite at Wheeling, a past chancellor of Banner Lodge No. 22, Knights of Pythias, at Hartford, and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. During the war he was deeply interested in the success of all local drives for the sale of Liberty Loan bonds and the Red Cross and other causes.

In 1899, at Cincinnati, Mr. Smith married Miss Bettie Smith, daughter of L. H. and Alice (Marsh) Smith. Mrs. Smith is a graduate of the Kentucky College of Music and Art at Newport, and is a skilled elocutionist. Three child- ren were born to their marriage: Albert Donald, born Sep- tember 9, 1900, is a junior in the Ohio State University at Columbus and is also taking military training there. Dorothy Marsh, born November 22, 1901, is in the first year at Dennison University at Greenville, Ohio. Ferris, born November 26, 1903, is in the senior class of the Pomeroy High School.

J. CRAIG MILLER, president of the Miller Supply Com- pany, one of the important concerns lending to the industrial and commercial precedence of the City of Huntington, was born in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 24, 1858, a date that indicates conclusively that he is a repre- sentative of a pioneer family of that commonwealth. His paternal grandfather, Gen. Thomas Craig Miller, was born near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and was one of the old-time ironmasters of the Keystone State, where he was concerned in the operation of charcoal furnaces, besides which he was the owner of fine farm property near Gettys- burg, where he was residing at the time of his death, he having been a man of wealth and influence and his having been gallant service as a soldier and officer in the Mexican war, in which he was a general in the command of Gen. Winfield Scott. His wife, whose maiden name was Margaret MacGinley, was a representative of another of the old and influential families of Pennsylvania, in which state she passed her entire life. General Miller was a son of Wil- liam Miller, who passed bis entire life in the vicinity of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the Village of Millerstown, now known as Fairfield, having been named in honor of this pioneer family. William Miller served as an officer in the Patriot Army in the War of the Revolution. A stone wall on his old homestead farm was the stage of the historic charge made by the forces of General Pickett in the battle of Gettysburg, one of the greatest in the Civil war.

Capt. Matthew A. Miller, father of him whose name intro- duces this review, was born on the old homestead near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, December 16, 1832, and his death occurred at Richmond, Virginia, December 16, 1906, on his seventy-fourth birthday anniversary. As a skilled civil engineer his activities were carried on in many different parts of the United States prior to the Civil war, and in connection with that conflict he served in support of the cause of the Confederacy as a member of an engineering corps. He laid out the fortifications at Shiloh, but the most of his service was west of the Mississippi River. After the close of the war he established liis residence at Staunton, Virginia, and became a real-estate or right-of-way repre- sentative of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. Later he settled on his farm in Albemarle County, that state, adjacent to the City of Richmond, and there his death occurred. For sixteen years, as a civil and mining engineer, he was engaged in buying coal lands for what is now the Norfolk & Western Railroad Company. He was a democrat, was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, of which his wife like- wise was a devoted member, and he completed the circle of the York Rite in the Masonic fraternity. Captain Miller married Miss Matilda Fechtig, who was born at Hagers- town, Maryland, in 1833, and who died at Bramwell, West Virginia, in 1903. Of their children the eldest is Fannie, who now resides on the old homestead of her parents near Richmond, Virginia, she being the widow of William R. Vawter, who was a farmer in Monroe County, that state; J. Craig, of this review, was the next in order of birth;

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 209

Author: Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author:
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: