History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 210

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William H., a civil engineer, died at Bramwell, West Vir- ginia, in 1901.

J. Craig Miller was a child at the time when the family home was established at Staunton, Virginia, and there he attended the public schools, his studies having later been continued in the city schools of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the 4th of July, 1880, he graduated from the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, with the degree of Civil Engineer. For a year thereafter he was identified with con- struction work on the line of the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- road, between Richmond and Newport News, Virginia. He next became a civil engineer in the service of the Denver, Rio Grande & Western Railroad, with headquarters at Salt Lake City, and in this connection he also did original ex- ploration in the Grand Canyon of Arizona. For one year he was in the office of the city engineer of Denver, and the next year found him again with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, with headquarters at Richmond, Virginia. Thereafter he was associated with his father in the buying and surveying of coal lands for the present Norfolk & Western Railroad until January 1, 1890, when he became chief engineer and general superintendent of the Guyandot Coal Land Association, with headquarters first at Hunting- ton, West Virginia, and later at Louisville, Kentucky. After the building of the Norfolk & Western Railroad line into the coal fields of West Virginia he had charge of 200,000 acres of coal land, with headquarters at Dunlow, Wayne County. He retained this position until March 1, 1897, when he established the Miller Supply Company, of which he has since continued the president. The functions of this cor- poration are in the distributing, as jobbers, of mining, mill and electrical supplies, contractors' equipment, etc., as representatives of large manufacturing concerns, the trade of the company extending throughout the coal districts of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Southern Ohio. The offices and warehouse in the City of Huntington are at 742 Third Avenue, J. Craig Miller, Jr., being vice president of the company and William J. Harvey, its secretary and treas- urer. Under the vigorous and able management of Mr. Miller the business has been developed into the largest of its kind between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. Mr. Miller is also chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bluefield Supply Company, and is a stockholder in several coal-min- ing companies, besides being the individual owner of valu- able coal lands in West Virginia and Kentucky. He is independent in politics, has been for twenty-five years a deacon in the Presbyterian Church, is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and the Elks, is a charter member of the Guyandot Club and a member of the Guyan Country Club, and at the corner of Fifth Avenue. and Fifteenth Street he owns and occupies one of the fine residences of Huntington.

December 18, 1889, recorded, at Picquenocque, Virginia, the marriage of Mr. Miller and Miss Sallie Rutherford Tinsley, daughter of James G. and Pattie (Jones) Tinsley both now deceased, Mr. Tinsley having been one of the incor- porators of the Virginia-Carolina Chemical Company. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have three children: Pattie is the wife of Charles S. Porter, of Huntington, who is connected with the Miller Supply Company; Sallie R. is the wife of John R. Bennett who is in the credit department of the Miller Supply Company and who was in active service in France one year in connection with the World war. J. Craig, Jr., who is vice-president of the Miller Supply Com- pany and who also has coal-mining interests, graduated in his father's alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, in 1916. When the nation became involved in the World war he entered the First Officers Training Camp, thereafter passing two terms in the engineering corps at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers. He passed one year in France, as second lieutenant of Company E, Second Di- vision, American Expeditionary Forces, and took part in the major engagements at Verdun and Chateau Thierry. For his gallant exploit in entering woods under heavy fire and rescuing two wounded members of his platoon he was awarded the distinguished-service cross.

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HENRY CREED FERGUSON, who recently retired from eight years service as prosecuting attorney of Roane County has been a member of the West Virginia bar over twenty years, carries on an extensive practice at Spencer, and is one of the men of real leadership in that section of the State.

Creed Ferguson was born at Ripley in Jackson County, West Virginia, June 21, 1874. His grandfather Joseph Ferguson was born near Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland, in 1820, and as a youth came to America. He went back to Ireland, married, and then brought his bride across the ocean and settled in New York state. He was a stone mason by trade. For a short time he followed his trade at Cleve- land, Ohio, and about 1850 came to Jackson County, West Virginia, where he bought a farm and followed agriculture as his main occupation the rest of his days. He died near Ripley in 1890. In later years he voted the republican ticket and though reared a Presbyterian, in the absence of a church of that denomination in Jackson County he wor- shipped with the United Brethren people. His first wife Miss Cameron was born in County Antrim and her two children were born in New York state. She died in Cleve- land. Her children were: James; and Isabelle who died in Jackson County, wife of Andrew Hamilton Boone, who served as a Union soldier the last two years of the Civil war and is now a retired farmer in Mason County, West Vir- ginia. Joseph Ferguson married for his second wife, Grace Vauden a native of Exeter, England, who died near Ripley, West Virginia. The children of this union were: Mary, wife of Sylvester Barnhart of East Liverpool, Ohio; Alexander, a farmer who died near Ripley; William, a re- tired farmer at Columbus, Ohio; Elizabeth who died near Ripley, wife of George W. Stone, a farmer in that section; Agnes, wife of Joseph Mahon; John; and Armour, assistant cashier of the Peoples Bank at Ripley.

James Ferguson, father of Creed Ferguson, was born in New York state May 8, 1847, and from about three years of age was reared in Jackson County, West Virginia, where during his active life he conducted a farm on a successful scale. He was a leader in his community, a republican, was justice of the peace of Union District two terms, and two terms president of the Board of Education of Union Dis- trict. He was affiliated with the United Brethren Church and a member of the Odd Fellows. He died near Cottage- ville in Jackson County in 1901. In that county he married Virginia Price, who was born in Roane County November 10, 1855, and is now living in Clay County, West Virginia. Creed Ferguson is the oldest of her children; Joseph H. is a physician and surgeon at Middlebourne, Tyler County; Dorma is the wife of Melvin McIntyre, a farmer and oil field worker living near Angerona, Jackson County; Rhoda is the wife of Howard Keith, a locomotive engineer living in Clay County; Clara is the wife of Theodore Holcomb a farmer living in Clay County; Lawrence John, volunteered in July, 1917, was commissioned a first lieutenant, saw service in the various encampments in the United States, for a time was personnel officer at Fort Benjamin Harrison, and subsequently has been with the regular United States army as military instructor of officers training camps in the educational institutions and is now assistant professor in military tactics at the University of California at Berke- ley, with the rank of first lieutenant. Jessie is the wife of Lockney Keith, a conductor with the Short Line Railroad living in Clay County, West Virginia; Marshall lives with his mother in Clay County and is now a student in the Charleston Commercial College.

Creed Ferguson grew up on a farm, attended the rural schools of Jackson County and select schools at Ripley, spent one semester during 1892 in the Fairmont State Nor- mal School, and at the age of seventeen began teaching. For eight years altogether he was a teacher in the rural district of Jackson County, and for two years was a teacher in the public schools of Ripley and four years in the schools of Fairmont. In the meantime he was studying law in the University of West Virginia where he graduated LL. B. in 1898. Mr. Ferguson located at Spencer in 1908, and since then so far as his official duties have permitted has carried on an extensive general civil and criminal practice,

his offices being on Church Street. While a resident of Jackson County he served one year as County Surveyor. From January 1, 1909, to January 1, 1913, he was assistant prosecuting attorney of Roane County and was then elected and served as prosecuting attorney two terms, from Janu- ary 1, 1913, to January 1, 1921. He is a republican and has a number of interests of a civic and business nature. He is secretary of the Spencer City Oil Company. He is a mem- ber of the State Bar Association, is a trustee and president of the official board of the Methodist Episcopal Church and for two years was secretary of Union Lodge No. 128 Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Cottageville. During the war he was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of Roane County, one of the Four Minute Speakers Bureau, and went all over the county building up patriotic senti- ment and gaining support for the various loans and other drives.

In 1904 near Ripley he married Miss Anna Staats, daugh- ter of George W. and Diana (Waugh) Staats, the latter now deceased. Her father is a retired farmer at Parkers- burg. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, George, died at the age of one year, eight months.

WALTER D. DAVIDSON. In a thriving and prosperous city where many interests meet and clash and supremacy at the best of times is maintained only through the exercise of unusual business ability, importance attaches to those whose foresight and good judgment, supplemented by experienced trade knowledge, enable them to guide safely great enter- prises through the shoals when there are unsettled com- mercial conditions of unusual gravity. By no means all of the business ventures entered into at Huntington during recent years can be located at the present time, although many started with far better prospects than did the Walter D. Davidson Furniture Company, but the modest beginning of the latter concern was substantially developed and care- fully nurtured and has become one of the city's business enterprises of solidity and permanence.

Water D. Davidson, the president of this concern, who also holds the controlling interest therein, was born at South Point, Lawrence County, Ohio, January 21, 1883, and is a son of Emanuel and Emma (Lackey) Davidson. The Davidson family had its origin in the neighborhood of Edinburg, Scotland, whence it was transplanted to America in Colonial times, the first immigrant of this branch of the name locating in Pennsylvania. In that state was born the grandfather of Walter D. Davidson, Joseph Davidson, who became a pioneer into South Point, Ohio, a large land- holder and boat owner, and one of the first steamboat men. He died at South Point, where his wife passed away in 1889. She had been Miss Jane Bryson, born in the State of Kentucky in 1804.

Emanuel Davidson was born October 8, 1832, at South Point, Ohio, and there passed his entire life, dying April 4, 1912. He was a leading merchant at that place and an influential republican. During the Civil war he served in the capacity of postmaster, and also owned and operated a ferry running between West Virginia Point, West Virginia, Catlettsburg, Kentucky, and South Point, Ohio, which was utilized during the struggle between the North and the South in ferrying Union troops. Mr. Davidson was a devout churchman and a strong supporter of the Baptist Church. He held membership over fifty years in the Masonic Order. Mr. Davidson married Miss Emma Lackey, who was born December 2, 1845, in Nicholas County, Kentucky, and now survives him as a resident of South Point, Ohio. They be- came the parents of five children, namely: Albert H., who is a merchandise broker of Huntington; Vernon, a buyer and director for Anderson Brothers Company department store of Portsmouth, Ohio; Virginia Lee, the wife of How- ard A. Lawrence, who is engaged in the insurance business at Huntington; Leslie H., manager for the Steinway Piano Company at Dayton, Ohio; and Walter D., of this record.

Walter D. Davidson attended the public schools of South Point and Portsmouth, Ohio, until he was eighteen years of age, at which time he became a traveling salesman for the Ypsilanti Furniture Company of Ionia, Michigan, covering every large city in the United States. He spent the period

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from 1910 to 1919 in New York City as the eastern manager of this concern, and with this experience came to Huntington in January, 1919, and bought out the wholesale and retail furniture business of J. C. Carter & Company, which had been established in 1890 and which is now the oldest and leading furniture enterprise at Huntington, being situated at 922-24 Fourth Avenne. The company is incorporated under the name of the Walter D. Davidson Furniture Com- pany, Mr. Davidson being president and holding the con- trolling interest. He has built up not only a large and prosperous enterprise but a reputation for integrity and honorable dealing that gives him the full confidence of his associates in the business world.

Mr. Davidson is president of the Huntington Business Men's Association. A vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the executive committee of the United States Retail Furniture Association, and a director in the Tri-State Fair Association, in addition to which he belongs to the Kiwanis Club, the Guyandot Club and the Guyan Country Club. He owns a modern residence at 201 Fifth Avenue, a comfortable home in a desirable resi- dental district. During the World war, Mr. Davidson super- vised the making of aeroplane seats while in New York City, and his company handled large contracts from the Wright Brothers and others.

In 1912, at Grand Rapids, Michigan, Mr. Davidson was united in marriage with Miss Agnes Marion Pitch, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Pitch, the latter deceased and the former a furniture man of Grand Rapids. Mr. and Mrs. Davidson are the parents of one child; Emily Josephine, who was born at New York City, August 12, 1917.

JAMES A. HUGHES. Life seems to shower upon some men distinction of magnitude, and yet it is but seldom that such honors come to the undeserving. An individual must be worthy before he is singled out from his associates for ad_ vancement, and he is required to maintain that same high standard to retain what he has already gained. . Especially is this true with reference to the promotions in public life, where real ability secured its rewards and a lack of it is readily recognizable. In the case of James A. Hughes, one of Huntington's foremost citizens, while the awards have heen numerous, all have been deserved. Mr. Hughes has been the architect of his own fortunes, for he has been com- pelled to tread the hard, self-made pathway to success, and his career as business man and public servant has been one warranting the high confidence and esteem in which he is universally held.

Mr. Hughes was born at Corunna, Canada, February 27, 1861, a son of James W. and Ellen (McNnlty) Hughes. His father, born in County Mayo, Ireland, September 10, 1833, was reared and married in his native land, where he was a teacher in the rural schools, and in 1852 came to America, settling first at Corunna, province of Ontario, Canada, where he became a general merchant. In 1871 he came to the United States, settling in Wayne County, West Virginia, where he farmed one year, and then went to Ashland, Ken- tucky, where he was general railroad agent for the Ashland Coal and Railway Company for three years. His next loca- tion was Star Furnace, Kentucky, where he continued ten years as general superintendent of large coal operations, and in 1894 came to Huntington and embarked in the flour milling business for a time. He received the appointment as postmaster of Huntington, and after serving in that capacity for fourteen years retired from active life and lived quietly until going to his final rest, June 10, 1920. He was a republican, and held offices in both Canada and the United States. He belonged to the Episcopal Church, of which he was a strong and generous supporter. Mr. Hughes married Miss Ellen McNulty, who was born in 1839, in County Mayo, Ireland, and died at Huntington in 1913. They were the parents of seven children, as follows: Will, a telegraph operator, who died at the age of twenty-two years at Bellaire, Ohio; Louise, who died at the age of twenty-one years; John, who is secretary of the Ashland Steel Company at Ashland, Kentucky; Ed, who was county court clerk of Boyd County, Kentucky, and died at Catletts- burg, that state, aged forty-two years; Arthur M., a whole-

sale grocer of Louise, Kentucky; and Douglas E., who was secretary to his brother James A. when the latter was a member of Congress, and who died at Winfield, West Vir- ginia, aged thirty-five years.

James A. Hughes attended the public schools of Corunna, Ontario, Canada, for two terms of three months each, that being the limit of his instruction received in an institution of learning. However, he has acquired an excellent educa- tion through study, much reading, close observation and mingling with people of education and culture, and is today a well-informed man on all practical subjects. When he was but ten years of age he entered the Ashland National Bank of Ashland, Kentucky, as an errand boy, a position which he filled for three years, and then secured employment in a country store at Geigerville, Kentucky, remaining seven years. Mr. Hughes was then attracted to railroading, and obtained first the post of conductor and later that of train- master on the Ashland Coal and Iron Railway, where he remained two years, his next experience being gained as a traveling salesman, work which he followed a like period. In 1884 he went to Louisa, Kentucky, where he was engaged in a general mercantile and lumber business until 1890, at that time removing to Ceredo, West Virginia, remaining in the lumber business, while next he followed a wholesale business for ten years. He then came to Huntington and engaged in a general contracting and timber business until elected a member of Congress.

Mr. Hughes' career as a public man had commenced in 1888, when he was elected to the State Legislature in Ken- tucky, serving two years and representing Boyd and Law- rence counties. In 1894 he was elected to the State Senate of West Virginia, representing Wayne, Cabell and Putnam counties, and served in the sessions of 1894 and 1896. In 1897 he was made postmaster of Huntington, an office which he filled until 1900, when he was sent to the National Congress, where he remained from March 4, 1900, to March 4, 1915, representing the Huntington District of twelve Counties, viz: Cabell, Mason, Putnam, Lincoln, Logan, Mingo, McDowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Wyoming, Boone and Wayne. His record in Congress was one of meritorious service, in which he labored constructively, faithfully and effectively for his district and for the best interests of the country at large. In 1915 he returned to Huntington and engaged in the real estate business and general contracting, in which he has continued to be active to the present time, his offices being situated at 1125 Fourth Avenue. Mr. Hughes is a stanch republican in his political allegiance. He has numerous important business connections, and is president of the Pence Springs Water Company of Hunting- ton and Pence Springs, West Virginia. He owns a modern residence at 1140 Fifth Avenue, one of the fine homes of his adopted city. During the World war Mr. Hughes took an active part in all war activities, and made speeches throughout West Virginia in behalf of the cause.

On December 28, 1885, Mr. Hughes was united in mar- riage at Ceredo, Wayne County, West Virginia, with Miss Belle Vinson, a graduate of the Young Ladies Seminary of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and a daughter of Samuel S. and Mary (Damron) Vinson, both of whom are now deceased, Mr. Vinson having formerly been engaged in the timber business in Wayne and Raleigh counties, West Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes have two children: Mary Eloise and Tudell. Mary Eloise married Lucian P. Smith, who was lost in the sinking of the "Titanic" when they were re- turning from their wedding trip spent in Europe. Tudell Hughes, who is engaged in the wholesale lumber business at Ashland, Kentucky, married Harold H. Van Sant. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes have three grandchildren, Lucian P. Smith, Jr., Vinson and Jean Van Sant.

WALTER A. WINDSOR. Point Pleasant, an important little city and Ohio River port, at the mouth of the Kana- wha River, claims as the most extensive and important of its industrial enterprises that conducted by The Marietta Manufacturing Company, of which Mr. Windsor is the presi- dent. Under the title of W. F. Robertson and Company, this business had its inception in 1852, when river naviga- tion was an enterprise of major civic and economic import-

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ance. In 1887 The Marietta Manufacturing Company, suc- cessor of the original concern, was incorporated with a capital stock of $100,000, but it was not until the year 1915 that the factory and headquarters of the company were transferred from Marietta, Ohio, to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a charter being granted to the company by the latter state and the capital of the corporation later' being increased to $200,000. J. S. Spencer, one of the most liberal and influential citizens of Point Pleasant, is one of the principals in the company, as is also Judge George Pof- fenbarger, who is serving on the bench of the West Vir- ginia Supreme Court. Walter A. Windsor became presi- dent of the company in 1912, under the Ohio charter, and he has continued the executive head of the West Virginia corporation. C. O. Weissenburger is vice-president and treasurer, and S. C. Wilhelm is the secretary. The manu- facturing plant of the company at Point Pleasant was erected in 1916. It consists of substantial, modern mill buildings, giving an aggregate floor space of 100,000 square feet. The plant has excellent frontage on the Ohio River, with the best of launching facilities. The concern is one of the foremost in the manufacturing of steamboats, barges and smaller water craft to be found on the course of any of the navigable rivers of the United States, and the plant has facilities for the full equipping of vessels, as builders of engines, boilers and all requisite accessories, with a gen- eral foundry and machine shop and provisions for the effec- tive handling of structural steel work of all kinds, so that the province of operations is thus greatly broadened. The company retains an average force of 600 employes, and in the manufacturing of tow boats of the best grade the com- pany has developed an appreciable export trade. In 1921 three such vessels from this important plant were shipped to the Madalena River, Columbia, South America. Here are manufactured the most powerful types of tow boats, both stern and side wheel, as well as screw propellers, built on inland rivers, and provided with wonderful triple-ex- pansion engines. Here are manufactured also the most powerful types of tandem compound engines for use on in- land rivers, no other builders in the Union turning out such engines of as great power. The plant is the largest of its kind on western rivers, and here also splendid constructive service was given in connection with the nation's activities in the great World war. Here were at that period produced 20,000 horse-power in marine engines for ocean vessels and also 10 batteries of water-tube boilers. The plant of the company was officially enlisted in the Government service as Class A, No. 1, and no man needed in the operations of the plant was permitted to enlist in the army or navy. This vigorous and progressive West Virginia corporation has handled the largest and most important of contracts in its special field of production, and the great importance of such an industry in connection with civic and material prosperity and progress at Point Pleasant may be readily recognized.

Walter A. Windsor was born at Marietta, Ohio, in the year 1888, and is a son of A. Windsor, who was identified with marine manufacturing interests in Ohio throughout his active career, as was also his father, A. Windsor, Sr., the latter having established his residence at Marietta, that state, in an early day. Walter A. Windsor gained practical experience in the shops and yards of the Marietta Manu- facturing Company while its plant was still maintained in his native city, and his technical and academic education is of advanced order, as evidenced by the fact that he has received the degrees of B. A., LL. B., M. E., S. N. A. and M. E .- one or more of these from Marietta College and the others from Harvard University. He also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the city of Boston. He is a member of the bar in the State of Ohio. In his home city of Point Pleasant Mr. Windsor is an active member of the Kiwanis Club and the Business Men's Club, and here he is a communicant of Christ Church, Protestant Episcopal. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. In his vigorous business policies, his cultural influence and his pleasing personality Mr. Windsor has become a most popu- lar factor in the business and social life of Point Pleasant, and his name still appears on the roster of eligible young

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 210

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