History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 28

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Alfred A. Holt finished his education in the Grafton High School in 1896, and then became assistant postmaster under his father. He was in that office six years, and then during an interval, while developing some plans for independent busi- ness, he spent several months in the employ of Armour & Company. He then joined with Harry Magill and Dr. W. B. Stuck in the purchase of the property of the Grafton Drug & Chemical Company. On establishing a retail store on the West Side he retired from the former business, but subse- quently again became its owner by purchase, and directed its affairs until it was acquired by Dr. Stuck and Fred B. Watkins.

Mr. Holt now devotes his chief time to his growing and prosperous retail drug business on the West Side. The build- ing in which this is located, erected by him in 1912, is a three- story brick, with two business rooms and four apartments. It was not regarded as a profitable investment at the time, but it proved so with the increasing population and the great demand for living quarters. Most of the capital Mr. Holt put into this building he acquired through an investment and enterprise in the lumber regions of Greenbrier County, where he was one of the stockholders in the Maryland Lumber Company, which manufactured lumber for the jobbing and wholesale trade.

Mr. Holt inherits his politics from his father, who was one of the active republicans of the county and exercised a great influence in making Taylor County a stronghold of that

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

party. He cast his first presidential vote for Mckinley in 1896 and his last for Harding in 1920. Fraternally he is a past chancellor of Grafton Lodge, Knights of Pythias, has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge, and is a member of the Moose and Elks. He was reared in the faith of the Lutheran Church.

In Taylor County August 28, 1904, Mr. Holt married Miss Lena Hazel Leonard, daughter of William B. and Lucy (Thorn) Leonard. Her father, who has been a life-long resi- dent of Taylor County, is passenger car foreman for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at Grafton. Mr. and Mrs. Holt have one daughter, Alice Margaret, born in 1916.

RAY M. PARRISH, president of the Parrish Realty Company of Grafton, has been a resident of West Virginia over twenty years, and his business interests have had an increasing scope and range of importance. Outside of his private affairs he has exercised a decided influence for good in the community of Grafton, his public spirit being one of the reliable assets in any concerted movement for the common welfare.

He was born in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1879. His father, Robert Parrish, was born in Potter County of the same state March 12, 1850, was reared there and acquired a liberal education, being a graduate of one of the Pennsylvania state normals. He was a cheese-maker in Craw- ford County, then an oil field worker, and gradually drifted into the lumber industry. For a time he was a merchant in Jefferson County of his native state, where he organized a trust company. His home is now at Reynoldsville, Pennsyl- vania, and he continued active in business until past the age of seventy. His first wife, Effie Scott, a daughter of C. D. Scott, was born at Spartansburg, Pennsylvania, and died in 1894. Her children were: Ray M .; Fern, wife of J. S. Howard, of New York; Leah, wife of Virgil Martin, of Gallipolis, Ohio; Florence, the widow of George H. Pryor, of Martins Ferry, Ohio; and Otis Everett, of Grafton. Robert Parrish by his second marriage, to Carrie Fleming, has two children, Frank and Olive, the former a graduate of Allegheny College and now a sophomore in the law department of the University of Michigan; while Olive is teacher of English in the high school at Kittanning, Pennsylvania.

Ray M. Parrish spent his youth and acquired his public school education in Crawford, Warren and Mckean counties, had four months of high school work at Marionville and a business college course at Warren, this constituting the broad basis of his business training and experience. A valuable asset to him as a real estate man was a year's course in the Sprague Correspondence School of Law at Detroit.

The successive steps in his early business career included a brief service with Elisha K. Kane, a lumber manufacturer at Kane, Pennsylvania, and in February, 1898, leaving Forest County, he came to West Virginia as bookkeeper for the Clarion Lumber Company in Taylor County. At the end of the first year he was promoted to manager, conducting the business four years. This was followed by an independent venture as a lumber manufacturer, associated for a year with E. L. Sawyer. Selling out, he returned to the Clarion Lumber Company, which transferred him to the management of the plant at Manquin, King William County, Virginia, where he remained twenty-one months.

On his return to Grafton he engaged in the printing busi- ness, organizing and operating the Eclipse Printery in associ- ation with U. S. Huggins for two years. Mr. Parrish then became associated with his father and with C. A. Yeager, under the firm name of Parrish & Yeager, in the real estate business at Marlinton, Pocahontas County, specializing in timber lands. A year later Mr. Parrish returned to Grafton, and under the name R. M. Parrish began his operations in the local real estate field and also handling insurance. The Par- rish Realty Company was incorporated in August, 1913, Mr. Parrish being president and owner of the majority of the stock. His brother Otis E. Parrish, has been in the firm since 1918, and is secretary-treasurer of the company.

With every organized effort since he came to Grafton, with a view to promoting the commercial and civic welfare, Mr. Parrish has been associated. He was a charter member of the old Board of Trade, the predecessor of the former Business Men's Association, and was secretary of the board. Then came other organizations, including the Chamber of Com-

merce, and the reorganization of this body was largely due t his personal influence aud leadership. He is president of th Chamber of Commerce, which is now engaged on a broadl constructive program for the advancement of Grafton sn vicinity.

Mr. Parrish was chairman of the finance committee an member of the water committee of the Grafton City Cour cil some ten years ago, when the contract was let for the ne water works and the city park purchased as a water plar site; this has since been improved for a public park, bathin and recreation center. Mr. Parrish is a republican, w chairman of the county campaign committee in 1916, was delegate to the state convention at Wheeling where delegat to the national convention were chosen, and was a member the congressional committee of the Second District whe W. G. Conley was the party candidate.

Mr. Parrish married at Wheeling, in 1901, Miss Rosal Thayer, daughter of John R. Thayer, a retired farmer Grafton and one of the county's earliest and best know citizens. Mrs. Parrish died in October, 1911, leaving thr children, Helen, Coral and Hubert. December 25.1919,M Parrish married, in Taylor County, Miss Helen Cricke herger, a native of Giles County, Virginia. Her father, Re P. T. Crickenberger, is a Lutheran minister of Grafton. H. mother was member of the Payne family, and her matern grandmother was an Early, Mrs. Parrish being a great-nie of General Jubal Early. Mr. Parrish attends the Bapti Church, and while he is not a member he is in thorough syn pathy with the church and organized religious endeavo Mrs. Parrish is a member of the Lutheran Church, of which h father is the pastor.

MERTON A. SYBERT is a leader in the moving-pictur theatrical business in Marshall County, West Virginia, an is recognized as one of the most vital and progressiv business men and loyal citizens of Moundsville. Here h owns and conducts two modern theaters of this type, th Strand and the Park, and at MeMechen, this county, h owns and operates the Midway Theater. The Park wa opened in 1912, with a seating capacity of about 300 which has since been increased to 750. The seating ca pacity of the Midway is 553. Mr. Sybert erected th Strand Theater in 1920, at a cost of $100,000, includin equipment, and this fine modern amusement resort wa opened to the public on November 15th of that year, th house having a seating capacity of 1,050. Mr. Sybert i financially interested also in theaters at Marietta an Cambridge, Ohio, under the title of the C. & M. Amuse ment Company. Mr. Sybert made his initial appearance in the theatrical field in 1910, when he became the oper ator of a house at Marietta, Ohio. In 1912 his capitalisti resources were less than $1,000, and he not only lost th amount which he thus invested but also a position tha was yielding him $1,500. He retained his confidence i the possibilities for successful amusement enterprise a Moundsville, and as soon as he was able to climinate con petition of adverse order he made rapid advancement, over came obstacles that presented and made his way forwar to the goal of substantial success.

Mr. Sybert is president of the Moundsville Chamber o Commerce, a director of the local Rotary Club, and in th Masonic fraternity he has completed the circle of both th York and Scottish Rite bodies. He is a past master o Phoenix Lodge No. 73, Ancient Free and Accepted Ma sons, at Sistersville, this state, and is also a past hig priest of the Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, at that place He is a member of Nemesis Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., o Parkersburg, West Virginia. He has been influential i the councils and campaign activities of the democrati party within the period of his residence in West Virginia and in 1920 was his party's nominee for the State Senate in which connection he made a vigorous campaign in district that has a large normal republican majority, which he succeeded in reducing materially, though he failed o olection, as he had anticipated.

At Sistersville was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sy bert and Miss Laura Blankensop, of Martin's Ferry, Ohio and she is a popular figure in the social activities o Moundsville.

Maybach

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

Mr. Sybert was born in Armstrong Connty, Pennsyl- nia, and his early educational advantages were those the public schools. As a boy he began to assist in his ther's mercantile establishment, and as a youth he held r several years the position of assistant postmaster at vingston, Montana. In 1895 he opened a retail grocery Sistersville, West Virginia, and later he became city lesman for a wholesale grocery company at Marietta, mio. He finally found his maximum potential when he rected his energies into his present field of enterprise, which he has gained both success and high reputation.

JEDEDIAH WALDO ROBINSON, member of the Grafton law m of Warder & Robinson, has practiced law in his native unty sixteen years, and in his capacity as a good lawyer and blic-spirited citizen has achieved no little prominence in the mmunity and its affairs.

Mr. Robinson was born in the county, near Grafton, June , 1881, and he bears a family name that has enjoyed honor- le standing for many years. His grandfather. William binson, was born in Barbour County, was a farmer and oemaker, was routed out of his native community by Con- lerate raiders at the time of the Civil war, and remained in ylor County until some time in the seventies, when he re- rned to Barbour County. where he died in 1897. when about venty years of age, and is buried at the Taylor's Drain metery. His wife was Mary Sayre, and their children were: ank P., whose record follows; Mrs. Isaac Means, of Evans- le, West Virginia; Rev. John S., of Fairmont; Mrs. T. A. ilson, who died in Barbour County; Mrs. Thomas Allen, o died in Iowa; Charles W., of Fairmont; Miss Mary, who ed at Charleston; Mrs. S. H. White, of Clarksburg; and dge Ira E., former judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, d now commissioner of war minerals in the Department of e Interior at Washington.

Frank Pierce Robinson, father of the Grafton attorney, was rn in Barbour County November 5, 1852, had a common hool education, and having been trained to farming he bas lowed it as a permanent career. His home has been near afton for over forty years. While without professional terest in politics, he served on the county text-book board d the district board of education, and in 1912 was elected a republican to the County Court, serving six years, and ring the last two years was president of the Court.

His father's farm was the environment of J. W. Robinson a number of years. He attended country schools, grad- ted from the Grafton High School at eighteen, and then tered West Virginia University, where he pursued both the erary and law courses, receiving his A. B. degree in 1905 d the LL. B. degree in 1906. While in Morgantown he was osen editor of the University weekly paper, and was a ember of the "Mountain," (the English club), the only holarship and honor society of the University at that time. e was also a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity.

He was admitted to the bar in Taylor County in 1906 and the bars of other counties later, then to the Supreme Court Appeals of the state, and also the Federal District and reuit Courts and the Circuit Courts of Appeal for the third d fourth circuits. He had the good fortune to begin prac- te with the distinguished lawyer, his uncle, Hon. Ira E. obinson, and when the latter, in October, 1907, began his ng service on the bench, his practice remained with his phew and Hugh Warder, the firm of Warder & Robinson. his firm has an extensive general practice in all the state d federal courts and are attorneys for the Baltimore & Ohio ailroad.

The work done by Mr. Robinson as a citizen is indicated by entioning the fact that he served as president of the Grafton hamber of Commerce, of which he is a director; is director id former president of the Y. M. C. A .; is a member of the od roads advisory committee of Taylor County, delegated ith the duty of assuring the wise expenditure of the proceeds the million dollar bond issue for the construction of good ads; and is secretary of the Grafton Rotary Club. He gave s first presidential vote to Roosevelt in 1904, and has been eadfastly a republican, though hardly in politics at all. He a member of the Official Board of the Methodist Episcopal hurch. During the war he found opportunity to render some

useful service in connection with the various drives and auxiliary organizations.

In Taylor County, September 1, 1909, he married Miss Sarah Poe. She was born in this county June 21, 1879, daugh- ter of Ed M. and Amelia (Williams) Poe. Mrs. Robinson ac- quired a commercial education, and is active in the D. A. R., in the Chamber of Commerce and other community movements. Their three children are: William, born in 1910; James, born in 1914; and Charles, born in 1917.

CHARLES W. STEEL, assistant cashier of the First National Bank of Grafton, has been a worker in the financial circles of that city for twenty years, and has taken an effective part in affairs of local citizenship as well.

He was born at Fetterman, Taylor County, May 19, 1880. His family has been represented in the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for a long period of years. His grandfather, Charles Steel, was an Englishman, who entered the employ of the Baltimore & Ohio when a young man and continued with it until his death. He was for many years mason foreman for the road. He died when about seventy-five years of age, and is buried at Grafton. His wife, Sarah J. MacDonald, was a native of Virginia, and of their ten children the following lived to mature years: George Walter; James E .; William, who made his home in New York City, was an electrician. and died at Fetterman, West Virginia; Albert Lee, whose home the greater part of his life was in New York City, was also an electrician, was one of the first operators of a biograph, an early phase of the moving picture machine, and he lost his wife at sea, being washed overboard while traveling between Portland, Maine, and New York; and Mrs. C. C. Schuster, who has lived for many years in New York City but is now a resident of Logan, West Virginia.

James Edward Steel, father of the Grafton banker, was born at Woodstock, Virginia, and was ten or twelve years old when his parents moved to West Virginia. He learned his father's trade and early entered the Baltimore & Ohio service, became company foreman, then transferred to the train service, and for the past twenty years has been one of the efficient loco- motive engineers of the company, with headquarters at Graf- ton. His first wife was Mary E. Nuzum, of the well known family of that name in Grafton. She died in 1895, Charles W. Steel being her only child. The second wife of James E. Steel was Agnes B. Gardner, who was born in Belfast, Ireland, of Scotch parentage, and lived for a time at Belfast, and came to the United States from the vicinity of Bedford, England, where she had been visiting a sister.

Charles W. Steel acquired his early education at Fetterman, in an old schoolhouse that during Civil war times has been used as a Government hospital. He also attended a private business college at Grafton, leaving to begin work at the wage of three dollars a week as office boy for the Joseph Speidel Grocery Company at Grafton. Five years later, when he left that company, he was doing the work of salesman and all- round man in the office. With this training and record of efficiency he went into the Grafton Banking & Trust Company in 1903. Here he was promoted to assistant cashier, and was with the company fifteen years. In 1918 he became assistant cashier of the First National Bank.

At all times he has regarded his citizenship as a duty, and never more so than during the World war period. He was secretary of the County Council of Defense and treasurer of all the local war organizations. Mr. Steel is the oldest in point of continuous service among the members of the Board of Education. He is a democrat in politics, a member of the Rotary Club, and since childhood has been a communicant of St. Matthias Episcopal Church. Since he was twenty-one years of age he has been a member of Friendship Lodge, Knights of Pythias, of which he is a past chancellor, and has represented the lodge in Grand Lodge at Wheeling an Elkins. In Masonry he is a past master, past high priest and past eminent commander of the York Rite bodies at Grafton, is orator of the eighteenth degree of the Scottish Rite, and is a member of Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling.

At Grafton, in June, 1909, Mr. Steel married Miss Viola Louise Miller, of Mckeesport, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Henry J. and Elizabeth (Dittme) Miller. Her father is a native of Holland, who crossed to this country when a child.

HISTORY OF WEST VIRGINIA

He became a pioneer steel mill worker in the mills at McKees- port. Her mother is a native of Mckeesport. All of their eleven children are still living, Mrs. Steel being the third youngest child. She was educated in the public schools. Mr. and Mrs. Steel have one son, Charles W., Jr., born November 8, 1910.

OLE EVERETT WYCKOFF, one of the ablest members of the Grafton bar, has depended on his own exertions for the succeas he has achieved. He started with the advantage of a good and honorable name, one that has been identified with West Virginia for considerably more than a century, and with this continent antedating the independence of the United States of America. The first members of this family on coming to this country settled on Long Island, then new Amsterdam, in 1637. His great-grandfather, William Wyckoff, was living in Hardy (now Grant) County as early as the time of the war of 1812. He was a soldier in that conflict, serving in Captain Neville's company of the Sixth Virginia Militia, at the expiration of which term he reenlisted. Except for this military duty he devoted his years to farming, and about 1840 moved to what is now Taylor County. He was laid to rest in the family burying ground in the Court House District of that county. His first wife was Catherine Michael, who left two children, Alfred and Rachel, the latter dying in infancy. His second wife was Mary Shillingberg, and to this union were born fifteen children.

One of them was Samuel Wyckoff, who was born in Hamp- shire County April 24, 1825, and was fifteen years old when the family moved to Taylor County. His life was quietly spent in the rounds of his agricultural work, his home, his worship as a Baptist, and voting as a republican. He married Mary Ann St. Clair, daughter of Thomas St. Clair and mem- ber of another family of ancient residence in West Virginia. They had eight children: Harriet, wife of John Hannegan; Daniel B., noted below; Columbus; Susanna, who married Meigs Day; Claudius; Henrietta, who became the wife of Ellsworth Day; Charles; and Samantha, who married Leon- idas Bord.

Daniel B. Wyckoff was born near the village of Simpson, Taylor County, December 22, 1849. Conditions were such that beyond the country schools he had no opportunity for education, and for a number of years he lived at Tyrconnell, Taylor County, clerking in atores and finding other employ- ment. He also did coal mining for a time, but for nearly a quarter of a century his duties have been as a supervisor for the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane at Weston, though he has retained his home at Grafton for more than thirty years. He is a republican in politics. On June 13, 1872, he married Susan Virginia Bayly, a daughter of Uaher S. and Jane (Stevens) Bayly. Their family of children consist of the following: Myrtle, wife of M. Edgar Coffman, of Cumber- land, Maryland; Nettie, wife of Cornelius J. Burnside, of Pittsburgh; Ole Everett; Adelaide, who married William P. Sample, of Grafton; Harry G., of Fairmont; Holmes V., of Wheeling; Samuel B., who died at the age of three years; Frank Hite, who died at the age of two years; Claire, who be- came the wife of W. G. Menear, of Grafton; and Paul R., of Fairmont.

This consecutive account of the family now narrows down to the individual career of O. E. Wyckoff, of Grafton. He was born at Tyrconnell, Flemington District, Taylor County, September 6, 1878, and in that community at an early age he went to work in the mines. His educational equipment con- aisted of what he had gained while attending the Flemington District public schools and two terms in the old West Virginia College near there. Later he attended the West Virginia University. He taught school in the villages of Tyrconnell and Flemington, and subsequently for a year was principal of the Fetterman School. While teaching he carried work in the summer normals at the University. also began reading law, qualifying for admission to the University Law School, where he finished his courae and in May, 1904, was admitted to the bar.

Mr. Wyckoff has made his success in the law without form- ing a single partnership alliance. He has always been in gen- eral practice. He recalls with considerable amusement his first case. It was as counsel for a negro charged with felonious assault, and the trial resulted in a verdict for simple asaault and a short jail sentence. The negro after his release prom-

ised his attorney to go to work and pay the fee. To encourage him as far as possible, Mr. Wyckoff gave him some of the old clothes from his scanty wardrobe and a quarter of a dollar and that was the last he ever saw of this first client.

For aome yeara Mr. Wyckoff has had a growing share of corporation work. He is retained as counsel for the Taylor County Bank, the Bank of Flemington and several large cor porations, and represents other business concerns and estates In the early years of his practice he was city attorney of Graf ton two terms, and has performed the duties of referee ir bankruptcy aince appointed to that office by Judge Dayton He has done some political work for his friends and his party the republican, but he has never given his friends any en couragement when sounded as a possible candidate.

Mr. Wyckoff helped organize the Taylor County Bank and the Bank of Flemington. He is president of the Graftor Rotary Club, a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and exerted himself withont stint in behalf of home work to aid ir winning the great war. He was chairman of the Legal Advis ory Board of Taylor County and also one of the "four-minute' speakers. He is a member of the First Baptist Church and belongs to several fraternal orders.

In Taylor County July 12, 1905, he married Miss Mayme Bailey, who was born in the same community as her husband one of the three children of Marshall and Anna (Clark) Bailey. Mrs. Wyckoff was born October 26, 1880. They have one son, Everett Bailey, born July 21, 1906, and : remarkable specimen of young physical manhood, standing six feet, two inches tall. He is proficient in his studies and is a member of the class of 1923 in the Grafton High School.

WILLIAM B. STUCK has devoted a large share of his active years to the drug business at Grafton, and is one of the prominent drug men of the state. His business is known as the Grafton Drug & Chemical Company.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 28

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