History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 50

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sons and one daughter, and three reached mature years. Harry Michael was a farmer who died at the age of thirty- five, and by his marriage to Clara Lemley left two children, Earl and Carl. Plummer Core, a merchant at Core Station, married Elizabeth Lemley, and their two children are Phyl- lis and Leland.

Charles H. Core is associated with his brother Plummer in business, but they have divided their responsibilities, Plummer having the management of the store while Charles looks after the farming operations. They have about four hundred acres, and cattle and sheep grazing has always been a feature of their business. For thirty years they have been breeders of high grade Shorthorn cattle, many of their animals having heen exhibited with honors at local fairs. Mr. Charles Core built his substantial brick home in 1913.

He was married at the age of twenty-four, he and his brother having taken sisters for brides. His wife was Ger- trude Lemley, daughter of Alexander and Lucy (Tucker) Lemley, both of whom died at the age of sixty-five. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Core have three children: Campbell Lem- ley, now associated with his father on the farm, was in vocational training service at the University during the war, and married Gillie Wright; Arthur Lynn, a freshman in the State University; and Doris, a high school girl. Mr. Core is a republican, and his church affiliation is with his father's old church, the Dolls Run Christian Church.

EDWARD L. ZIHLMAN is president of the Huntington Tumbler Company, one of the important manufacturing concerns lending to the industrial and commercial prece- dence of the City of Huntington, and he is one of the lib- eral and progressive business men of this city.

Mr. Zihlman was born at Cumberland, Maryland, Feb- ruary 5, 1883, and is a son of Anthony and Charlotte (Schindler) Zihlman, the former of whom was born in Switzerland, in 1840, and the latter of whom was born in Switzerland Township, Monroe County, Ohio, in 1845, her death having occurred at Cumberland, Maryland, in 1888.

Anthony Zihlman was reared and educated in his native land and there gained his initial experience in connection with glass manufacturing. He arrived in the United States on the 17th of March, 1866, and found employment in a glass factory at Bellaire, Ohio, one of his fellow employes and friends at that place having been a man named Owens, later distinguished as the inventor and patentee of an im- proved machine for the blowing of bottles. By actual ex- perience of practical order Anthony Zihlman learned all details of glass manufacturing, and in 1881 he removed to Cumberland, Maryland, and established the Cumberland Glass Works, his associate in this enterprise having been his brother Joseph. They continued to operate this fac- tory until 1900, when Anthony Zihlman came to Hunting- ton, West Virginia, and organized the Huntington Tum- bler Company, of which he continued the president and general manager until his death, in 1912. He was a man of resourceful energy, and developed a substantial and successful manufacturing industry that is being continued under the executive direction of his son. He was a demo- crat in politics and was a communicant of the Catholic Church, his first wife having been a member of the Luth- eran Church. Of their three children the two daughters died young, and thus Edward L., of this review, is the only surviving member of the immediate family. For his sec- ond wife Anthony Zihlman married Miss Margaret Rank, who was born at Cumberland, Maryland, and who contin- ued her residence at Huntington. Of the second marriage were born five children: George, a skilled artisan in the factory of the Huntington Tumbler Company, served in the Signal Corps with the Eighty-first Division (known as the "Wildcats"') with the American Expeditionary Forces in France in the World war, he having been in active serv- ice in the Argonne sector and having been with his com- mand in France for a period of eighteen months. Charles, vice president of the Huntington Tumbler Company, like- wise was in the nation's service in the World war, he hav- ing been a radio electrician in the navy and having as- sisted in the laying of mines in the North Sea, his service

of eighteen months having been principally on the United States ship "Roanoke." William is foreman in the dec- orating department of the plant of the Huntington Tum- bler Company. Henrietta and Clara remain with their wid. owed mother.

Edward L. Zihlman acquired his early education in the rural schools of Switzerland Township, Monroe County, Ohio, and under the direction of a private tutor at Cumber- land, Maryland, where also he was graduated in the Cen. tral Commercial College in 1898. Under the able direction of his father he thereafter learned the trade of glass. hlower, and in the passing years he gained experience in all details of glass manufacturing, so that he was well forti. fied in a technical and executive way when the death of his father led to his assuming the office of president of the Huntington Tumbler Company, the plant and offices of which are situated at the corner of Madison Avenue and Fifteenth Street. In this factory, of the best moderr equipment, are manufactured tumblers, goblets, bar glass ware, tankards, nappies and a general line of lead-blown tableware. The factory is a substantial hrick structure cov ering one-half of a city block, employment is given to 17( workmen, and products are shipped to all parts of the United States, as well as to Cuba, Porto Rico, England Holland and even far-off Java. Mr. Zihlman is president of the company, his brother Charles is vice president, and Charles W. Kerr is secretary and treasurer.

The democratic party receives the loyal allegiance of Mr Zihlman, and his religious faith is that of the Lutherar Church. In the Masonic fraternity his affiliations are a here noted: Huntington Lodge No. 53, A. F. and A. M .: Huntington Chapter No. 6, R. A. M .; Huntington Com mandery No. 9, Knights Templars; West Virginia Con sistory No. 1, A. A. S. R., at Wheeling, in which he ha received the thirty-second degree; and Beni-Kedem Tem ple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston. He is a member also of Huntington Lodge No. 313, B. P. O. E., and hold: active membership in the local Chamber of Commerce and the Guyan Country Club. His name still remains enrolled on the list of eligible bachelors in Cahell County.

J. F. SMITH. An interesting example of reclamation work resulting in restored and built up soil, an attractive home and a substantial addition to the agricultural re sources of Monongalia County, is found in the dairy farn of J. F. Smith, two miles east of Morgantown, in the Mor gantown District on the Kingwood Pike.

Mr. Smith is in every sense a practical man of affairs though he also recognizes the value of a broad and com prehensive view as to the lines and methods of progress He was born in Marion County, West Virginia, January 11, 1872, son of Levi Smith, who lost his life in a coal mine though he was not a miner. J. F. Smith was only a child when his father died. His mother, Lizzie Lowe, daughte of William Lowe, of Grant District, Monongalia County was born there and is the last survivor of the Lowe family in the county. She now lives with a son in Morgantown

J. F. Smith when about ten years of age moved to Mor gantown, grew up there, acquired a common school educa tion, and learned the butcher's trade with his brother H. L. Smith. That trade was his business and vocation until in 1903 he hought his present farm. This farm com prises 205 acres of the old George Dorsey farm, which i: ante-bellum days was a great plantation worked by slav labor. Several generations of cultivation had decidedly im poverished the soil, and the land was in a state of depletio: when Mr. Smith bought it. For several years he used th land chiefly for grazing cattle, feeding for the export trade but for the past seven years has conducted it as a mode dairy farm. He has a herd of from thirty-five to fort cows and contributes about seventy gallons of milk dail to city patrons at Morgantown. His farm is also underlai by the Pittsburg vein of coal, and the coal rights have bee sold to operators.

May 18, 1896, Mr. Smith married Virginia Wells. Sh was born at South Park, Monongalia County, March ! 1877, daughter of William J. and Rebecca (Garrett) Well; being the youngest of their three children and the only on

Salman

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born in West Virginia. The other two, John, now of Mor- gantown, and Margaret, wife of Frank Jeffers, who died at the age of forty-two, being natives of Washington County, Pennsylvania, near Brownsville, where her parents were also born. On coming to Monongalia County her father bought the old DeMain farm, now included in South Park. He died July 12, 1896, at the age of seventy-six. Her mother died April 20, 1916, at the age of seventy-three. Mrs. Smith's father was one of the extensive sheep growers of this section. In company with his brother John and with "California" J. Morris, Mr. Wells had gone to Cali- fornia as a forty-niner, but was shipwrecked on the voyage, and after reaching the Pacific Coast was called home on account of his mother's death and then took charge of the homestead farm. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have four children: Jeannette E., Ralph J., Mary Virginia and William Page, all living at home. Jeannette is the wife of G. D. Hastings. During his ownership and operation of eighteen years Mr. Smith has actually transformed his farm so far as the productive side is concerned and also to a large degree its home facilities. He has treated the soil liberally with lime- stone, and this bas rejuvenated the land in connection with careful cultivation. He has remodeled the house, and alto- gether the Smith home is one of the very desirable ones in the rural section of Monongalia County.

WEBSTER P. FLEMING. Few families have testified by their good works and influence more markedly in Taylor County than the Flemings. Their original home was in Wales. Born in Wales, James Fleming came to the Ameri- can colonies a few years before the Revolution. Shortly after the close of that struggle he moved from Hampshire County to Taylor County, and took up hundreds of acres in the vicinity of what is now Flemington, and in the im- provement of this estate passed the remainder of his life. His first home occupied the site of the old West Virginia College, now the property of the Flemington School Dis- trict. His body lies in the Fleming graveyard on the land of Doctor Curry at Flemington. Toward the close of his life he married for his second wife Polly Whitehair, then only eighteen, and she survived until 1904, her home being near the old college building at Flemington. The first four permanent settlers in the Flemington locality were James Fleming, Polly Whitehair's father, Mr. Prunty and Mr. Bailey.

James Fleming, the pioneer, was not a man of education, and in managing his extensive property in Taylor County he depended chiefly on bis son James, who had accom- panied him hither. This James became one of the very prominent men, possessing education and strong native talents. He served as squire, was the owner of many alaves, and besides farming owned a mill on Simpson Creek and had a blacksmith shop. His home was west of and in sight of the Village of Flemington. By his marriage to Eliza- beth Welch there were eight daughters and three sons: Patrick, Minor S. and Johnson C. Johnson's daughter be- came Mrs. Curt Davidson and was the mother of the late Doctor Davidson of Parkersburg, one of the prominent medical men of the state, who inherited the home prop- erty of his grandfather but died without heirs.

Patrick Fleming, who continues the line of this branch of the family, was a farmer and miller. He was born in 1800 and died December 14, 1872. He married Margaret McDonald, daughter of James McDonald. She died in 1859, the mother of eight children: Lurana, who married Lemuel E. Davidson; James, who died unmarried; William and Mary, who died in childhood; Benjamin, whose record follows Sanford B., of Ritchie County; Johnson, who died in childhood; and Elizabeth, who married Chasteen Cleven- ger and is now deceased. Patrick Fleming'e second wife was Mrs. Catherine (Bartlett) Sgepler, and their children were Claude and Lucetta, the latter the wife of William Peter of Harrison County.

Benjamin Fleming, who was born in the Flemington com- munity, November 2, 1834, became one of the trustworthy and honored citizens of Taylor County. Having a good rudimentary education he joined his father in farming for some years and later for himself. He continued to live at

Flemington until April 9, 1865, the day that Lee surren- ‹lered, when he moved to the farm between Webster and Pruntytown, where his son Webster now lives. He died there October 12, 1909. He was a stanch republican, had served as a home guard during the Civil war, and he and his wife were life-long members of the Flemington Church. October 6, 1857, he married Elizabeth Powell, daughter of Elijah Powell, of Flemington. She was born November 12, 1837, and died May 27, 1921. They were the parents of two sons, Hayward and Webster Patrick.

Hayward Fleming, who was born July 28, 1858, attended Flemington College, then taught district school at Shelby Run, which he had attended as a boy, and then taught the Robinson School in Knottsville District. During 1882 he was a student in the Pruntytown School. After serving several years as county surveyor he taught the Webster school during the winter of 1887-88, and in the fall of 1889 entered the West Liberty Normal School, where he gradu- ated in June, 1891. For three years following he was a student in West Virginia University, specializing in civil engineering. For a portion of the years 1894-95 he did normal work for teachers at Flemington, and for one year was principal of the Grafton High School. The day after the school term closed he started for Tennessee to do some surveying for the Penn Oil Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company. At the close of the summer's work he returned to Grafton, continuing as principal of the high school two years, and was then given the additional duties of superintendent of schools, including the east and west sides of the river.

He concluded his school work in 1905, and for a time he was connected with the Grafton Banking & Trust Company, and on July 23, 1907, was appointed deputy to County Clerk Kitzmiller. In 1908 he was elected clerk of the County Court, and served a six year term. Subsequently for a time he was deputy under Sheriff Melvin Newlon, but re- signed January 7, 1918. Among other noteworthy services he was a member of the County Schoolbook Board twelve years, from 1897 to 1909; was notary public from the fall of 1885 to the fall of 1919; and was one of the appraisers of the Adolphus Armstrong estate in 1907. He became a stockholder in the Home Building & Loan Association in 1902, and was its secretary from June, 1903, to January 11, 1921. He is a charter member of the Grafton Banking & Trust Company. He is a republican and for forty-eight years was an official in the Webster Missionary Baptist Church. August 23, 1896, Hayward Fleming married Miss Lucie Newlon, who was born July 11, 1864, daughter of James B. and Margaret Jane (Sharps) Newlon, of Flem- ington, where her grandfather settled on a farm adjoining that of James Fleming, the pioneer.

Webster Patrick Fleming, whose record concludes the family history, has never married and was a devoted son to his parents as long as they lived. He was born at Fleming- ton, September 17, 1859, and since he was about six years of age has lived on the old homestead near Webster. He acquired his education there, and since early manhood has been a practical farmer, handling and growing cattle and shecp. He has lived up to the standards of progressive citizenship, is a republican, and a member of the Webster Missionary Baptist Church.

TIMOTHY S. SCANLON. As a road builder and contractor Timothy S. Scanlon has had a very interesting and im- portant connection with West Virginia's good roads history. Ilis time and energies have been chiefly bestowed on this line of work for twenty-two years. His home is at Hunting- ton, but recently Grafton has become almost his business headquarters while performing his duties as general super- visor of Taylor County's good roads construction program.

He was born at Harrisonburg, Virginia, November 15, 1858, son of Timothy and Norie (Mahony) Scanlon. His parents were both born in County Kerry, Ireland, near the River Shannon. Coming to the United States about 1853, they located in Virginia, where Timothy Scanlon was em- ployed on construction work for the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- road. When he died in 1861, at the first tunnel west of Covington, Virginia, he left a family of nine children, some

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of whom fortunately were old enough to bear the burdena of supporting the household. The widowed mother soon moved to Greenbrier County, West Virginia, living for a time on a farm there, and after two years accompanied some families to Red House on the Kanawha River, and subsequently further up the river to a point opposite St. Albans, where she remained until 1870. Her children were: Catherine, who married R. C. Gayer; Patrick J., who for some years was a railroad contractor but spent the great part of his life in charge of the P. C. Buffington estate at Huntington, where he died; Ellen, whose first husband was John Gohen, and she died as the wife of John Haloran; Norie, wife of Charles Dyer, living at Montgomery, West Virginia; Margaret, wife of John J. Lee, of Huntington; John, who died in childhood; Edward, who was a locomo- tive engineer out of Hinton when he died at the age of thirty-one; Samuel, who died unmarried at Hinton; and Timothy S.

Timothy S. Scanlon has been a resident of West Vir- ginia since 1861. He had no opportunity to attend school until he was eight years old, and for the next five years, during two or three months each year, he was a pupil in a school opposite St. Albans on the Rocky Fork of Poca River. Even then he was doing work that was a prac- tical contribution to the support of the household. His early interest in construction work was derived from em- ployment as driver of a cart and other duties under his brother Patrick while the latter was building a short piece of the Chesapeake & Ohio west of Montgomery, and another bit at Sandstone. As a result of this early in- dustry and his thrift he had saved about $200 before he was fifteen years old. A better education was his chief object and ambition just then, and for ten months he was a diligent student, simply "living with his books," in an excellent school known as the Old Academy on Gos- pel Hill, Staunton, Virginia. Mathematics was his chief subject, and he left school with a good knowledge of algebra and some of the higher branches, a training that was invaluable in later years.

After thirteen months as a Chesapeake & Ohio brake- man he was promoted to freight conductor, 312 years later was made yardmaster at Hinton, and in a little while, before he was quite twenty-one, was raised to the responsibilities of trainmaster, with jurisdiction over eighty miles in each direction from Hinton. He con- tinued these duties there years, and might have become one of the conspicuous railroad officials of the country but for the affliction of rheumatism, which caused him to give up railroading. About that time he established his home in Huntington, in 1883.

Mr. Scanlon was a shoe merchant at Huntington for about twenty years, until his growing interests in other directions caused him to dispose of that business. His first connection with road construction was as an employe of Doctor Hale in the manufacture of the brick used in the first brick road ever laid in the United States, on Summers Street in Charleston. Mr. Scanlon states that this road was laid on a base of four or five inches of pit gravel sand and gravel natural mixture, covered with two-inch tarred boards, then a sand cushion of two inches, on which were laid ordinary two-inch brick, the brick being made in oil molds from common river-bottom clay. While perhaps not adapted to the heavy traffic of modern streets, this brick pavement stood the test of time and wear for at least thirty-five years.

His next experience in practical road-building was due to his election in 1892 by the people of Huntington, re- gardless of politics, to act as city treasurer in carrying out the provisions of the first bond issue for paving the city. Out of brick made by the city some seven miles of permanent streets were constructed. After the satisfac- tory completion of this work Mr. Scanlon refused a re- nomination for the same office, and he soon engaged in road building and general contracting on his own account. Roads, streets and sewer building have comprised his field, and among many important contracts handled by his organization in subsequent years were paving jobs in Hin-

ton and Huntington, hard-surface roads in Wayne County between Ceredo and the Cabell County line; a highway contract at Roncevert; five miles of main sewer in Hunt- ington; ten miles of 16-foot brick road in Cabell County ; five miles of concrete road in Lincoln County; and many miles of permanent road in several other states.

He was appointed by Governor Cornwell a member of the West Virginia State Road Commission, and was asso- ciated for some fifteen months with A. D. Williame of Morgantown and about nine months with the chairman, Maj. C. P. Fortney. They organized the commission, selected the "Class A" roads in the state, perfected the state standard of specifications since in use, and pro- vided for the automobile license regulation as well as it could be done with funds made available by the Legislature.

As noted above, Mr. Scanlon's active association with Taylor County's good-road building program is as gen- eral supervisor over the expenditure of the $100,000 bond issue with the contribution of the Federal Government. In that capacity he supervised in 1921 the building of 61/2 miles of hard-surface roads and the grading, drain- ing aud bridging of 412 miles in preparation for the hard-surfacing in 1922. Mr. Scanlon has always con- tended for a good sub-base and good drainage as essen- tial to the life of any road structure. In 1922 Taylor County advertised and let contracts for thirty miles of new road, and this, too, is under the supervision of Mr. Scanlon.

During his experience as a contractor Mr. Scanlon took some large jobs of road building while the World war was in progress, and completed them in the face of the fluctuations due to rapid inflation and deflation, taking his share of loss in the general slump. In his home city of Huntington, besides his service as city treasurer, he was later elected to the city council and then as one of the city commissioners. He was commissioner of finance and public utilities three years. During this term twenty miles of street paving was laid, three miles of main and twenty miles of lateral sewer built, the South Side Park was laid out and improved, and provision made for the sale of the old fire department and city hall headquarters and the erection of a new city hall and fire station that would be a credit to a city several times the size of Hunting- ton. The same commission proved its adequacy in the emergency created by the flood of 1913, handling the situ- ation at a cost of $18,000, and in the following winter put such vigor into the administration of the department of health that a smallpox epidemic took a toll of only two lives. In these and other practical measures of ad- ministration the commission expended $1,250,000 annually, but in such a way as to satisfy the people of the real economy of true efficiency.

Mr. Scanlon was one of a committee to get up the plan for the construction of the Huntington Chamber of Com- merce, and for eight years he served the chamber with- out pay. He is still an active member of this body, and of the Huntington Rotary Club, has filled the various chairs in the Knights of Columbus, and is past consul and for eight years was state lecturer for the Modern Woodmen of America. He voted for General Hancock, the democratic nominee for president in 1880, and has heen a democrat with liberal tendencies through all his mature career.

At Huntington, June 15, 1885, Mr. Scanlon married Miss Jennie V. White, who was born and reared on the site of Huntington, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Stewart) White. The Whites were Maryland people while the Stewarts came from Bath County, Virginia. Mr and Mrs. Scanlon had two children, the daughter Drusilla dying in infancy. Charles M., the son, is in the oil field: of Tampico, Mexico. Over a period of many years Mr and Mrs. Scanlon have opened their hearts and their hos pitable home to about twenty orphan children. His inter est in such children extended beyond those under his OWI care. For many years he was president of the West Vir ginia Colored Orphans Home. When a private institution supported by the colored race was about to fail, Mr

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 50

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