History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 54

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Mr. Adams came to Sistersville in June, 1917, as as- sistant manager of the MeJunkin Machine Company. He was promoted to manager in February, 1918, and had charge of the business until September 1, 1919, when he was made manager of the Young Torpedo Company, a Sistersville corporation, with main offices in the Farmers & Producers National Bank Building. In January, 1922, he was made secretary and treasurer of the company. The company manufactures nitro glycerine, and its product is shipped to all the adjacent oil and gas districts of West Virginia and Ohio.

A young business man just getting a foothold in com- mercial and industrial affairs, Mr. Adams has not neglected other interests that have a legitimate claim on a good citizen. He was city accountant of Sistersville from 1917 to 1920 and again appointed to that office in March, 1922, is an active member of the Presbyterian Church and teacher in its Sunday school, and while in Wheeling was deacon of the Second Presbyterian Church. He is a dem- ocrat in politics; a member of Phoenix Lodge No. 73, A. F. and A. M .; Sistersville Chapter No. 27, R. A. M .; Mountain State Commandery No. 14, K. T .; Sistersville Lodge No. 333, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; Wheeling Lodge No. 114, Knights of Pythias; and is a member of and the second president to hold the office in the Sistersville Kiwanis Club. He lent his aid to the va- rious drives and campaigns during war times.

October 20, 1909, at Wheeling, Mr. Adams married Miss Daisy Dell Hilton, daughter of Jacob and Josephine (Gill) Hilton, residents of Warwood, Wheeling, where her father

operates a bank or surface coal mine. Mrs. Adams is a graduate of the Elliott Business College of Wheeling. Four children have been born to their marriage: R. Baird, born December 28, 1910; Ewing, who died at the age of five months; Dorothy, born September 10, 1914; and Effie, born May 29, 1918.

CLAUDE LEANDER SMITH is a successful lawyer and busi- ness man of Charleston, is one of the best educated men in the profession in the state, and enjoys a growing fame as an orator and speaker.

Perhaps Mr. Smith inherits some of the wit, humor and. eloquence of his distinguished ancestor, James Smith, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. James Smith was a native of Ireland but was reared and educated in Pennsylvania, was a lawyer and surveyor, and for many years the only practitioner at the bar of York, Pennsylvania. He was a leader in the Revolutionary move- ment and a member of the first constitutional convention of Pennsylvania and of the Continental Congress and later a judge of the Pennsylvania Court of Appeals. He died at York in 1806. Claude L. Smith is also a native of York, Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1890, son of E. H. and Mary J. (Simpson) Smith. In the maternal line he is a member of the prominent Simpson family of Eastern Ohio, of which Ulysses Simpson Grant was a kinsman. Mr. Smith's mother was a daughter of Dr. R. A. Simpson and a niece of the late Bishop Simpson of the Methodist Church.

Claude L. Smith has degrees from some of the foremost institutions of learning in the country. He graduated from high school at York, received his A. B. degree from Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1909, and was awarded the Master of Arts degree by Clark University of Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1911. He pursued his law studies chiefly in Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, where he graduated LL. B. in 1913.

Soon after graduating he came to Charleston, was ad- mitted to the bar, and has beeu steadily in practice and is one of the ablest business lawyers in the state. In 1915 he was made secretary and general counsel for the Commercial Security Company of New York and Chicago. Mr. Smith is vice president of the Moss Construction & Supply Con- pany, secretary-treasurer of the Houghton Cement Block Company, president of the Nitro Supply Company and a director of the Virginia Savings & Loan Company.

He is an enthusiastic republican, is a Mason, an Elk, a member of the Lutheran Church, and is vice president of the Billy Sunday Men's Club of Charleston.

Mr. Smith enlisted as a private in the army in 1917. After nearly two years of service he received an honorable discharge in 1919, with the rank of first lieutenant. He then resumed his practice at Charleston. He handles a general practice in the various state and federal courts. As a speaker his abilities have been called upon for addresses on many occasions and particularly in political campaigns. During the presidential campaign of 1920 he was engaged by the Republican National Campaign Committee for a long series of speeches.

BOYCE MILLER. An organization that represents the most complete and modern facilities in the broad field of general real estate at Charleston is Boyce Miller & Company, real- tors. The head of this firm is one of the youngest and most aggressive business men in the capital city, Boyce Miller, who has been a factor in Charleston only half a dozen years. In that time his associates have come to admire his tremendous energy and his remarkable faculty for getting things done and organizing and directing large : affairs.

Mr. Miller was born in Logan County, West Virginia, in 1896, son of R. B. and Columbia (James) Miller. As a boy he attended public school at Alderson, West Virginia, graduating from high school, and also attended the Uni- versity of Richmond, Virginia. He has been making his own way since an early age, and consequently his career is longer than might be normally expected of a man of his age. While at Alderson he learned the printer's trade in the office of the Alderson Advertiser, and as an apprentice

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received a dollar a week. He was in the wholesale candy and stationery business at Alderson for a time. Like many successful men, he has learned by his mistakes, and he freely acknowledged that he had "failed before he was twenty." In the meantime between school sessions he worked as solicitor of bank accounts in Charleston for the National City Bank and the Charleston National Bank, first coming to the capital city in 1913, at the age of seventeen.

In 1915 he located permanently in Charleston, becoming a salesman for the real estate firm of Poteet & Woodroe, with whom he remained about a year. Then with two part- ners he went into the real estate business for himself, and in 1920 he bought out his partners and has since conducted Boyce Miller & Company personally. This is a business representing every important feature of a modern real estate organization, and includes a mortgage loan depart- ment, city brokerage department, rental department, con- struction department and sub-division department, each de- partment equipped for an adequate service in the line cor- responding to its name. Mr. Miller's firm also has charge of the investment of funds on mortgage loan security in Charleston and vicinity for Eastern financial corporations, and act as mortgage loan agents for the Security Bank & Trust Company of Charleston. Mr. Miller is president of the Miller Development Company, a holding corporation owning considerable property in the Kanawha Valley.

Mr. Miller was the leader in organizing and was the first president of the Charleston Real Estate Board. A tempo- rary organization was effected late in 1918, of which Mr. Miller was made chairman, and the permanent organization was completed in 1919, with Mr. Miller as president. The Charleston Real Estate Board is a public-spirited organiza- tion working for the growth and broader development of Charleston, and its usefulness has been exemplified in many directions. Mr. Miller has also served as president of the West Virginia Real Estate Association and was formerly a member of the license committee of the National Asso- ciation of Real Estate Boards. This committee drafted what is known as the Ideal Real Estate License Law, for licensing real estate brokers. This law has already been adopted by twelve states.

Mr. Miller is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and is affiliated with the Order of Elks. He married Miss Florence Thompson, of Charleston. Their two children are Boyce, Jr., and Florence Gale.

CARL SCHOLZ, whose technical and practical experience gives him a position as one of the foremost mining en- gineers in the country, has been identified more or less closely with the coal industry of West Virginia for thirty years. He has recently returned to Charleston, where he has his home and offices.

His first work as a mining engineer and mine operator in West Virginia was in the Kanawha District, beginning about 1890. He worked as mining engineer at Powellton in Fayette County and later, in association with J. L. Diek- inson, C. A. Cabell and James R. Thomas, opened mines on the K. & M. Railroad. Later this syndicate sold the coal properties lying north of the Kanawha River to the Morgan interests of New York. From 1902 to 1917 Mr. Scholz had most of his professional interests in the West as engineer and expert with the mining and fuel department of the Rock Island Railroad. On June 1, 1917, he became con- sulting mining engineer for the Burlington Railroad Com- pany and general manager and director of the Valier Coal Company. While with the Burlington system Mr. Scholz equipped in Franklin County, Illinois, what is known as one of the largest coal mines in the world, producing the famous Franklin County coal.

In 1919, returning to the private operation of mines, Mr. Scholz became vice president and general manager of the Raleigh-Wyoming Coal Company of Charleston. He built the mines of this company in Raleigh and Wyoming coun- ties, and the production of coal began on November 5, 1919. This company owns 9,000 acres of coal land at the head of Marsh Fork of Coal River, south of the fork of Hazy Creek in Raleigh County. Coal measures of this prop- erty run from the Eagle Seam up to the No. 5 Block. The

other operation is on a tract of 9,000 acres located in Wyoming and Raleigh counties, at the headwaters of the Laurel Fork of the Guyandotte River. The second mine is on the Beckley seam, which lies at a depth of 650 feet, and with an average thickness of seven feet.

The coal from these two mines is renowned for its high quality. It has a very low percentage of ash, running from one and a half per cent to as low as half of one per cent and less of ash. These two mines are among the most modern and complete in the United States. They represent the last word in equipment and loading facilities, and mining engineers have pronounced them as models of con- struction and thereby pay a high compliment to the in- genuity and technical skill of Mr. Scholz.

Carl Scholz was born at Slawentzitz, Germany, July 2, 1872, son of Paul and Nanette (Schneider) Scholz. He acquired a technical education before coming to America in the Royal Gynasinm of Benthen, where he studied mining engineering under Doctor Schmiedecke. He came to Amer- ica in 1889, and the following year became associated with the coal industry of West Virginia. As a consulting en- gineer of the United States Bureau of Mines he was sent to Europe in 1910 to investigate and report on mining con- ditions. Aside from his many technical reports on mine operation and mine engineering Mr. Scholz has contributed numerous articles to the general press on labor and related problems affecting the mining industry. He is a member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical En- gineers, the Western Society of Engineers, and is member and former president of the American Mining Congress. He is a republican, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and belongs to the Chicago Athletic Club in Chicago, where he formerly had his residence. He is also a member of the Elks, the Edgwood Country Club and the Kanawha Country Club of Charleston. On March 4, 1917, he married Mae A. Fleming, of Chicago.

J. H. LOVE. Probably no city in the state has had a bigger building boom, represented by costly and substantial structures of an industrial, commercial and residential char- acter, than Charleston. A conspicuous participant in this development has been J. H. Love, a contractor and builder of Charleston for over fifteen years.

Mr. Love's business was developed out of his early ex- perienee as a journeyman carpenter, a trade he learned during his youth in his native county of Mason, where he was born in 1872. After his apprenticeship he worked in various towns and cities, and since 1905 has been in busi- ness as a contractor and builder at Charleston.

Much of his finest and most important work has been done within the last two or three years, while Charleston has been experiencing a phenomenal extension and expansion of building growth. During 1921-22 he was contractor for the construction of the hotel, theater and business building owned by G. E. Ferguson on Washington Street, between Sherwood and Broad streets, this being one of the finest and most attractive of Charleston's modern buildings. He also erected two business buildings on East Washington Street for E. D. Haywood, comprising a prominent addition to the newly developed East Charleston section. He built the double residence at 1628 Quarrier Street, and a new residence for E. F. Dalton, and in 1921 built the parsonage for the new Lawrence Methodist Episcopal Church. These buildings are noted primarily to indicate the scope and character of the work Mr. Love does as a building cou- tractor. However, the list might be expanded almost in- definitely by quoting many other examples that testify to his business energy during the fifteen years he has been a contractor and builder in this city.

JAMES DENTON DINSMOOR. With the development of the oil district around St. Marys no name has been more prominently identified than that of Dinsmoor. James Den- ton Dinsmoor is associated with his brother in the firm of Dinsmoor Brothers, and their father, during his last years, was also a participant in this development. The Dinsmoor brothers do not confine their operations as producers to St. Marys, or even to West Virginia, their holdings being

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scattered extensively over nearly all the settled oil dis- tricts of the Middle West.

James D. Dinsmoor has been permanently located at St. Marys for a number of years, is a banker of that city and also represents this district in the State Senate. He is of old New England ancestry, members of the family, Scotch- Irish descent, having settled in New Hampshire in Colonial days. One of his ancestors was an officer in the Revolu- tionary war. His grandfather was a soldier in the War of 1812, was born in New Hampshire, and throughout his active career followed teaching and was an old fashioned and highly educated schoolmaster. For many years he was identified with the schools of Warren County, Pennsyl- vania, where he died.

John C. Dinsmoor, father of Dinsmoor Brothers, was born in Warren County in 1837, was reared and married there, and first engaged in the lumber business. In 1872 he located at St. Petersburg in Clarion County, where he began mining coal from his own mine, and was interested in some of the pioneer oil well operations there. In 1886 he removed to the Tarkill oil field in Venango County, Pennsylvania, where he was one of the leading producers. Associated with his sons, he extended his interests to the St. Marys field of West Virginia, and in 1906 he moved to St. Marys to look after his business in this district. In 1908 he established his home at Williamstown in Wood County, where he lived until his death in 1918. As an oil producer he had interests throughout the Ohio and West Virginia fields. He was a republican, held the of- fice of school director in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, and was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Loyal Order of Moose. John C. Dinsmoor married Jane Holt, who was born in Warren County, Pennsylvania, in 1838, and died at St. Marys in 1906. James Denton and Lyell E. are the only two sons of this marriage and comprise the firm of Dinsmoor Brothers at St. Marys. John C. Dinsmoor married for his second wife Miss Nellie Finny, a native of Pleasants County and now living at Marietta, Ohio. She has three young children.

James Denton Dinsmoor attended school in Clarion County and high school at St. Petersburg, hut after the age of fifteen he turned from books and book studies to a scene of action. For several years he was a telegraph operator and station agent with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, heing on duty at Jefferson, Turkey City and other stations in Clarion County. When he was twenty Mr. Dinsmoor began his long and thorough apprenticeship in the oil industry. He began as a pumper in the fields of Clarion and Venango counties, and then successively was a driller, rig huilder, tool dresser and even had expe- rience in the mills where the pipe and castings for oil wells are manufactured.

Associated with his brother and father Mr. Dinsmoor came to St. Marys in 1901 and began buying settled oil pro- duction. Dinsmoor Brothers have for several years been by far the largest producing concern in the county, and they rank among the very largest in the entire state. Mr. Dins- moor is a senior partner, and his word is accepted as the ultimate authority in fourteen different oil companies operating through Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois and Penn- sylvania. He and his brother were also pioneers in the development of the oil resources of Eastern Kentucky, but they sold their interests in that state in 1919. Mr. Dins- moor is vice president and a member of the executive committee of the Keener Oil & Gas Company of Ohio. Dins- moor Brothers, whose offices are on Second Street in St. Marys, own a number of farms, two in Pennsylvania and over 1,000 acres in Pleasants County. Mr. Dinsmoor is vice president of the First National Bank of St. Marys, is a director of the People's Bank & Trust Company of Marietta, Ohio, and holds stock in two other banks. His home, the finest in St. Marys, is situated on a commanding eminence on Second Street.

Mr. Dinsmoor was elected on the republican ticket to the State Senate in November, 1920, beginning his duties in January, 1921. During the first session he was a mem- her of the committees on finance, mines and mining, labor and railroads, and was one of the Senate sub-committee of

three which drafted the Gross Sales Tax Bill. During the war Mr. Dinsmoor was ready and welcomed every oppor- tunity to contribute or aid in any way the Government in the successful prosecution of the war. He is a mem- ber of the Pleasants County Automobile Association; St. Marys Lodge No. 41, A. F. and A. M .; St. Marys Lodge No. 22, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he has been a member of the Odd Fellows since he was twenty- one years of age, joining at Oil City, Pennsylvania.

In 1905, at St. Marys, he married Miss Nelle Gallaher, daughter of Silas and Rosa J. (Porter) Gallaher, the lat- ter living in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmoor. Silas Gallaher was a farmer who died at St. Marys, and a por- tion of that city occupies his old farm. Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmoor: Carlton G., born in July, 1906; James Denton, Jr., born May 1, 1908; Gordon H., born in 1912; Mary Louise, born in September, 1915; and Jane Elizabeth, born in July, 1918. The oldest son, Carl- ton, is a student in the Culver Military Academy of Indiana.

JOSEPH WILLIAM LIVELY for many years was one of West Virginia's able educators, and is still to a degree identified with educational affairs as West Virginia man- ager for the Virginia School Supply Company. In handling this business throughout the state his headquarters and home are at Charleston.

Mr. Lively was born in Lincoln County, West Virginia, in 1879, son of Mark and Sarah (Midkill) Lively. The Livelys are a family of Scotch-Irish origin, with several generations of residence in old Virginia. His paternal grandfather came from Virginia to Lincoln County, and still later moved to Ohio, but returned to Lincoln County and spent the rest of his life there. Mark Lively was a native of Lincoln County, where he and his wife still reside.

J. W. Lively attended the public schools of Lincoln County, and subsequently continued his education in Mar- shall College at Huntington and the West Virginia Uni- versity at Morgantown. For eighteen years he was active! in the profession of teaching, beginning in a country school in Lincoln County and ending his career as a school mian as superintendent of schools at South Charleston. He resigned this office in 1920. and in April of that year was appointed state manager for the Virginia School Supply Company of Richmond. He now has entire charge of the company's business in West Virginia.

The Virginia School Supply Company are manufacturers and wholesale distributors of school, opera and church fur- niture, including all school supplies and everything needed for the school room. Mr. Lively's talent for business, coupled with his many years experience in the school room, makes him exceptionally well qualified for a work in which he has brought distinctive success to his company. Mr. Lively married Miss Nora Hilbert, of Lincoln County. His business offices are in the Odd Fellows Building at Capitol and State streets. He is a member of the orders of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and a member of the Christian Church.

ELMER C. STOTTS is associated with Mr. A. H. Danger. field as manager and proprietor of the Charleston Business College, an institution that ranks foremost as one of the leading business training schools in the state. Both are graduate Masters of Accounts, and have had a wide training in actual business as well as in the teaching of commercia subjects.

The Charleston Business College represents a broad and generous policy in the training of men and women for successful careers in the ever widening field of commerce and industry. Training for business is now coming to be recognized as in every important essential training for life a phrase upon which so much empasis was placed by older educational systems. The service rendered by the Charles ton Business College is in strict line with this ideal, and its generous patronage has been a complete justification of the plans and policies of its managers. This school oc cupies the entire third floor of a new building at 1010-12-14 Quarrier Street, which has been especially arranged for the

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teaching of business subjects-more than 6,000 square feet of floor space used by this school each day. The staff of instructors and the curriculum offer exceptional facilities for a broad business training, and also for specialized train- ing in preparation for work in technical industries by the introduction of office training devises such as the mimeo- graph, multigraph, electric posting machine, adding machine, calculating machines, filing devices, etc. The many gradu- ates who fill responsible positions are in themselves the highest testimonial and asset to the work and dignity of the institution.

The managing director of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce has this to say of the managers of the Business College: "We are glad to say that Mr. A. H. Dangerfield and Mr. E. C. Stotts, who are managers of the Charleston Business College, are citizens of the highest integrity and efficiency iu our community. Both Mr. Dangerfield and Mr. Stotts have been personally and favorably known to the writer for ten years, and they have done much toward the upbuilding of the commercial life of this community. The Charleston Chamber of Commerce takes pleasure in un- hesitatingly recommending them as expert business college men, as first class citizens, and as men who from the practice of their profession will render credit to any community. "

Elmer C. Stotts was born in Noble County, Ohio, and was reared on a farm. He taught for a number of years in the rural schools of Ohio. He finished his education in the Marion Normal College, Marion, Indiana, of which he is a graduate, and in which he subsequently pursued a post- graduate course. He has been continuously engaged iu teaching since 1902. He was a business college teacher at Marietta, Ohio, for several years, and for three years was associated as teacher with the famous Dunsmore Business College of Stauntou, Virginia. During that period he also taught certain classes in the exclusive girls' school, the Mary Baldwin Seminary.

Mr. Stotts came to Charleston in 1917 to engage iu the business college work, and in 1919 he founded the Charles- ton Business College.

A. H. DANGERFIELD is a native of Mercer County, West Virginia, and received his early education in the public schools of Mercer County and later graduated from the Princeton Collegiate Institution. At the age of twenty he began his business career by pursuing a course in the Duns- more Business College, from which institution he was graduated, receiving the degree of Master of Accounts. Following this training be was auditor for a number of years for a large coal syndicate in the Norfolk & Western coal fields.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 54

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