History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 73

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Among the teachers who gave effective instruction to Herbert D. MeClintock in the public schools at Dempsey- town, Pennsylvania, were Martin Carey, who is now vice president of the Standard Oil Company, and P. M. Spears, who is now chief counsel for that great corporation. After the family removal to Huntington Mr. MeClintock here at- tended the high school until he had partially completed the work of his senior year. Thereafter he was for somewhat more than three years a student in Central University at Richmond, Kentucky, from which he withdrew in his sen- ior year to become instructor in Greek and military tactics

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and science in Jackson College, in Breathitt County, that state, where he remained one year. Within this period in that tempestuous county he had for a time active charge of county affairs, in command of a force of 100 men for one week, and the aggressive work which he thus accom- plished resulted in the hanging of Tom Smith, a leader in the French-Eversole feud.

In 1896 Mr. MeClintock returned to Huntington, and shortly afterward assumed active management of his fa- ther's lumber mill in Mingo County. In April, 1898, he entered the nation's service, at the inception of the Span- ish-American war, and was sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he was made a sergeant, his honorable discharge hav- ing been given on the 4th of February, 1899. He had pre- viously gained wide experience in military affairs. In 1889 he was captain of the Huntington High School Cadets; while attending Central University he was senior captain of its Cadet Corps; in 1895 he was promoted to the rank of major, and his name was placed on the honor roll of the war department of the United States. On the 11th of November, 1889, he enlisted in the West Virginia National Guard, in which he served thirteen consecutive years and was a member of the staff of every colonel that has com- manded the Second Regiment. In the World war period he was commanding officer of the Iluntington Militia Re- serves.

From the spring of 1899 until 1910 Mr. Clintock was actively identified with lumbering operations in the State of Mississippi, and he then returned to Huntington, where he has since been successfully engaged in the manufactur- ing of lumber and cooperage stock, under the title of the H. D. McClintock Lumber Company.

Mr. MeClintock is a democrat, is a member of the Hunt- ington Chamber of Commerce, the West Side Country Club and the local lodge of Elks, and he and his wife hold mem- bership in the Presbyterian Church.

The year 1900 recorded the marriage of Mr. MeClintock and Miss Ada Stewart, who was born in Huntington, and in their home resides her father, Isaac Foster Stewart, a retired brick manufacturer, his wife being deceased. Mrs. MeClintock graduated from the Wesleyan Female Institute at Staunton, Virginia, this being one of the patrician educa- tional institutions of Virginia. Of the four children born to Mr. and Mrs. McClintock the first, Mary, died at the age of nine years; Mabel is, in 1922, a student in the Ens- low School at Huntington; Grace died in early childhood; and Charles is attending the Guyandotte school. These children are the sixth generation of an early settler of Huntington on the Stewart side.

GEORGE EDWIN LEWIS, M. D. Coming to Chester in 1900, Dr. George Edwin Lewis has been engaged in the unbroken practice of his calling ever since, and during these twenty- two years has not only built up a material success but has risen to a leading place in the Hancock County medical profession. He has likewise been identified with civic and business affairs, and in a number of ways has gained the right to he numbered among his community's most useful and highly-respected citizens.

Doctor Lewis was born January 19, 1873, on a farm one mile from the National Road and about the same distance from the Pennsylvania State Line, in Ohio County, West Virginia. The first of the family to locate in this section was John Lewis, who was born March 1, 1775, and was reared near Baltimore, Maryland. He is known to have lived near Lake Erie, where he kept a public house at one time, and also was for a time a resident of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, as his son George was born there July 2, 1814. It seems that a removal was soon made to Whitely, near Morgantown, West Virginia, and that he served as captain of a company of infantry for eight months during the latter part of the War of 1812. The family removed thence to Central Ohio about 1820, as John Lewis met his death by drowning in 1845 while crossing Wills Creek in a skiff during a freshet. About the year 1854 his son George settled near Valley Grove, Ohio County, some twelve miles east of Wheeling, where he died at the age of eighty-seven

years. Like his father, he was a shoemaker as well as a farmer. His son, William G. Lewis, was born in 1845.

William G. Lewis, after his marriage to Samantha Cham- bers, then living in Washington County, Pennsylvania, but a native of Marshall County, West Virginia, where she was horn February 7, 1851, settled on a farm near his old home place, which was located but one and one-half miles west of West Alexander, Pennsylvania, one mile from the Na- tional Road. There he spent his life on his farm. During the Civil war he was a member of the Home Guards. He was first a republican, later a prohibitionist and finally again a republican, but never sought office, being content with his farm and his home. He belonged to the United Presbyterian Church at West Alexander. His widow sur- vives him at the old farm, which is now being operated by one of his sons, James Chambers Lewis.

George Edwin Lewis attended the country schools of Ohio County, later pursuing a course at the Normal School at West Liberty at the time when R. A. Armstrong was principal of that institution. Even while attending normal school he was engaged in teaching in the country schools, and thus divided his time for three years, following which he began to read medicine under the preceptorship of Doc- tor Woods of West Alexander. Later he pursued a course in the medical department of the Western University of Pennsylvania, now the University of Pittsburgh, and was graduated as a member of the class of 1897, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine. At that time he began his practice at Hanoverton, where he remained for over two years, and in 1900 came to Chester, prior to the organiza- tion of the town, when it consisted of only about 500 popu- lation. He is the only physician and surgeon at Chester of unbroken practice, and devotes all of his attention to the care of his patients. He has a large practice of a gen- eral character, is on the training school board of East Liver- pool Hospital, and serves as the local health officer at Chester. Doctor Lewis holds membership in all the leading medical societies. He is an original stockholder and a director of the First National Bank of Chester. Doctor Lewis belongs to the Presbyterian Church. He is a Knight Templar Mason at Wheeling and a Noble of Osiris Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Wheeling, and in the Scottish Rite of Masonry has attained to the fourteenth degree. His hobby is the collecting of antiques, especially fire-arms, of which he has a large, interesting and valuable assortment of all times. He belongs to the local gun club and the National Rifle Association, but, while an excellent marks- man, is not a tournament player.

Doctor Lewis married Miss Hettie Curtis, of West Lib- erty, a normal school classmate, who is now a leader in Sunday School and missionary societies of the Presbyterian Church, and a woman of many accomplishments and numer- ous friends. She and her husband have two daughters: Helen Virginia, a graduate of the Chester High School, who is now a senior student at the Margaret Morrison School at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Elsie Marion, who is one of the most popular students at the East Liverpool High School, where she is president of the senior class, 1922. Doctor Lewis is a member of the East Liverpool Kiwanis Club.

WILLIAM L. SMITH, SR. The real peace and contentment of the evening of life may only be experienced after a career in which industry has been the controlling factor. Each man his own life to live; early conditions and ad- vantages, or the lack of the latter. play their destined part in the shaping of his career; but it is within his own power to make use of his abilities, to so mold and direct his activities as to make his life useful to those among whom he lives and worthy to himself. No doubt there may be some satisfaction in the display of inherited wealth; but how infinitely greater may be the satisfaction of pointing to one's possessions and saying: "These things my hands have wrought." History and biography show ns that all great men were industrious, and the greatness of the major- ity was gained because of their own sterling qualities and the use they made of them.

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The career of William L. Smith, Sr., president of the Taylor, Smith & Taylor Company, potters, of East Liver- pool, Ohio, and Chester, West Virginia, has been an indus- trions one in every respect, and has been a singularly suc- cessful one, whether viewed from the point of the material things which he has won or from the universal respect in which he is held by those among whom he has passed his life. He was born at Wellsville, Ohio, in 1858, and secured a public school education, and through youthful energy and ambition worked his way up to the ownership of a lumber and contracting business at East Liverpool. In 1893 he sold his holdings and bought an interest in the D. E. Me- Nicol Pottery Company, with which concern he accepted a managerial position. He continued to be identified with this company until 1899, when a pottery was built at Ches- ter by what was then known as the Taylor Lee & Smith Company, which was incorporated under the Ohio laws and capitalized at $200,000. In 1903 there was formed the Taylor, Smith & Taylor Company, composed of Col. John W. Taylor, president of the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles Company, the largest industry at East Liverpool; Joseph G. Lee, of the same city and company; Colonel Taylor's two sons, W. L., now deceased, and Homer, now the head of the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles Company; W. L. Smith and C. A. Smith. In 1904 W. L. and C. A. Smith became the sole owners of this business through purchase, although retaining the same name. In 1907 the business was incor- porated under the laws of West Virginia, and about 1918 the capital was increased to $500,000, the new stockholders being largely old employes of the business. Up to 1913 there were ten kilns, with 200 employes, but in that year seven kilns were added, making seventeen kilns in all, with 425 employes and an annual payroll of $600,000, there be- ing in excess of 300 carloads of materials used each year. The product of the company consists of earthenware and porcelain, and is sold to jobbers and high grade depart- ment stores, with four regular traveling salesmen kept on the road and special men from five or six agencies in the West and Southwest. The plant owns about ten acres, of which one-half is covered by the plant itself. A specialty of the business is the manufacture of high-grade dinner- ware. The officers of the company at this time are: W. L. Smith, president; W. C. Lynch, vice president; C. C. David- son, secretary; C. A. Smith, treasurer; W. G. Jackson, assistant treasurer; and W. L. Smith, Jr., manager.

The original bridge and land company, which made pos- sible the development of Chester by erecting a bridge to East Liverpool, was composed of W. L. Smith, of East Liverpool: E. D. Marshall, of Chester; George P. Rust, of Cleveland; and A. R. Markell, of East Liverpool. These gentlemen organized the East Liverpool Bridge Company and during 1896 erected the bridge, which was opened De- cember 31 of that year. W. L. Smith became president of the company, to which he contributed the benefit of his marked ability, and later he and his brother, with J. E. McDonald, secured by purchase the control of all of this property. Mr. Smith is a director in the First National Bank of East Liverpool and president of the Potters Sav- ings and Loan Company, one of the largest in Ohio. A stanch republican in politics, he has been active in public affairs, has served as delegate to several national conven- tions and has numbered among his friends many notable men, among them the late President William MeKinley. His pleasant home is located at East Liverpool, but he main- tains his office at the plant.

W. L. Smith, Jr., son of W. L. Smith, has been general manager and a director of the company since 1915. He resides at Chester, where he takes an active part in all local affairs, and gives his support to worthy movements. Mr. Smith married Miss Mand Barlow, of East Liverpool, who is president of the Women's Club of Chester.

THE CORD TIRE CORPORATION. One of the leading indus- tries of Chester, which, while practically a newcomer to this section, has already developed to startlingly large propor- tions, is the Cord Tire Corporation. In the short period of three years the company has approximately tripled its original output, and the popularity of its product is in-

creasing daily under efficient management and intelligent handling of a superior grade of goods.

The Cord Tire Corporation was incorporated in April, 1919, by the following: J. D. Comstock, of Cleveland, Ohio, president and treasurer; Henry Seigfried, of Pittsburgh, secretary ; E. H. Hall, of New York City, purchasing agent ; and Irvin E. Fair, of Akron, Ohio, plant manager. All of these gentlemen have taken up their residence at Chester. This company, which is capitalized at $1,000,000, manufac- tures the celebrated Superior Cord Tire, for use on automo- biles. The present plant was used originally as a car barn, and was then converted into a rubber factory for use by a previous company. This concern, however, did not meet with success, and it was bought by the present company, who began operations in May, 1919. Its success has proven most gratifying, its capacity and output having increased from 150 to 600 tires daily, while there are now 250 em- ployes and the semi-monthly payroll amounts are in excess of $18,000.00. The product has met with a cordial recep- tion, and the name Superior seems to have been a happily chosen one, as dealers in this product are to be found in every state in the Union. The plant covers some five acres of ground and the annual consumption of crude rubber is about 650 000 pounds, while almost 300,000 pounds of cord and 65 000 pounds of fabric are used in manufacturing the finished article. Five commercial travelers are in constant personal touch with the trade, while the mail orders have assumed large proportions.

Irvin E. Fair, the efficient manager of the mechanical end of the company, and who is responsible for producing a product that measures up in every way to the high stand- ards set by the concern. is a practical tire man, having spent seven years with the B. F. Goodrich Ruhher Company at Akron, where he mastered every detail of tire management before accepting his present position. He is a native of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, born September 22, 1885, and received a good practical education in the high school of his native community and at the Chicago Technical Col- lege. Mr. Fair married Miss Ida M. Tayman, of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of one son, Orville R., a student in the high school at Chester.

JOSEPH LESLIE PYLE, M. D. The problems of health are really the problems of life and must pertain to all ques. tions of human interest, so that the physician and surgeon is really the most important and useful man in his com- munity. He must possess a wide range of general culture be an ohservant clinician and well-read neurologist. even although he never specializes along any given line. To take his place among the distinguished men of his profession he must hear the stamp of an original mind and he will- ing to be hard-worked while at the same time his soul often- times faints within him when he is studying the mysteries of his calling. Acquainted with the simple annals of the poor. and the inner lives of his patients, he acquires a moral power, conrage and conscience which enable him to inter- fere with the mechanism of physical life, alleviating its woes and increasing its resistance to the encroachments of dis- ease. Such a skilled. learned and sympathetic medical man is Dr. Joseph Leslie Pyle, one of the distinguished members of the Hancock County medical profession, a practitioner at Chester since 1907. and president of the West Virginia State Board of Health.

Docter Pyle was born December 2. 1866. in Tyler County, West Virginia, and is a son of Benjamin Leslie Pyle. Ben- jamin L. Pyle was born in Cecil County, Maryland and as a young man came to Tyler County. West Virginia, where he passed the remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits. He married Miss Mary Duty, a native of this county, and they were highly esteemed and respected. One of their sons, Christian Engle Pyle. went to the West in 1886 and became an attorney in Missouri. Later. however, he re- turned to Middlehourne, Tyler County, where he practiced for some years, finally going to Huntington. He became a leading member of the bar. and died at Chester in May, 1921, while on a visit to his brother, Doctor Pyle. An- other brother. Stephen G. Pyle, at the age of twenty-one years, at Middlebonrne, was county superintendent of

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schools of Tyler County. He also served two terms in the State Legislature, managed a lumber yard at Sistersville, where he became cashier of the First National Bank, and was then president of the First National Bank of Middle- bourne. He still retains this position, and is also cashier of the Tyler County Bank at Sistersville, although a resi- dent of Middlebourne. He is also manager of the line be- tween these two points of the Tyler Traction Company, a distance of about ten miles. A strong republican, he is a power in state politics.

Joseph Leslie Pyle spent his boyhood on his father's farm and as a youth received only a common school education. He taught school for three years in Tyler County and then began reading medicine, receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Keokuk, Iowa, in 1896. He hegan the practice of his calling at Bearsville, Tyler County, his old home town, where he remained until 1905, and then spent one year in post-graduate work at Chicago. On his return he spent a short time at Follansbce, and in 1907 came to Chester, which has since been his home and the scene of his prac- tice and success. Elected mayor for a two-year term, he resigned from that office in order that he might give his undivided attention to the duties of his profession. On June 1, 1913, he was appointed a member of the State Board of Health by Governor Hatfield for a four-year term, and was reappointed by the same republican governor in 1917. In 1921 he was given his third appointment to the position. this time by a democrat, Governor Cornwall. In July, 1921, he was elected president of the board, which position he still holds, his associates being: V. T. Church- man, M. D., of Charleston; W. M. Babb, M. D., of Keyser; B. F. Shuttleworth, M. D., Clarksburg; T L. Harris, M. D., Parkersburg; H. G. Camper, M. D., Welch; and W. T. Hen- shaw, M. D., Commissioner of Health, Charleston. Doctor Pyle gives close attention to the business of the board, which examines all applicants for diplomas, supervises all matters of public health and sanitation and holds three annual meetings yearly to discuss matters pertaining to the welfare of the people of the state. The Doctor is a strong republican in politics, but politics has had nothing to do with his preferment, which rests on merit alone. He holds three post-graduate diplomas and is an active member of the Hancock County Medical Society. the West Virginia Medical Society, the Ohio Medical Society, the Columbiana County Medical Society, the Pennsylvania Railway Sur- geons Association and the American Medical Association. He is local surgeon for the Pennsylvania Railway System. As a fraternalist he belongs to the Masons, being a thirty- second degree Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason. and a member of the Mystic Shrine, to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of East Liverpool, the Knights of Pythias, and the D. O. O. K., in all of which he is very popular. .

Doctor Pyle married Miss Lillian Monce, of Frankford, Kansas, but who, at the time of their marriage, lived in Chicago, Illinois. They have no children.

FRANK W. IRVIN is one of the younger group of business men in Huntington, but has been exceedingly busy in im- proving his opportunities since he left school, and for the past two years has been in business as an electrical con- tractor, in the Irvin-Hall Electrical Company.

Mr. Irvin was born at Huntington, December 10, 1890. His grandfather was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1820, and his enterprise brought him a wide and varied ex- perience. As a young man he went South and bought a plantation in Louisiana. This property he lost during the Civil war, and he became a Union soldier, rising to the rank of colonel. After the war he lived in Iowa for a short time, and then established his home on a ranch and a farm near Hutchinson, Kansas, living there when that town was out on the frontier, and he had a part in sup- pressing border troubles. After many years as a Kansas farmer he removed to Los Angeles, and retired and died in that city in 1905. He was a republican and a member of the Episcopal Church.

Walter L. Irvin, father of Frank W., was born in Iowa in 1865, grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and as a

young man came to Huntington, where he married and where for several years he worked in the general store of his brother-in-law, E. E. Ward. From that he went into the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the freight department, and was promoted from time to time and was chief clerk when he died at Huntington in 1897. He was one of the prominent republicans of the county, and at one time was candidate for the office of County Court clerk of Cabell County. He was a member of the Episcopal Church and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows. Walter L. Irvin married Carrie H. Lallance, who was born at Syracuse, Ohio, June 4, 1868, and is living at Huntington. Her two children are Frank W. and Doris, the latter the wife of John O. Deering, an insurance man at Huntington.

Frank W. Irvin acquired a public school education at Huntington, and attended Marshall College in that city through his sophomore year. He left college in 1908, and for two years following was a clerk in the White Sulphur Springs Hotel in this state, and for another two years was assistant manager of the J. G. MacCrory's Company of Huntington. He then entered the service of the Chesa- peake & Ohio Railroad, and was an electrician with that road until 1920, acquiring a very thorough and well rounded knowledge of everything connected with the electrical in- dustry. On March 1, 1920, the Irvin-Hall Electrical Com- pany began business, his partner in this enterprise being E. R. Hall. This firm has the facilities and the expert or- ganization that fit them for handling electrical contracts of every type. They have done wiring and electrical installa- tion for several large manufacturing and industrial con- cerns. The offices of the company are at 928 Fifth Avenue.

Mr. Irvin is a republican, a member of the Episcopal Church, and is affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 33, Knights of Pythias. In August, 1915, at Huntington, he married Miss Georgia Lanthorne, danghter of Ezra R. and Rose (Jeffers) Lanthorne, residents of Huntington, where her father is a grocery merchant. Mr. and Mrs. Irvin have two children, Frank, Jr., born February 20, 1918, and James Maurice, born August 18, 1920.

HENRY O. MILLER. Perhaps no one man in the educa- tional life of the Ohio Valley of West Virginia has exerted an influence finer in quality and purpose than Henry O. Miller, superintendent of schools of Hancock County, for it is one proceeding from a character of quiet strength, sanity and disinterestedness. Mr. Miller not only is a good teacher, but a man of specialized training and comprehen- sive learning, as well as capable and progressive executive. The representative relation of the teacher to the pupil is a elose and intimate one, and few leave the schoolroom without carrying with them the impress of the character of the one under whom they have studied, so that it is very important that the individual who trains the youthful mind during the formative period be one whose example is worthy of emulation, a position for which Mr. Miller's qualities and abilities equip him eminently.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 73

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