History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 77

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Mr. Brenneman is liberal and progressive in his civie attitude but has had no desire for political activity or public office. He married Miss Mary Cowl, and they became the parents of six children: Elizabeth H. is the wife of Frank Goodman, of Cleveland, Ohio; John C. and Jacob N.

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are associated with their father in the fruit-culture busi- ness, under the firm name of G. G. Brenneman & Sons; Miss Margaret remains at the parental home; Girard G. died at the age of twenty-eight years; and Sadie O. is the wife of Alexander E. Mahan, of whom individual mention is made on other pages of this work.

ALEXANDER E. MAHAN is a native son of Hancock County, a representative of one of the old and honored families of this section of the state, and as a fruit grower is fully upholding the prestige of the family name and that of the county, his attractive orchard homestead being situated near the Village of Arroyo and on rural mail route No. 4 from New Cumberland, the county seat.

Mr. Mahan was born at New Cumberland, this county, on the 9th of October, 1879, and is a son of Captain W. Chester Mahan and Margaret (Smith) Mahan, the former of whom died in 1908, at the age of sixty-six years, and the latter in 1921, at the age of sixty-eight years. The father was a gallant young soldier of the Union in the Civil war, in which he was a member of Company I, Twelfth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. He was captured by the enemy and was held a captive of war at Anderson- ville Prison for six months. He took part in many en- gagements and did well his part in preserving the integrity of the nation. After the war he became actively identified with navigation service on the Ohio River as part owner of packet boats. He served as captain on these river steamboats, including the "John Porter," which vessel unfortunately carried the yellow-fever scourge as far as Gallipolis, Ohio, at the time when the dread epidemic was raging at Memphis, Tennessee. Captain Mahan later en- gaged successfully in fruit growing on the fine place now owned and operated by his son Alexander E., of this sketch, who is the elder of the two children and whose sister, Miss Helen M., likewise remains at the old home. Alex- ander E. Mahan married Miss Sadie Brenneman, a daugh- ter of George G. Brenneman, and the one child of this union is Alexander E., Jr.

HERBERT MADDEN BRENNEMAN. Hancock County has precedence as one of the most important centers of fruit culture in the State of West Virginia, and apples here raised are known far and wide for their superiority, with the result that they always commaud the maximum mar- ket prices. The fine fruit farm owned and occupied by Mr. Brenneman is here situated two miles distant from Arroyo, an important shipping point, and is the place on which his birth occurred, the date of his nativity having been April 24, 1877. He is a son of Charles Christian Brenneman, who was born at Kendall, Pennsylvania, in October, 1836, a son of Jacob Brenneman. Christian Bren- neman, his great-grandfather, who became a pioneer set- tler in what is now Hancock County, served as a soldier in the command of Gen. Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and incidentally walked home from New Orleans, where he had been stationed with his command. He mar- ried a daughter of Jacob Nessly, who was one of the very early settlers of the present Hancock County and of whom mention is made in other reviews in this history. Jacob Nessly owned a very large tract of land along the Ohio River, and it was on a portion of this land that Christian Brenneman settled after his marriage, his old homestead being the place now owned by George G. Brenneman, who is individually represented on other pages of this work. Christian Brenneman finally sold 209 acres of his land, and his grandson, Charles C., repurchased the property shortly after the close of the Civil war, the remainder of his life having been here passed and his death having occurred on the 1st of June, 1901. He married Mary Frances Brown, daughter of Charles Brown, who was a son of Sir Richard Brown, the latter having come from Scotland and settled in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Charles Brown came to West Virginia when his daughter, Mary F., was eight years old, and purchased a part of the Jacob Nessly farm, ad- joining the home place of Austin H. Brown. There Charles Brown remained until his death, at the patriarchal age of ninety-six years. His sons, Robert and William, became

owners of the old farm and at the death of Robert Brown the property passed into the possession of Charles Brenne- man, a son of John, another brother of George and Charles C. The present house on this fine old homestead was erected in 1823, heavy hewed timbers being utilized in its construction, and hand work of the old-time enduring order being in evidence throughout the structure. The house was remodeled and modernized in 1915 by its present owner, Herbert M. Brenneman, subject of this sketch. In con- nection with the raising of cattle and sheep Charles C. Brenneman here early began the development of an apple orchard, and in the same there is still remaining one tree that was planted in 1813 and that is still bearing fruit of excellent quality. This venerable tree is one of the original "Willow Twig" apple trees of a section now renowned for the production of this fine type of apples. Charles C. Brenneman planted an orchard of 5,000 trees, and from his orchard he received in 1896 a yield of 6,000 barrels. It was a matter of great pride to him that he lived to see the development of his orchard into one of the most productive in this section. The present owner maintains the integrity of the orchard by a careful system of resetting or replacement, no vacancy being permitted to appear in the lines of trees, and he having precedence as the most extensive commercial fruit grower in his native state. He has held to the celebrated "Willow Twig" variety as the best type of apples to be raised under the excellent conditions here in evidence, and no better or more enduring type is to be found anywhere in the world. The Brenneman orchards give an average yield of 2,500 barrels, and the place has storage facilities for the accom- modation of 6,000 barrels. Mr. Brenneman buys from other fruit growers of the locality sufficient quantities of apples to reach the limit of his storage capacity. He for- merly exported apples to Germany, Scotland and England, but the product of his orchards is sold throughout the United States almost exclusively since the close of the World war. His fine farm comprises 209 acres-the origi- nal tract owned by his father. The store house on this model fruit farm is a stone structure, one of the finest houses for the storing of fruit in the United States, and preserves an even temperature. Mr. Brenneman has made other improvements of the best modern order, and has rea- son for taking pride in his splendid hillside farm, which produces apples of finer flavor and color than do those grown in the river bottom lands of this locality.

Mr. Brenneman was formerly retained as buyer for lead- ing wholesale fruit dealers in Pittsburgh and New York City, and in this connection he visited the fruit-growing districts in all sections of the United States, with the re- sult that he has become a recognized authority in this field of industrial enterprise. He is a citizen of vital progressiveness and liberality, has been influential in the promotion of the good-roads movement, and raised through private sources funds to improve a road in his native county and district. He was reared in the faith of the Methodist Church and his wife is a member of the Presby- terian Church.

In 1902 Mr. Brenneman married Miss Anna Elizabeth Unkel, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and her death oc- curred ten years later, the one child of this union being Gladys Elizabeth, who is a member of the class of 1923 in the high school at Newell. In June, 1915, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Brenneman and Miss Amy Viola Cope, of Wellsville, Ohio, where she was born and reared and where her father, the late Samuel S. Cope, was engaged in the hardware business fully fifty years. Mrs. Celestia Ann (Snowden) Cope, mother of Mrs. Brenneman, was born at Hookstown, Pennsylvania, and still resides at Wells- ville, Ohio. Mrs. Brenneman was for twenty years actively associated with the business established by her father, and was secretary and treasurer of the Cope Hardware & Supply Company, in which connection she developed exceptional business ability. Her social charm is equally pronounced. and she is the popular chatelaine of one of the beautiful and hospitable rural homes of Hancock County.

In conclusion is entered brief record concerning the brothers and sisters of Herbert M. Brenneman: Alice B.

MGMagen

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is the wife of E. W. Hewitt, of Arroyo, Hancock County. Charles Howard, who died in 1916, at the age of fifty- three years, was at the time proprietor of the Brenne- man Baking Company in the City of Columbus, Ohio. Jacob Edward was but a lad when he went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he made remarkable advancement and eventually became the executive head of the Brenneman Wharf & Bridge Company, which has done a large amount of important work, including the erection of the wharves of the navy yards at League Island. He is still presi- dent of this corporation. Clarenee likewise left the parental home when he was a youth, and he is now secretary of the Peerless Biscuit Company in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Willard was seventeen years of age when he went to Pittsburgh, and there he is now president and general manager of the Peerless Baking Company. Rev. George E. attended Mount Union College at Alliance, Ohio, and is a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he being at the time of this writing, in 1922, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church at New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Robert Baird, the next younger son, died in 1918, he having been a principal in and general manager of the Seaman, Irvin & Brenneman Construction Com- pany of Homesdale, Pennsylvania, Herbert M., of this sketch, was the next in order of birth. Frank Lawrence, & traveling salesman for the Peerless Biseuit Company, of Pittsburgh, died in December, 1917. He inherited a life interest in the Robert Brown estate in Hancock County, West Virginia, and was here maintaining his home at the time of his death. Mrs. Eva C. Gardner, the youngest of the children, resides at Columbus, Ohio. Each of the sons made a record of substantial and worthy achievement, and all have honored their native county and state.

LORENZO FRANKLIN MAHAN is one of the venerable native sons of Hancock County, a representative of a sterling pioneer family whose name has been one of prominence in the history of this part of West Virginia, and he has individually contributed his share to the civic and material development and progress of the county that has repre- sented his home from the time of his birth to the present. This sterling citizen of the Arroyo neighborhood in Han- cock County was born at Mahan's Mills, on King's Creek, this county, November 17, 1838, and is the only surviving son of John Mahan, the latter a son of William and Nancy (Jones) Mahan. William Mahan had operated a line of stage coaches out from the City of Baltimore, Maryland, and upon coming to what is now the State of West Vir- ginia he settled at Follansbee in Brooke County, his sons John and Thomas later having established a grist mill on King's Creek in the present Hancock County. In 1842 John Mahan established his residence on the farm now owned and occupied by his son Lorenzo F., of this review, near the Village of Arroyo, and the saw and grist mill which he here erected and operated was later used as a vinegar manufactory. His landed estate here comprised 576 acres. He became one of the owners also of a line of river boats, including barges and the steamboats "Oil City" and "Iron City," which were built in Hancock County. Later he became one of the owners of the navi- gation business conducted under the title of the Cumber- land Tow Boat Company. He was one of the vigorous and resourceful business men of his day and did much to further the advancement of his home community and county. He and his sons eventually converted the saw and planing mill into a vinegar factory, which they operated suc- cessfully. In 1852 Lorenzo F. Mahan assisted in setting out the first orchard in a county that has since become one of the foremost in the apple-growing industry of West Virginia. Lorenzo F. Mahan married Mary H. Lowry, whose father was mayor of the City of Pittsburgh, Penn- sylvania, during the Civil war, and their ideal companion- ship continued for thirty years, the gracious bonds being severed by the death of the devoted wife and mother, who is survived by two children, Grace and Frank Earl, the latter of whom resides at Chester, this county, and is in the employ of the Homer Laughlin China Company at Newell. He is a republican in politics, as is also his ven-

erable father, who has been unfaltering in his allegiance to the party during virtually the entire period of its exis- tence.' In 1897 was solemnized the marriage of Miss Grace Mahan to William V. Powell, who is engaged in the gen- eral insurance business in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania. Mrs. Powell owns a part of the old homestead estate, and after remaining eight years in Pittsburgh she returned home to care for her venerable parents. She is according to her father the utmost filial love and solicitude, and resides with him in the fine old home-house which he erected fully half a century ago and which, situated on a slight elevation above the Ohio River, commands a fine view of the valley for a distance of many miles, while directly opposite, on the Ohio shore, is the beautiful Chil- dren's Home in Jefferson County, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Powell became the parents of five children. Franklin, eldest of the five, is now engaged in the insurance busi- ness in Pittsburgh, and in connection with the World war he was in the nation's military service in France for a period of eighteen months. The younger children are Ed- ward Hewitt, Mary Elizabeth, William Thomas and Bar- bara Brenneman.

Other personal sketches in this publication offer mueh additional data concerning the Mahan family, and the general history of the county likewise makes proper recogni- tion of the splendid part this family has played in con- neetion with the development and progress of Hancock County.

MAXIE C. MAGEE, vice president and cashier of the Wheeling Bank & Trust Company, is one of the younger men in the financial life of the Wheeling District, and was called to his present post because of his undoubted qualifieations and wide experience and knowledge of bank- ing affairs.

Mr. Magee was born at Brookhaven, Mississippi, March 15, 1885. His father was a Mississippi planter. He had the best educational advantages afforded a son of well-to- do parents. He attended public schools and graduated from the University of Mississippi, at Oxford, with the class of 1909. He combined two years work in one while at the university. Following his university career Mr. Magee became traveling auditor for a cotton exporting firm, visiting various cotton centers in the South. This was his work until 1915.

In that year he entered the service of the Federal Reserve Bank at Cleveland. The Federal Reserve system was just being organized, and the most important part of the task yet remained to be accomplished, namely, to convince the individual bank in each district as to the merits and ad- vantages of membership in the Federal Reserve system. Mr. Magee was selected as one of the publicity repre- sentatives of the Federal Bank of Cleveland, and his work corresponded with that of a traveling salesman without anything to sell, engaged in an educational campaign to make the merits of the Federal system thoroughly under- stood and appreciated. The district of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank comprised all of Ohio, fifty-six counties in Eastern Kentucky, six in West Virginia and nineteen in Western Pennsylvania. During the next several years Mr. Magee visited about two thousand banks in this district, carrying on his organization and educational campaign. One of his official visits brought him in touch with the officers and directors of the Wheeling Bank & Trust Company, and while he won them over to member- ship in the Federal Reserve system, at the same time he left impressions that resulted in their calling him to an executive place in the bank, and in July, 1920, the day after he resigned from the Federal Bank of Cleveland, he accepted his post as vice president and cashier of the Wheel- ing institution. The Wheeling Bank & Trust Company has capital of $300,000.00, surplus and undivided profits of $500,000.00, and its executive officers and directors comprise the following well known citizens: Alexander Glass, chair- man of the board; S. W. Harper, president; S. O. Laughlin, vice president; M. C. Magee, vice president and cashier, while the directors are W. H. Bachman, C. P. Billings, J. A. Bloch, A. F. Brady, Jr., R. E. Breed, D. A. Burt, H. C.

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Hazlett, W. B. Higgins, C. J. Kepner, Arthur Laughans, S. P. Norton, A. B. Paxton, A. C. Stifel, C. A. Vaden, A. C. Whitaker, W. P. Wilson and M. C. Magee.

Mr. Magee is a member of the Fort Henry Club and Kiwanis Club, and the St. Andrew Society of the Episcopal Church. In 1910 he married Miss Vera Roberts, of Union City, Tennessee.

JOSEPH NATHAN FINLEY. The maintenance of a busi- ness establishment for thirty years is ample proof of its worth. Commercial ventures of the fly-by-night order may pay their promoters for the time being, but they bring their communities nothing: it is the firmly-established, standardly-existing business that contributes to the lo- cality's prestige in commercial circles. The men who stand behind such helpful enterprises are found to be of sterling worth and solid integrity, and to he citizens in whom a realization of the responsibilities of citizenship is firmly grounded. A merchant of Chester since 1892, Joseph Nathan Finley, president of the Finley Brothers Lumber Company, has assisted in building this business to a point where it is justly accounted a necessary com- mercial adjunct. He has been a promoter, organizer and official of movements which have made the city grow and expand, and to his helpfulness in a civic way Chester may give gratitude for much of its development.

Mr. Finley was born at the old family residence on the hill, on the old farm which extended to the Ohio River at the west end of the City of Chester, Jannary 25, 1865, a son of John R. and Louisa (Scott) Finley. John R. Finley was born in 1824, in Washington County, Pennsyl- vania, and at the age of four years was brought to the Ohio Valley by his father, Thomas Finley, who passed the rest of his life here in agricultural operations and died when John R. was eighteen years of age. Of the four sons of Thomas, three, Richard, James and William, served as soldiers of the Union during the Civil war, all probably, in Ohio infantry regiments. Richard later went to Ash- land County, Ohio, where he died, while James and Wil- liam remained in the Ohio Valley, where they passed away. John R. Finley had charge of the farm with his mother and maiden sister, Rebecca, who died on the farm. The mother died at the age of eighty-four years. John R. Finley after his mother's death bought out the other heirs and added to the property until he had 125 acres. In addition to farming he was engaged in carpentry and made a success of his affairs. He died in 1898, at the age of seventy-four years, while Mrs. Finley passed away in 1914, aged eighty-two years, having survived him sixteen years.

The education of Joseph Nathan Finley was acquired in the public schools of Hancock County, and, like his broth- ers, while being reared on the home farm he learned the trade of carpenter. This he followed somewhat independ- ently until 1892, when, with his brothers, James William, Richard Franklin and Robert Andrews Finley, he began contracting and building, mainly at East Liverpool. In 1902 the brothers, with their brother-in-law, Joseph McCoy, formed the Finley Brothers Lumber Company, which has developed into the largest business of its kind in this section. While ostensibly a lumber company, this enter- prise also continued contracting and building, including all manner of structures. Among the work accomplished by this firm may be mentioned ten residences for the Government, railroad stations, potteries, factories, schools, court houses, churches, Y. M. C. A. buildings, garages, etc. in fact anything in the contracting line. More than one-half of the buildings at Chester have been erected by this concern whose patronage has also extended to Newell, Follansbee, Weirton and other communities. The company now consists of the four brothers, Mrs. Joseph McCoy, now a widow, and George Hasson. They own a well-equipped mill utilized for mill work, stair work, etc., and the entire plant is modern in every particular. Mr. Finley was one of the original incorporators of the First National Bank of Chester and has been its vice president since its incor- poration.

He was a member of the first council of Chester, served

as a justice of the peace for some time, and in 1909 was sent to the State Legislature as representative, being one of the few democrats ever elected to that body from Han- cock County. He formerly served for some time as chair- man of the County Democratic Committee. He has a number of civic and fraternal connections.

Mr. Finley married Miss Ella Rose, a sister-in-law of John E. Newell, a sketch of whom appears in this work, and to this union there have been born four children: Claire C. in the engineering department of the Crucible Steel Company at Midland, Pennsylvania; J. Paul, a stu- dent at the University of Pittsburgh; and Mary Louise and Martha Jane, twins, born seventeen years after J. Paul.

Mr. Finley is a charter member of Chester Lodge No. 142, A. F. and A. M., and also belongs to the Scottish Rite bodies up to and including the thirty-second degree. He also belows to Osiris Temple A. A. O. N. M. S. of Wheeling, West Virginia.

ARTHUR G. ALLISON. To succeed as a member of the Hancock County bar requires more than ordinary ability which has been carefully trained along the lines of the legal profession, as well as an appreciable fund of general information and keen judgment with regard to men and their motives. In a pushing, growing city such as Chester there is so much competition, events crowd each other in such a way and circumstances play such an important part in the shaping of events that the lawyer must neces- sarily be a man capable of grasping affairs with a ready and competent hand to effect satisfactory results. Among those who have won recognition in the profession of law at Chester is Arthur G. Allison, who is also serving his thirteenth year as a justice of the peace.

Mr. Allison was born on a farm near Chester, Hancock County, West Virginia, March 7, 1881, a son of Joseph B. and Mary E. (Riley) Allison. There were two or three original families of Allisons, as there were of Wells, who settled in this part of the Ohio Valley. Joseph B. Allison was born on the same farm as his son, November 21, 1859, and died April 22, 1915. He was a son of Enoch Allison, the latter being a son of Burgess Allison, who settled on a farm one mile from Washington School- house in Grant District in 1801. He drove the first wagon, of the "prairie schooner" style, into Hancock County, from Cumberland, Maryland, and continued to haul freight and passengers one way and freight the other for a number of years. Freighting over the mountains was for many years a profitable business. In coming from Maryland Burgess Allison followed what later became the National Road, which extended as far as Vandalia, Illinois, its destination being St. Louis. More people went over that road to Western Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa than over all the other routes. Mr. Allison later secured a farm, in conjunction with which he operated a blacksmith shop, and, becoming prosperous, loaned money to his less for- tunate neighbors and became something of a financier in his locality. He lived to be ninety-three years of age, his death then being caused by an accident.

Enoch Allison was born in Hancock County and here spent bis life as an agriculturist, his home being on the north branch of Tomlinson's Run. He was a man of ability and accumulated more than 2,200 acres of land, and was well esteemed in his community as possessed of qualities of integrity and probity. He died in 1888, at the age of sixty-three years. He and his wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Ann Barclay, were the parents of six sons and one daughter: Bergess N., for more than fifty years a carpenter in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who died in September, 1921, at Wellsville, Ohio; Waitman C., who is living in retirement at Chester; Joseph B .; Ellsworth E., a Hancock County farmer, who died February 11, 1909; Sherman C., who is still fol- lowing farming on his Hancock County property near Pughtown; Mary E., the wife of Leander Conant, of East Liverpool, Ohio; and Walter C., engaged in milling at Chester.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 77

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