USA > West Virginia > Prominent men of West Virginia: biographical sketches, the growth and advancement of the state, a compendium of returns of every election, a record of every state officer; > Part 58
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At the preliminary formation of the Ohio River Railroad Company he was made Vice-President, which he soon resigned to take managing position with the Ohio Valley Construction Company, a syndicate of enterprising capitalists who built the Ohio River Railroad, which now extends from Wheeling to Huntington. In June, 1884, when the road began operation south as far as the mouth of the Little Kanawha, he resigned
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the Vice-Presidency of the Construction Company and resumed connection with the practical management of the Railway Company, of which he is now, and has been since May, 1885, the President.
Few men of his age have shown such capability in executive management and in so unostentatious a way, as he. He is pop- ular with subordinates over the entire line, and acceptable to the distinguished capitalists who own the road so beneficial to the people of this and adjacent States.
JAMES HEREFORD MCGINNIS.
H ON. J. H. MCGINNIS, contestant for a seat in the Fifty- first Congress, was born in Logan county, Virginia, on Pigeon, one of the tributaries of the historic Sandy river, July 30, 1830. He is, as the name indicates, and his twinkling eye and ready wit discover, of Irish ancestry. He was educated in the ordinary schools of the locality ; taught school at the age of 17 years ; studied law under Judge H. L. Gillespie, and was ad- mitted to the Bar of Raleigh county in 1858. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of that county shortly after his admission, serving in such capacity for three different terms. From 1867 to 1869 he was law partner with Lieutenant Governor Samuel Price.
He married Mary, daughter of Colonel William Williams, of Pike county, Kentucky.
He ran for Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit in 1880, but was defeated. In 1888 he was nominated for Congress from the Third District, upon the Republican ticket, and so reduced the hitherto Democratic majority as to claim the election on the face of the returns, receiving 19,097 votes, against 19,070 votes for John D. Alderson, Democrat, who was awarded the certifi- cate by Governor Wilson on the ground that the vote of Kana- wha county, which gave a majority for Mr. McGinnis of 1,304 votes, was hung up under judicial writs and could not be counted for him.
He is genial, social in his nature, and has a vein of humor in- terwoven with all he says or does. His residence is at Raleigh Court House.
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HON. JAMES H. M'GINNIS.
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JOSEPH BELL.
J OSEPH BELL was born in Wheeling, Virginia, in 1819. His father, Thomas Bell, came from England to Wheeling in 1817, established a ship-yard, and engaged in the construc- tion of river crafts. At that time there was no ship-yard nearer to Wheeling than Cincinnati. Joseph was educated in the classical "schools of Wheeling, conducted by Messrs. Gardner, Canning, Boyd and others. He was from 1835 to 1848 engaged in mercantile pursuits, principally as a clerk ; then (1848) be- came a partner of Thomas and A. J. Sweeney in the manufac- turing of flint glass in North Wheeling; partnership dissolved in 1852 ; was eleven years a member of the Belmont Nail Works ; then (1863) resumed the manufacture of glass under firm name of Sweeney, Bell & Co., which was successfully conducted until 1871. He was at the same time engaged in the iron foundry business under the firm name of Joseph Bell & Co., selling their products all over the United States from Boston to Louisiana. A few years ago the firm was changed to The Joseph Bell Stove Company. He was also for a considerable time a member of the firm of Acheson, Bell & Co., the owners and operators of what is now the plant of the Wheeling Iron & Nail C., (Top Mill).
Mr. Bell, although an ardent Republican, and one of the few original abolitionists in Virginia, has never been a politician. He, however, has served in the City Council of Wheeling ; in the House of Delegates of West Virginia (1866) ; a Director of the Hospital for the Insane at Weston, and was a Commissioner of Taxation for the State under Governor Jackson's administra- tion. In all positions he served faithfully and intelligently.
In 1849 Mr. Bell married Miss Irene, a daughter of Dr. An- drew Wylie, of Bloomington, Indiana. They have three living children, a son and two daughters. His wife died in 1878. For more than two score years Joseph Bell has been a very promi- nent and influential citizen of the Pan-Handle. He is yet hale and vigorous, and is the active business head of the firm to which he belongs.
THOMAS PAUL SHALLCROSS.
OR nearly half a century Col. Thomas P. Shallcross, of Wheeling, has been a remarkably successful United States official, in a department eminently calling for cool courage, self-possession in extremities and a keen knowledge of human
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nature, whose work has extended throughout the United States and from Canada to Cuba. He came of a stock that would naturally furnish such a man. His great-grandfather came from England to America in 1735, lived in "Penn's Woods" as a colonist, owning and living upon what became the historical battle ground of Germantown. The grandfather, John Shall- cross, was a Revolutionary soldier, and the father, also John, was a United States soldier in the war of 1812, and married Sarah Dewees, of Pennsylvania, of which State the Shallcross family is among the very oldest.
Thomas P., the subject of this sketch, was born in Philadel- phia county, Pennsylvania, April 30, 1818, and educated in the Philadelphia school, taught by a faculty. His father died in 1832, and Thomas apprenticed himself to the hat manufacturing business. After serving his time, in 1835 he moved to Wheel- ing and took charge of the hat firm of Mr. O. Montcalm, re- taing that position four years, when he formed a partnership with F. A. Brentlinger, in 1840, under the firm name of Brent- linger & Shallcross, in the auction and commission business, which continued until 1844. In 1845 Mr. Shallcross was ap- pointed Deputy U. S. Marshal for the Western District of Vir- ginia, under James Points, U. S. Marshal, continuing as such for many years, until the death of the latter. Mr. Ambler succeeded to the Marshalship, and requested Mr. Shallcross to continue deputy, which was declined. He was then appointed Special Agent of the Post Office Department, and continued in the office after the position was changed to Inspector, until June 30, 1884, when he resigned under the new incoming Presi- dent.
In all these years of delicate and dangerous work, Col. Shall- cross retained especial confidence of the Government and his Department for his singular ability in tracing crime to and se- curing its perpetrators. He was never idle. Thousands of his successful cases are on the record of the Department, showing that he had recovered more money by thousands of dollars which had been robbed of it, two or three of which the writer has the privilege of giving.
Many of our older residents will remember the then celebrated case of the robbery of the mail, from the coaches on the old National Turnpike, in anti-railroad days of 1845. The case
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was intricate, and well planned by clever heads to escape detec- tion. But Col. Shallcross took hold of it, with others, he doing most of the tracing up ; the parties were all arrested and suffered for their crime, except two that the State used as witnesses.
In 1846 about $100,000 of spurious notes on the Planters Bank of Tennessee, were successfully "shoved" in the purchase of cot- ton on the Alabama river, by one Capt. James W. Pollack, who by a show of the President's and cashier's signatures to a bank he claimed had been established at Wetumpka, Alabama, pre- vailed upon a Cincinnati engraver to engrave plates for its notes. These plates he had changed to the Planters' Bank, of Tennessee ; had a large number of notes printed, counterfeited the signatures of that bank's officials, and used the money in his speculation.
The ingeniousness and apparent security of the perpetrator made the case difficult. But Col. Shallcross unravelled its in- tricacies, arrested the shrewd captain and recovered the spurious plates, and delivered them to the Tennessee bank, and took his prisoner back to Alabama where he got a ten years' sentence.
Many of us remember Gen. Otho Hinton, who in 1852 was General Manager of the Ohio Stage Company's Line of mail coaches, and hence possessing unusual advantages for the crime he committed that year in robbing the mail between Zanesville and Wheeling. The case was given to Col. Shallcross, who soon had his man arrested ; but he gave bail, forfeited it and safely reached Cuba. The Colonel successfully tracked the wily Gen- eral to his cigar factory on that Island and would have arrested him but for lack of an extradition treaty at that time. The U. S. Consul declined to advise his arrest. He afterwards went to Oregon, thence to the Sandwich Islands, where his death closed the case.
In 1876, Capt. Charles Worms, a French Jew, went to Chicago as an ex-Union officer, representing himself as authorized by the Interior Department to negotiate contracts for Indian supplies, and succeeded in getting William A. Newman, of that city, to place in Worms' hands an envelope containing $5,000 as security and directed it to President Grant. Worms sent him out for sealing wax to seal it, and while he was gone substituted a similar envelope containing only strips of paper. This was sealed and sent to Grant, and Worms fled with the cash to
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Canada. The Colonel traced him there, and with a photograph as his only aid-for he had never seen his man-readily picked Worms up, brought him back and he served a term in the peni- tentiary for the crime.
In 1882, the people of Barbour and Randolph counties will remember, the celebrated secret society of "Red Men" was organized, for the ostensible purpose of punishing men who abused their families; but whose real purpose became robbery -first of private individuals and afterwards robbing the U. S. mail. The Colonel traced them up, got hold of the grip, pass- words, etc., of the society, arrested its members and had three of them sent to the penitentiary. The trial at Clarksburg is well remembered as one of the most celebrated that ever occurred in that Court House.
Space will not allow further cases; but these show his pecu- liar abilities in the work the Government so long entrusted him with.
Col. Shallcross was acting Deputy U. S. Marshal under Mr. Sehon from 1885 to 1889, since which date he has retired from public life and resides in Wheeling.
Besides his Federal service the Colonel was City Sergeant of Wheeling from 1845 to 1849, and served in the City Council 13 years ; he was also Superintendent of the West Virginia Peni- tentiary from 1871 to 1873.
In 1837 he married Miss Sarah G. Lord, daughter of Joseph Lord, of New Jersey. She and eleven children are still living.
WILLIAM GANDEE.
W TILLIAM GANDEE was born in 1813, near Ravenswood, then Mason county, Virginia. His father, Uriah, moved to Kanawha in 1825, and located on a farm. As a boy he had almost no school advantages. In 1849 he was commissioned as a Justice of the Peace, serving in that judicial capacity until 1860. In 1861 he volunteered into the Union army, and at the close of the war held a Captain's commission. In 1869 he was elected to the House of Delegates from Roane county, session of 1870. He served upon the Military committee, and was active in securing the passage of several bills for the benefit of his constituents, among them the Flick Amendment, to repeal test oaths, and for the location of the Capital at Charleston.
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A.LITTLE. PHILA.
COL. HUGH STERLING.
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HUGH STERLING.
OLONEL HUGH STERLING is the eldest son of James Sterling, and was born at Steubenville, Ohio, in 1842. He attended the public schools of that city for several years, and then began the trade of a printer. He served a four years ap- prenticeship in the office of the Steubenville Herald. From there he went to Pittsburgh and remained about a year as a compositor on the Dispatch. April 18, 1861, he enlisted in Company I. of the Twelfth Pennsylvania Regiment, known as Captain Tanner's Zouaves. His first enlistment was for ninety days, and at the expiration of the term of service, he again en- listed, this time in the Twenty-third Pennsylvania regiment, re- maining in the army until September 6, 1864. He participated in thirty-five engagements and skirmishes, and fortunately he escaped injury of every kind.
At the close of his army service, he located in Wheeling, West Virginia, and was promptly appointed Chief Clerk of the Inspection Department of the Provost Marshal General's office, which he held till it was abolished some two years later. For a time Mr. Sterling was emyloyed in the City Health Office, and from there he entered the employ of the Street Railway Com- pany. He next received an appointment in the Delivery De- partment of the Wheeling Postoffice, but only remained a few months, when he resigned to become book-keeper of the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine Company, with whom he remained fifteen months, when he returned to the city postoffice, and for ten years was Money Order Clerk. February 10, 1879, he was appointed Postmaster for Wheeling and remained in that position for seven years, until the change of Administra- tion 1886.
He was chosen Captain of the Goff Guards, a volunteer Com- pany of State Militia, and soon afterward, was elected Lieuten- ant Colonel of the First Regiment of West Virginia Infantry.
June 22, 1865, he married Miss Matilda H. Sights, of Wheel- ing, by whom he had one son, George S. Sterling, who is a book- keeper and accountant.
When Col. Sterling left the Wheeling Postoffice he engaged in the furniture and carpet business in Wheeling, under the firm name of G. Mendel & Co., he being the company. Col.
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Sterling is a superior business man, and has been for years re- garded one of the leading men of the Pan-Handle counties of the State.
JAMES MAXWELL.
J AMES MAXWELL is dead, but his wife and daughters, by the munificent gift of the building on the corner of Market and Twentieth streets in the city of Wheeling, to the Young Men's Christian Association, for Association work, is a monu- ment that will perpetuate his name for generations. The build- ing referred to is modern in all its apartments and is well adapted for Association purposes. Mr. Maxwell's widow and daughters, by this bequest, did, doubtless, as he himself would have done, had he been forewarned of the near approach of death. At the age of 64, in the prime of life, and in active business, he died of heart failure, almost instantly, May 21, 1885. His death was generally mourned, for he was well known as a man of high character, of spotless life, and of large influence.
James Maxwell, son of John Maxwell, was born on a farm near Roney's Point, Ohio county, Virginia, February 25, 1821. He moved to Wheeling at an early age and soon thereafter en- gaged in mercantile pursuits with the late Ephraim Pollack. He was subsequently identified with the well known mercantile houses of Maxwell, Paxton & Donlon; Maxwell, Campbell & Tingle ; Maxwell, Tingle & Isham, all of which prospered, and yielded fair returns to all the partners. Indeed, but few Wheel- ing merchants can look back over as eminently successful a career as was that of James Maxwell. He was upright in all of his dealings, and attentive to the details of his business-these never fail to bring success.
He had no taste for politics and therefore never sought an office. He, however, for many years was a member of the City Council of Wheeling; served faithfully on the Board of Educa- tion, and Board of County Commissioners ; was a director in a number of corporations of which he was a member; President of the National Bank of West Virginia, and Vice President of the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company. In all of these public positions his shrewd, practical judgment was of the utmost value.
Mr. Maxwell was not only one of Wheeling's most enterpris-
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ing and public-spirited citizens in a business sense, but he stood equally high as an exemplary Christian and kind hearted man. Always plain and just and exemplary, he nevertheless had the kindliest feelings for those in distress, and was ever ready, in an unobtrusive way, to lend a helping hand to those about him that were less fortunate than himself.
He left a widow and two daughters to mourn his sudden and seeming untimely death, his only son having been drowned, September 10, 1881, at Lexington, Virginia, where he had gone, but a few days before, to become a cadet at the Virginia Mili- tary Institute.
LOUIS BENNETT.
To OUIS BENNETT, son of the late Hon. Jonathan M. Ben- nett, a prominent lawyer and public man both of the old and new State, and Margaret E. Bennett, daughter of Captain George W. Jackson, who was a soldier of the war of 1812 and a near relation of General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, was born in Western Virginia, and has been a resident of Lewis county, save short intermissions, to the present.
He received a liberal Academic education, attended the pre- paratory collegiate school of Judge Coleman at Fredericksburg, and graduated in law, at an early age, (1871), from the cele- brated University of Virginia, but did not at once begin the practice of his profession. He was principal of the State Normal School at Glenville, Gilmer county, for three years ending in 1875, when desiring to follow his chosen profession, he returned to Weston. There he has since resided, having secured an ac- tive and remunerative practice, in the meantime serving as Principal of the High School, for the session of 1876-7. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Lewis county in 1880, and re- elected in 1884, upon both occasions receiving handsome ma- jorities and running ahead of his ticket. He declined the candidacy for a third term. He is now a director for the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane; takes an active interest in the progress of his county and State, and is associated with all late improvements in his native county of Lewis. He is an enthu- siastic Democrat.
In January, 1889, he married Sallie J. Maxwell, of Wheeling. 55
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HON. OLIVER GORRELL.
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OLIVER GORRELL.
H APPY and contented, upon a blue-grass stock farm of eleven hundred acres, with innumerable sheep, horses and cattle to dot it over, this former Sheriff of Pleasants county, with postoffice at Twiggs, lives. Within two and a half miles of his present home in Tyler county, he was born September 25, 1839. His early educational advantages were few, but well improved and utilized. After traveling two or three miles to a subscription school, he would frequently take his books to the field and diligently study awhile and work awhile. In this way he learned enough to teach school. For eighteen years he was en- gaged in the lumber and timber business. Was Sheriff from 1877 to 1879, and a member of the House of Delegates 1883, and again in 1887. In the latter session serving upon the Commit- tees of Military Affairs, Roads and Internal Improvements, Executive Offices and Library, and chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Agriculture.
GEORGE EDMUND PRICE.
T the opening of the session of 1889, during the deadlock, this popular member from Mineral presided over the State Senate with geniality, experience and impartiality. He was born November 9, 1848, on a farm near Moorefield, Virginia. He attended private schools of the village until 1867, when he entered Georgetown, D. C., College, and there remained two years, taking the first honor in most of his classes. In Freder- ick, Maryland, he read law, and was admitted to the Bar in De- .' cember, 1871. He removed again in September, 1875, to West Virginia, and located in Keyser, Mineral county. Although de- voted to his chosen profession, in which he has a profitable and appreciative clientage, yet he yielded his preference to the wishes of the Democracy, who elected him to the Senate for the term beginning January, 1883. He was endorsed by a re-election in 1886. At the begining of the session of 1885 he was made Pre- siding officer. For the session of 1887 he was re-chosen, and it became his duty and the wish of the Senators that he should preside pending the organization of the body in 1889. He is a fluent speaker, a close reasoner, and has the confidence and es- teem of even political opponents.
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LGER CHEZ
COL. W. P. THOMPSON.
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WILLIAM P. THOMPSON.
OLONEL W. P. THOMPSON was born in Wheeling, Vir- ginia, January 7, 1837. His father was Judge George W. Thompson, a man of superb character, distinguished as a lawyer, a statesman, and a profound philosophical writer. His mother was Elizabeth Steenrod, a daughter of Daniel Steenrod, a gentleman who by great energy and unusual wisdom had amassed a large fortune. Her brother, Lewis Steenrod, served with distinction in the Senate of the State, and in Congress several terms, retiring finally voluntarily on account of ill health.
Col. Thompson was educated mainly at the Linsly Institute in Wheeling and subsequently at Jefferson College, Pennsyl- vania. In 1857 he was admitted to the Bar and commenced practice in Marion county, Virginia, shortly thereafter, at which he continued until the war broke out in 1861. He was opposed to the war and made some very earnest speeches in many parts of the district in favor of some reasonable adjustment of the dif- ferences that then existed between the North and the South. When, however, the war became inevitable, he took his com- pany, the "Marion Grays," into the then "Army of Virginia," which eventually was incorporated into the Confederate Army. Col. Thompson served with distinction through the war, as- cended through all of the grades and finally became Colonel of the Nineteenth Virginia Cavalry, a regiment that stood perhaps as high as any other in the Virginia service.
At the close of the war, owing to the laws prohibiting Con- federate Soldiers from practicing law in the State of West Vir- ginia, he undertook to practice law in Chicago, but his health failing, he returned to West Virginia, and soon thereafter, in connection with his brother-in-law, the Hon. J. N. Camden, and Col. William N. Chancellor, entered into the oil business at Parkersburg under the firm name of "J. N. Camden & Co." This firm became the largest distributor of Lubricating Oil in the country. Subsequently it sold its business to the Camden Consolidated Oil Co., an incorporated company of West Vir- ginia, which became identified with the Standard Oil Co., Col. Chancellor retiring from the business, Mr. Camden remaining as President, and Col. Thompson as Vice President, afterwards President on the retirement of Mr. Camden.
In 1881 Col. Thompson removed to Cleveland, Ohio, becom-
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ing first Secretary, and later on Vice President of the Standard Oil Company, which was the parent company of that wonderful group that eventuated in the Standard Oil Trust. In the early part of 1887 he removed to New York, resigning the Vice Presidency of the Standard Oil Co., of Ohio, and became Chairman of the "Domestic Trade Committee," having super- vision of the domestic trade business of the Standard organiza- tions in America, besides other important general relations to the Companies connected with it.
In June 1889 Col. Thompson resigned his official relations to the Standard Oil Trust and its various Companies, having been unanimously elected President of the National Lead Trust, which position he now occupies. At this time he is a Director in the Ohio River Railroad Co., of this State, also of the Clarks- burg, Weston & Midland Railroad. He is also a Director in the Mercantile Trust, of New York, of the United States National Bank of that City, and of the American Pig Iron Warrant Surety Co.
It is well known that the Standard Oil Trust was not only the pioneer in the creation of a continental system for the management of large affairs, but it also became the very tore- most commercial organization that this teeming Nineteenth Century has produced ; and it is conceded that in the wonderful development of this great business, Col. Thompson was no in- considerable factor. Fifteen years of associations with such able men have so developed his abilities and matured his judg- ment that in many enterprises in which he is connected, in the great Metropolis and elsewhere, his voice is potential and he has earned for himself among the leading financiers and best business men of New York and of the country, a most enviable reputation.
Col. Thompson inherited from his parentage a broad, compre- hensive, penetrating mind. These endowments, developed to their fullness by his rigid legal and military training, together with his remarkable personal magnetism have made him con- spicuous as a leader of men and thought.
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