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 66
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Alf. W. Burnett was born, July 9, 1850, at New Bedford, Pennsylvania, and educated at Grove City College, in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, his father having taken him from work to prepare him for the ministry. He afterwards taught school for two years, was book-keeper and then in mercantile business for himself until his store was burned, when he moved to Cass- ville, Wayne county, West Virginia, and published the Advocate. Afterwards moving to Huntington, he served on the Advertiser until the death of its former proprietor, when he became editor and so continued until the office was sold. In 1876 he moved to Charleston, where he was engaged in a newspaper, and was afterwards in the United States Revenue service in West Vir- ginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee.
In the latter service and in other similar positions he observed from his experience that "if knowledge is power" it is as potent for evil as for good; that latter day crime is educated to scienti- fic work, and hence abler to act nefariously and escape detection by the ancient system of officials. This experience put him into the study and operation of modern detective work, and in all his amateur efforts he was so successful, and the calls for his labors became so increased, that in 1878 he organized the Eureka Detectives-the first agency of the kind South of Mason and Dixon's line. It's Board of Directors made him Superin- tendent, which position he has held continuously.
The story of his almost universally successful exploits would
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read like a thrilling romance, but in a book like this, space will not allow us to give but one or two. He is known as an ex- tremely peaceable man and opposed to quarreling ; yet has made his record as a determined man and hard to conquer in a fight ; not a powerful person, but agile and artistic in handling him- self or an opponent. It is said of him he is positively unac- quainted with fear.
Among the first of his detective work-which began his repu- tation-was in ferreting out and arresting a gang of store rob- bers, who had infested his section. They had so successfully covered their tracks and hid their plunder that it appeared im- possible for the regular county officials to discover them or it. One of the victims sent for Burnett to take their trail. In a short while seven of them were arrested, tried by a Justice, but discharged for want of sufficient evidence to convict. Three times was this the case. The Detective's blood was now up, and later on he unearthed some of the stolen property and fixed the purloining upon them. The arrest of two of them was a thrilling experience. By his own methods he learned their place of concealment-a hut in the loneliest mountain region, with a family of fellow villains, and also learned their signals- white smoke (wood) from the chimney meant come in, no danger ; black smoke (coal) the contrary. With one trusted companion Burnett approached within view of the hut at mid- night and waited until day break, when white smoke curled from the chimney, and two desperadoes heavily armed, emerged from the forest and entered. Burnett had only a double-barreled shot gun, his comrade had a revolver. A broad open space was between the detectives and the hut, across which they crept as far as possible so as to conceal themselves. But a woman com- ing out for a bucket of water discovered them and gave a yell of danger. The robbers sprang out, one to the rear, one to the front, where Burnett was stationed, while his companion met the one at the rear. The latter exchanged one shot, and the robber broke for the mountain, followed by the detective, who, however, was not fleet enough and the rascal escaped-for the time, but was afterwards captured. Burnett's villain did not run a step, but immediately opened fire on his pursuer, his first bullet making a furrow over Burnett's ear, and several others missing him. Burnett drew trigger and wounded his man,
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when the latter started to run through a cane patch, in which he stopped and emptied his other revolver at his pursuer, who was standing completely uncovered in the open space. The loaded barrel of Burnett's gun failed to act, and finding it was faulty the undaunted detective coolly proceeded to extract the charge and quickly replacing it in the other barrel fired, one shot going through the fellow's nose, others striking him in the body. Meantime the other robber had taken a circuit and joined his companion, when the two took to their heels and escaped through the dense timber. Burnett tracked his man to Kentucky, got the drop on him, slipped on the handcuffs and brought him back to Putnam county, where the fellow was sentenced to nine years in the penitentiary, his name was Perry Wetzel ; the other six were captured and got from two to five years of imprison- ment. A long groove over the Superintendent's ear to-day shows how close a call he had.
The arrest of Vandorn Cassell, a negro, now doing life service in the Ohio penitentiary for murder ; the arrest and conviction of Frank Warthorst, of Massillon, Ohio, who murdered Mrs. David Kirkland; and the tracing down George Hunter, who killed his affianced bride, are but spots on the wide expanse of crime he has examined. He faced dynamite in the Hocking Valley, and a Kentucky mob at Ashland, trying to save the lives of men who protested their innocence in words written with blood in stead of ink.
Other cases, entirely confidential, but of thrilling meaning, will never be told by him; this much, however, may be truly recorded of the Pioneer in a great profession : He loved Heaven and Humanity, his parents, wife, home and his dogs. May he go to his rest in peace "soothed and sustained by an unfalter- ing trust" that the world is better for his having lived in it even though his best motives were often misunderstood.
Having been allowed to examine the books of the Eureka Detective agency, we found the record of the past twelve years to be-
Arrests by Burnett, for felony 334
Convictions by Burnett, for felony . 262
Agency's general arrests, about 1,200
Alf. W. Burnett was married, March 17, 1886, to Miss Fanny Norris, of Pleasants county, West Virginia. The lady has
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shown a like spirit with her husband. While mourning his ab- sence and dreading his constant danger, she has never discour- aged him a moment in what he may have considered duty. On his part, recognizing his desperate chances, he keeps up a life insurance policy in sufficient amount to secure her from want through life should he be suddenly taken off.
He is a member of the Odd Fellows and was the delegate to the last Grand Lodge; a Uniformed Rank Knight of Pythias, and a Republican in politics.
B. F. HARRISON.
B. F. HARRISON was born, October 28, 1830, in Berkeley , county, Virginia, and reared on a farm, receiving a common school and academic education. He came from the old-time whig stock, voted against the ordinance of secession. Although a Southerner in principle and a slaveholdolder. The frictions of the war, the registration laws, test oaths, and persecution of southern people, all so contrary to his prejudices-made him a Democrat, and he was elected president of the Cleveland club, which polled 250 majority in Shepherdstown. Mr. Harrison has been a farmer, Justice of the Peace, also Mayor of Shep- herdstown, Member of the West Virginia Legislature in 1869, Cashier of the Shepherdstown Savings Bank, and a Notary Public.
WILLIAM HENRY JACK.
HE House of Delegates of 1889 was rever troubled with "rigmarole" from the above named delegate; he was as blunt as a mallet and pointed as a needle, in all he did or said-as the writer witnessed at a fortnight's visit at the State House. He was so fearful of the appearance of self-laudation that it was difficult to get from him even the necessary data of his personal history. And the information secured from others was that such is his characteristic, to which was added industry, watchfulness for his constituents and State, and careful study of questions of importance before the House. He is a native of Snatchburg, Upshur county, Virginia, born, August 9, 1858, and has been a resident of West Virginia ever since it became a
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State. He was brought up on a farm; attended a country school continuously from the age of fourteen to seventeen, when he taught school eight years, after which he engaged in farming and merchandizing at Cedarville, West Virginia, and is still in these occupations. He was elected to the House of Delegates of 1889 from Gilmer county as a Democrat, by a majority of 308. In that body he was a member of the Committee on Taxation and Finance, on Humane Institutions and Public Buildings, and on Forfeited and Unappropriated Lands.
ANTHONY DUNLEVY GARDEN.
D. GARDEN, the genial delegate from Ohio county in the present House, was born in Monroe county, Ohio, March 17, 1851. He received the basis of his education in the public schools of Wheeling, till the age of ten when he entered the Academy of Prof. H. W. Harding for three years. His father moved upon a farm three miles from the city, and engaged in the gardening businesss, and there he still continues the occu- pation. He is an active Democrat, and has represented his dis- trict in all the Local, Congressional and State Conventions since becoming a voter. He has served the district as School Trus- tee and Member of the Board of Education; was elected from Ohio county to the Legislature of 1887, and re-elected to that of 1889, serving as a member of the Committees of Taxation and Finance, and as Chairman of that of Railroads.
HENRY H. DILS.
H ĮENRY H. DILS, one of the most valuable citizens of his section of the State, was born in the county of Wood, Vir- ginia, August 14, 1808, and died, June 14, 1886. He grew up and was educated through the subscription schools of the period, upon a farm near Parkersburg, and married Annie Logan, who was also from one of the pioneer and most respected families of the Little Kanawha Valley. The greater part of his life was spent in serving the citizens of his county in places of responsi- bility and trust. He was for many years Sheriff of Wood county, and occupied that office when the civil war broke out in 1861. He was a zealous and consistent member of the Meth-
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odist Episcopal Church, liberal in his benefactions, and gener- ous in his impulses, but clear and firm in his convictions of duty. He was an ardent union man, and active in all that pro- moted the cause of its armies. As an uncompromising Repub- lican he was elected to represent his county in the House of Delegates, in the session of 1869. His experience and knowl- edge of men and the wants of the people made him a valuable member on the floor and in committee rooms. His honesty, in- dustry and sincerity were unquestioned in life; he was a good citizen, a kind husband and father, and leaves behind him only honorable and cherished memories.
LOWELL FLETCHER STONE.
L OWELL F. STONE was born in Hockingport, Athens county, Ohio, September 29, 1850, and has been a resident of this State since 1870. The son of poor parents, he began life with only the rudiments of an education ; but by close attention to business, hard work and square dealing in everything, within twelve years he built up a lucrative trade at Belleville, Wood county, West Virginia, and became one of the prominent mer- chants of the Ohio Valley. Among his fellow-men of all parties and classes, he is, deservedly, respected highly. His days and talents have been devoted to mercantile pursuits and to acquir- ing such education as his youthful poverty prevented him from securing. He was elected to the West Virginia House of Dele- gates from Wood county for the session of 1889, and served on three important committees: Federal Relations, Counties, Dis- tricts and Municipal Corporations, and Mines and Mining.
JOHN CORCORAN.
J' OHN CORCORAN, who is one of the three delegates to the present House from Ohio county, is a Glass Blower by trade and occupation, and was born, January 25, 1849, in Ham- ilton county, Ohio. He is of Irish parentage. His father died July 21, 1859, leaving him to become the main support of a widowed mother, two younger brothers and three sisters. In that year he went to work in the Pittsburgh Bolt Works. In
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1861 he began labor in the Glass works, and has ever since fol- lowed the employment. He has been two years a member of the Executive Board of the American Flint Glass Workers, and represented them in annual conventions on eight different occa- sions, and has been a member of the order since 1877. His fel- low laborers and their influence made him a member of the Legislature of 1889, in which he served on the committees of Military Affairs, Penitentiary, Mines and Mining and Joint one in Report on Penitentiary.
BAPTISTE GILMORE.
W AS born at Montville, Maine, April 30, 1823. He located at Point Pleasant, Mason county, before the war. He held the office of Deputy Postmaster at that point two years during Fillmore's Administration ; was the first Telegraph Operator in Point Pleasant; was appointed Postmaster in the year 1861 and resigned the office in 1863 on account of ill health; was elected Mayor in 1862 and served in that office one year ; was elected to represent Mason county in the Legislature of West Virginia in the fall of 1864 and served one year ; he was elected one of the School Board and contracted for and superintended the build- ing of the first school house ever built in Mason county for the use of colored children, and made many enemies by it, as it was obnoxious to many citizens. He was appointed Postmaster again in the year 1876, and resigned in 1879.
GWINN MINTER.
APTAIN GWINN MINTER was born in Harrison, the county he now represents in the State Legislature, October 25, 1838. He was a farmer boy, and received his education be- fore the age of eighteen, by attending the country schools during winter. Farming and stock raising is his present occupation on 600 acres of land, situated upon Kincheloe creek, partly in Lewis and partly in Harrison counties. When the war opened in 1861, he imbibed the spirit of the times, and enlisted into the army. In 1864 he was commissioned as First Lieutenant of Company C, Tenth West Virginia Infantry, and in 1865 pro- moted to Captaincy of the same. The conflict ended, he gladly
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returned to the less exciting pursuit of agriculture. From 1871 to October, 1887, he was Postmaster at Kincheloe. The Re- publicans of Harrison sent him to Charleston as a member of the House of Delegates, in the election of November, 1888, by 448 majority over his opponent, T. C. Johnson. He served on Committees of Taxation and Finance, Executive Offices, and Library and Private Corporations and Joint Stock Companies.
JOHN P. SHANKLIN.
JOHN P. SHANKLIN was born in Monroe county, of South- west Virginia, July 22d, 1842. He is now by occupation, and was raised, a farmer. In education he enjoyed the oppor- tunities usual in the schools of mountain districts. In May, 1861, he entered the Confederate army, and was in Artillery service during the entire war, being with the army of General Jubal A. Early, in the Valley of Virginia, and in Maryland, during the campaign of 1864. After the surrender he returned to agricultural pursuits. In the pending Legislature he is the member from Monroe county, and was elected upon the Demo- cratic ticket. He serves his constituency, in Legislation, upon the Committees of Private Corporations and Joint Stock Com- panies, Roads and Internal Navigation, and Arts, Sciences and General Improvements.
ELBRIDGE GERRY CRACRAFT.
MONG the young men who have acquired an enviable reputation at the Bar and who have attained political dis- tinction in this State, the subject of this memoir is entitled to a prominent place. In his brief career has been illustrated what indomitable energy, joined to a lofty purpose, steadily adhered to, may accomplish. Although he died young he had lived long enough to leave behind him a bright example and the memory of many brilliant intellectual achievements.
Elbridge Gerry Cracraft was born in the town of Claysville, Washington county, Pennsylvania, March 2d, 1847. While an infant, his father, (the late Dr. George A. Cracraft) removed to Triadelphia, Ohio county, Virginia. In this village his early boyhood was passed. He received his education at Washing-
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ton college, Pennsylvania, and immediately after the expiration of his collegiate term he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Black, a very estimable and accomplished young lady of Wash- ington, Pennsylvania, whose superior mental endowments and admirable traits of character, doubtless contributed much to his subsequent advancement and success. The result of this union was two daughters, Julia and Jean, both of whom are still living.
Shortly after his marriage he entered the University of Vir- ginia and finished the law course at that institution in the sum- mer of 1868. Upon his return from the University he was ad- mitted to the Ohio county Bar in the city of Wheeling, and im- mediately began the practice of his profession.
In the fall of 1869 he was elected on the Democratic ticket to represent Ohio county in the House of Delegates, and was re- elected to the same body in 1870. He was chosen speaker of the House at the Session of the Legislature commencing the seventeenth day of January, 1871. He was elected to the office of Prosecuting Attorney for Ohio county at the October elec- tion in 1872, and was again elected to the same office for the succeeding term, which expired the first day of January, 1877. In the Democratic State Convention, held in the City of Mar- tinsburg, in 1880, he was chosen Presidential Elector for the State at large, and in the campaign which followed in that year he took a very active and effective part. At the conclusion of his labors as a speaker during the Presidential campaign he returned to his law practice with redoubled energy and ambi- tion, and industriously devoted all his time to professional busi- ness, which he steadily and successfully pursued until within a short period of his demise. At a time when success had crown- ed his endeavors in the field of his profession, and when greater attainments seemed to await him in future paths of usefulness and distinction, he was stricken down with an incurable malady which terminated in his death, December 29, 1886.
In his early manhood he made a profession of religion and became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with which he remained connected throughout the rest of his life.
The high estimation in which he was held by his associates of the legal profession cannot better be shown than by the following preamble and resolutions, adopted at a meeting which was largely attended, of the Ohio County Bar, on the occasion
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of his death: "Death has again claimed one of our number : one who for a decade and a half was prominent among us, fre- quently holding civic positions of trust and honor, and always occupying an honorable place in his profession. Elbridge Gerry Cracraft, as a lawyer of ability, a citizen of energy, devotion and public spirit, a friend and companion of agreeable manners, commanded the esteem, the confidence and affection of us all. As an advocate, his lively imagination and sympathetic force and his power of expression, had secured for him a wide and well-deserved reputation. At the noon of life he has passed from earth : and looking back upon his career and remembering his ability as an advocate so frequently displayed, and the genial qualities that will ever serve to keep his memory green, we, the members of the bar and officers of the Courts here assembled, desire to give expression to our sentiments regarding his de- cease. Therefore it is-
" Resolved, That we deplore the loss to us and to the commu- nity, when our departed brother, an ornament to the profession and a useful member of society, ceased from his labors.
" Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be presented to his family, with the expression of our deep sympathy; and also to the several Courts of this county, with the request that they be spread upon the minutes.
" Resolved, That as a further mark of our esteem we attend his funeral in a body.
" THAYER MELVIN, " H. M. RUSSELL, " J. E. McKENNON,
" Committee."
The writer was intimately acquainted with this gifted young man, and had ample opportunities to gain a knowledge of his character and social disposition. He was warm-hearted in his nature, simple as a child in manner, and vigorous as a giant in intellect. He was a fluent and eloquent speaker, and possessed in a high degree the power of persuasion over the minds of others. A fine descriptive faculty was a prominent feature of his intellectual character and was often brought into requisition by him in his forensic addresses with happy effect. His fine social qualities and rare powers of conversation, made him the light of the family circle as well as the delight of all his friends. His mind, which he was constantly enriching by varied and
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careful reading, was replete with useful and entertaining knowl- edge, gathered from almost every field of thought and observa- tion. He possessed the happy gift of imparting to others, in a most pleasing way, the information he had acquired, and this trait of his character made him a very desirable friend and companion indeed. His many friends, recalling with tender regret this charitable nature, his kind and sympathetic heart and all his worth, feel that
"None who knew him need be told A warmer heart death ne'er made cold."
HENRY BAER.
I JENRY BAER is a successful business man. He came to America in the sixties, and without inherited capital and by his own exertions, he now stands at the head of one of the largest wholesale grocery houses in the Ohio Valley. Intelligent, energetic, honorable in his dealings and attentive to his business, he could not fail of success. He was born, January 29, 1843, at Stebbach, Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany. He served an apprenticeship in commercial life at Heidelburg from 1857 to 1860, and traveled in Germany, for the sale of woolens, for four and a half years ; he was then drafted into the German army to serve in the heavy artillery, but thinking that the job of feeding heavy cannon would scarcely agree with his constitution he con- cluded to purchase a substitute and emigrated to the United States in 1865, after the abolition of slavery, for notwithstanding his strong Democratic proclivities, he is always very outspoken in his opposition to slavery.
He settled at Wheeling ; clerked for Simon Horkheimer until the spring of 1867, when he, his brother Benjamin, and father, engaged in the retail grocery business at the corner of Market and Eleventh streets, which he followed for one year, and then became a partner of Simon and Henry Horkheimer in the wool trade and wholesale liquor business, which they followed suc- cessfully until the fall of 1869. At that time Mr. Baer and Henry Horkheimer moved to Zanesville, Ohio, where they es- tablished a branch of their Wheeling business, which they con- ducted jointly until January, 1881, when the two partnerships
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were dissolved, the Messrs. Horkheimers taking exclusive con- trol of the Wheeling establishment, and Mr. Baer the one at Zanesville.
At the death of his brother Benjamin in 1884, he and his brothers Marcus and B. B. Baer, succeeded to the busi- ness of the already well established wholesale grocery house of Simon Baer & Sons in Wheeling, (now Simon Baer's Sons) which is still conducted with the same push and energy that characterized the old house, and which has gradually grown into its present mammoth proportions.
Mr. Baer was married in August, 1868, to Miss Henrietta Horkheimer, a sister of Messrs. Henry and Morris Horkheimer, by whom he has a most interesting family of six children, five boys and one girl. The youngest of whom is now (1890) nine years old.
Henry Baer is no politician, and would not accept any kind of an office, if it were handed him on a silver salver.
1 GEORGE T. GOSORN.
EORGE T. GOSORN was born in Juniata county, Penn- sylvania, 1852. He received a common school education, and entered his father's printing office, as an apprentice, at an early age; removed with his parents to Mineral county, West Virginia, at the close of the war, where his father, David Gosorn, published one of the first Republican newspapers in the second congressional district, before the smoke of battle had cleared from the hills or business resumed in the valleys, being then about fourteen years of age. He showed an aptitude for the printing business, and, in 1876, associated himself with Hon. J. T. Hoke, in the publication of the Mountain Echo, at Keyser. Retiring, he passed four years in the Government printing office. He began the publication of the Piedmont Observer in 1881, it being changed to the Herald in 1885, being the first to establish a newspaper at Piedmont, after numerous failures of others. He took an active part in politics, moving with caution and counseling harmony; was a candidate for assessor in 1884; held the office of City Recorder for a short time, and was appointed postmaster by President Arthur, which position he held until the change of administration. It was
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