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 67
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during his residence at Piedmont that he arranged the North- eastern excursion for the West Virginia Press Association, in 1883. The trip afforded rare pleasure to those that participated in it, and won him many compliments for energy, and the citizens of Piedmont much praise for their generous hospitality. He removed to Petersburg in 1886, and took charge of the South Branch Gazette, the Republican organ of Grant county, which paper he still publishes, having extended its circulation and influence. He was for two years a member of the Execu- tive Committee of the State League, and one of the delegates to the National League convention, at Baltimore, in 1889, and has held numerous positions upon committees. He is affable and sociable, firm in his political convictions, and courteous and fair to opponents.
JAMES B. TANEY.
J AMES B. TANEY, who was born in 1841, at Newark, N. J. was the eldest son of Hugh and Letitia Taney, who came to the Ohio Valley in 1850, and located in Wheeling, Va., in 1852. His schooling was confined to the private and public schools of the town. A predilection for the sea caused him to take French leave from home, while in his teens. He joined the merchant marine, serving from a sailor before the mast to chief officer. At the breaking out of the war, he joined the U. S. navy, continuing therein until 1868, when becoming tired of naval life he resigned his commission. At this date he was attached to the Brazil squadron, where he had been assigned after the surrender of the confederate forces.
During the war Mr. Taney was attached to the Atlantic and Gulf blockading squadrons; also doing duty in conveying the New York and Panama mail steamers through the narrow West India passages. He participated in the battles of Beau- fort, Port Royal, Newberne, the storming of Fort Fisher on both occasions, the capture of Wilmington, and a number of minor engagements. At the second bombardment of Fort Fisher he was in command of the detachment of men from the man-of-war "Tacony," who formed part of the naval forces that united with General Terry's forces in the hand-to-hand assault upon the fort.
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Upon returning home Mr. Taney engaged in the newspaper business, which has occupied his attention ever since, except a period of six years' service as collector of the City of Wheeling, which position becoming irksome and unpleasant, he resigned, and again entered the field of journalism. In October, 1884, he became part owner and general manager of the Wheeling Daily Register, the leading Democratic paper of the State, which, under his management, has greatly increased its scope of influence and power.
During the campaign of '88, Mr. Taney was chosen delegate at large to the National Democratic Convention, held at St. Louis, that renominated President Cleveland.
Mr. Taney received considerable attention from the press throughout the country, in August, 1887, during the Encamp- ment of the Societies of the Army of West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, at Wheeling, in connection with the Cleveland banner incident. It was from the Register building to the opposite side of the street, that the large patri- otic banner was suspended, upon which, besides a good crayon portrait of the Chief Executive, were inscribed the words : " God bless our President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," and under which most of the G. A. R. Posts refused to march. The excitement at the time was intense, and for several months thereafter the Republican papers throughout the country denounced Mr. Taney as a Southern rebel, Northern copperhead, etc. etc.
Mr. Taney is identified with many of the business interests of Wheeling. His wide experience in his several callings, his - extensive travel and his excellent knowledge of character, have presented opportunities that do not fall to the lot of many men, and which, coupled with his persistent energy and industry, have materially aided in attaining his success in life.
In 1872 he married Emily F., youngest daughter of the late Thomas Pollock, of Wheeling.
JAMES J. PETERSON.
A MONG the journalists of the State who are carving out their own path is the subject of this sketch. He was born at Weston, in the county of Lewis, Virginia, April 16, 1853. With a fair common school education he entered the State 63
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University in Morgantown, and graduated therefrom with the class of 1875. He founded the Republican, at Weston, in 1879, and built it up to a degree of influence equal to any country newspaper of the State. It still continues under the manage- ment of Dr. M. S. Holt. In May, 1882, he located in Hunting- ton, Cabell county, and founded the Republican, and in less than a year made it the leading party paper in the lower end of the Fourth Congressional District. He was admitted to the bar that year, and was in 1883 Attorney for the City of Huntington. He takes an active part in politics; has been secretary of the Congressional Committee of the District and a member of the State Central Committee. He was assistant clerk of the State Senate in the session of 1889. He is one of the promising news- paper men of the State, genial, vigorous and a ready writer. He is a bright and enthusiastic Mason, being a Knight Templar, Member of the Grand Consistory, and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. Founded and edited the Freemason's Monitor, of Hunt- ington.
JOHN FRISSELL.
D R. JOHN FRISSELL was born in Peru, Berkshire county, Mass. (the home of the Fields', the Hopkins' and the Bry- ant's), March 8, 1810. He was the son of Amasa Frissell, a farmer of Scotch descent; his mother was of English parentage, named Wilcox. They secured good education to their six children, four sons and two daughters. The eldest of the sons was a farmer, and the other three received collegiate educations, and represent the professions as follows : one as a lawyer and judge; another in medicine and the other in theology. The eldest of the two daughters was a missionary to the Choctaw Indians, located in Mayhew, a small Indian village, and a mis- sionary station in the Northeastern part of the State of Miss- issippi ; the other daughter was married and lived in New York City. The subject of this sketch in his youth worked on the farm with his father, attending the common school in the winter, from whence he was advanced to the Academy in Old Hadley. He entered Williams' College in the fall of 1827, and gradu- ated A.B. in 1831. He commenced the study of medicine in the fall of 1831 with Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, of Williamstown, whose assistant he had been in the chemical laboratory of
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JOHN FRISSELL, M.D.
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Williams' College for two years. In the fall of 1832 he attended lectures at Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield.
At the invitation of Prof. Willard Parker he accompanied him to Woodstock, Vermont, in the spring of 1833, where he became demonstrator of Anatomy. He filled the same position for Prof. Parker in the Berkshire Medical School the next fall ; at that period it was the duty of the demonstrator to perform the dissections for the professor and afterwards to recapitulate to the class the Professor's lecture, and to carefully superintend and instruct all those making dissections. Having continued demonstrator through the year 1834, and attended lectures, he graduated M.D. from the Berkshire College at the close of that term. In the fall of this year he received the degree of A.M. from Williams' College. He remained in Pittsfield hearing recitations and instructing students in anatomy, materia medica, etc., during the spring and summer. In the fall and winter of 1835 he demonstrated his fourth and last course of lectures.
Dr. Frissell removed to Wheeling, Virginia, where he arrived on the 3d of June, 1836. At first practice came to him rather slowly, but he occupied his spare time profitably, in giving oc- casional lectures on temperance, phrenology, and physiology, in teaching botany, and lecturing on that subject in the schools of Wheeling, and rambling with classes over the hills and through the country seeking flowers and specimens with which to illus- trate his lectures. He also indulged his taste for the geological and mineralogical sciences, by studying the rocks and minerals to be found in the vicinity of Wheeling, with Drs. A. S. Todd, Townsend, and others interested in these subjects. He likewise filled the position of teacher and leader of the choir of the First Presbyterian Church for fifteen years or more. But in a few years all his time was required to perform the labor of his in- creasing professional engagements.
He has been physician to the Convent of the Sisters of the Visitation, and the school for young ladies at Mount de Chantal, and to St. Vincent's College. He was the first surgeon in West- ern Virginia to avail himself of chloroform in capital operations, and although using it in thousands of cases, no untoward acci- dent has ever occurred in his practice. He first used it in November, 1853, in an arm amputation. In a commercial and manufacturing city, such as Wheeling, laborers and mechanics
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are exposed to numerous accidents, so that the surgical practice is large compared with the ordinary sickness of the population. Dr. Frissell was therefore early called upon to take a prominent part in such operations, which his exact knowledge of anatomy enabled him to perform with skill and success, he early became known as one of the best surgeons and most eminent physicians in Western Virginia. In 1838 he performed his first operation for hare-lip and deformed upper jaw, and in the following year he operated on club-foot by division of tendons, and shortly after Dr. George McClellan, of Philadelphia, had performed his first operation for the same deformity, by the same method. In 1841 he commenced operating for strabismus, and has since performed repeatedly nearly all the different operations on the eye, inclu- ding the extirpation of the organ, both by enucleation, or by removing with the eye a part of the tissues of the orbit. He performed in 1846 his first operation for stone in the bladder, and in 1856 his first successful operation for vesico vaginal fistula. He has operated with success for staphyloraphy, and frequently for pariphymosis and phymosis, and phymosis with adherent prepuce; not to mention his numerous operations in plastic surgery, one of which he performed in 1871 in a case wherein the chin and sternum were held nearly in contact, ranks among the most extensive and successful of the class on record. He is a member of the Ohio County Medical Society and of the State Medical Society of West Virginia, of which he was the first president, and of the American Medical Association. He is an honorary member of the Medical Society of California, and was member of the International Medical Congress of 1876. Although not much addicted to writing, his cases and opera- tions have furnished abundant themes for valuable medical arti- cles, insomuch that his papers dealing with the fruits of his every-day practice are too numerous to be given here even by their titles : they may be read, however, in the transactions of the West Virginia State Medical Society.
Soon after the beginning of the civil war he was appointed by Governor Pierpoint, Medical Superintendent of the military prisoners and sick soldiers of Wheeling, and was continued by the Surgeon-General of the United States at the same post as Assistant Surgeon to the close of the war. He also served as a member of the State Board of Examiners for Surgeons entering
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the Army during the war. For more than a third of a century he filled the position of surgeon to the marine patients at Wheeling.
Dr. Frissell since he has been in Wheeling has been connected with three institutions, organized for the benefit of the sick and afflicted ; first, the Wheeling Dispensary, which was established about 1845, was conducted during the year or two of its exist- ence, by four of the city physicians-Drs. Todd, Bates, Hildreth and Frissell. Their office and dispensary room was on the north- east corner of Twelfth and Chapline streets, where one of the four physicians would be present at a certain hour each day to prescribe for patients who might call for advice and medicine; second, the Infirmary was started by Drs. Frissell and Hullihen, in Novem- ber, 1845, for the purpose of accommodating private patients. The Infirmary was entirely under their control, as they alone were the only physicians who had the right to either send or attend patients there. The first patient of the Infirmary was a young man, a patient of Dr. Frissell's, with fever, who was sent to Mrs. Barnes', then living on the alley west of where the Linsly Institute now stands. She nursed and took care of that patient so much to the satisfaction of Drs. Frissell and Hullihen that they afterwards sent all proper patients to her ; in a short time she moved to the Updegraff house near the creek on Mar- ket street, which would accommodate some ten or twelve patients, but the owners after a time wished to sell the prem- ises and she moved to the Thompson property on Sixteenth street. Bishop Whalen understanding that more room was needed for patients, had the Wheeling Hospital chartered in March, 1850, and opened it on a small scale in the Metcalf house on Fifteenth street, and placed it in charge of the Sisters of St. Joseph, with Drs. Frissell and Hullihen as surgeons, through whose permission only applicants were admitted. The Bishop, still anxious to increase the hospital facilities, purchased the Michael Sweeney house and lot in North Wheeling, added largely to both ends and raised the whole building one story, and fitted it with accommodations for one hundred and fifty patients when closely filled, which was amply sufficient for all applications at that time. The patients then presenting them- selves were sent to the new Wheeling Hospital, and the patients in the Infirmary and Metcalf house were transferred in a short
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time to the new hospital. The sick seamen were also taken in, where all were well attended and cared for by the Sisters. The Institution was under the charge of a Board of Directors, of which Bishop Whelan was the head, and everything moved on smoothly. The hospital accommodations were plain, and though at the pres- ent day would not be considered modern in its appointments, yet at that time the institution was considered the best in this region of country. It was with many regrets that Drs. Frissell and Hullihen gave up Mrs. Barnes, who had served them so faith- fully for ten years. Dr. Hullihen died on the 27th of March, 1857. Bishop Whelan, with the approval of the Board of Directors, appointed Dr. Frissell surgeon and physician of the Wheeling Hospital and gave him the whole professional charge of the institution, and that appointment has never been changed.
During the first two years of its existence, Drs. Frissell and Hullihen alone exercised the sole prerogative as to admission of patients, etc., but subsequently this privilege was extended to all other regular practicing physicians.
From the commencement of the Infirmary in 1845, to the present time, about 45 years, Dr. Frissell has had the main charge of the hospital institutions of the City of Wheeling, and full charge since the death of Dr. Hullihen. Since the hospital has been completed it has fully supplied the wants of West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, for regular hospital patients. Bishop Kain has made some valuable im- provements, but another building is desired, with sundry im- provements, to make it what it should be at the present time, as a great amount of sickness and accidents occur on account of the large number employed on bridges, tunnels and railroads, that are being constructed in and about the city at this time, and if all applicants were taken into a hospital who would like to be fed and taken care of, a building of almost any size might be kept well filled. For some years Dr. Frissell has left most of the hospital work to his son, Dr. Charles M. Frissell.
Dr. Frissell has operated many times by the lateral operation in Wheeling and surrounding country for stone in the bladder, and always with success, never having lost a patient, or had any bad results from inflammation or blood poison, using most of the time only the old antiseptics, pure water, perfect cleanliness, and good care. Of late years he has occasionally used the
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carbolic acid bi-chloride solutions in operations, but with no better success. The youngest of the patients operated on for stone was two years of age, the oldest was 72 years, who now keeps in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, a candy and toy shop and is as lively as a bee. Dr. Frissell has often operated in the same way in the city and through the country for strangulated hernia, and with the same results, except when there was mortification of the bowels and the intestine could not be saved.
Two fine-looking ladies called on Dr. Frissell at separate times and from different States for examination and advice. The ladies appeared to be in good health, and every way perfect except that they had no vulva, no vagina, no uterus, and no ovaries that could be discovered. The first lady was not married and took the doctor's advice, which was to remain as the Lord had made her. The second lady, who was married, received the same advice, but in about two months she returned with her husband, determined to have some operation performed that would relieve her from her malformation, for she had be- come disgusted with her condition. She was sent to the hospital and soon Dr. Frissell, with two other physicians, called to ex- amine her and perform some operation, if thought best, to please the lady and her husband. It was decided to operate, and a very respectable vulva and vagina were formed. The vagina was formed by separating the thick layer of cellular tissue be- tween the rectum and the bladder. The lady bore the operation without chloroform and without a murmur. She was carefully attended at the hospital for over two weeks, and was furnished with two glass dilators of different sizes such as used by Sims and Thomas. She expressed herself as well satisfied with the operation and promised to return if everything did not prove satisfactory. Dr. Frissell has not seen her since or heard from her.
Dr. Frissell has removed many uterine polypi and fibroids of various sizes and shapes, but three were remarkable in their character. One was about six inches in length and two inches in diameter or thickness, attached to mouth and neck of the uterus, and surrounding the mucous membrane of the vagina, filling the whole of the vagina and projecting a short distance at the vulva. The tumor was removed by three sections, at three different operations. The two other tumors were more
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like the head of a child and filled the whole vagina and lower part of the pelvis, and required to be pushed up for water or bowel discharges to pass. Large sections of the tumors were required to be cut out to diminish their size so they could be removed by the ligature or ecrasure. There was no return of the disease after those tumors were removed and their pedicils or attachments properly taken care of. Cancer is frequently a sequel of such diseases. Many persons prefer going to the larger cities for operations of this kind, being led thither by the glaring cure-all advertisements of some third-class physicians who are always on the lookout for such cases, when in the majority of instances they could be more successfully and comfortably treated at home.
Notwithstanding the success he has achieved in the medical world, Dr. Frissell is of a very modest and retiring nature. He is naturally of a pleasant and jovial disposition, which, together with his well-earned reputation as the leading surgeon of the State, makes him greatly beloved by a large circle of friends and acquaintances. . He was married on the third of December, 1850, to Elizabeth Ann, daughter of Col. John Thompson, of Mounds- ville, W. Va. They have two sons living-the eldest a physician and surgeon, a graduate of the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, oi New York City, occupies his father's position, while the youngest is a scientist, and is the chief chemist in the Wheeling steel plant at Benwood.
HENRY CLAY RAGLAND.
H CLAY RAGLAND, the Delegate from Logan county in 1887, was born May 7, 1844, in Goochland county, Va. He entered the Fifth Virginia Cavalry of the Confederate States in 1861, as a private soldier, in which command he became a First Lieutenant ; was twice wounded during the war, and a prisoner from 1864 to March, 1865, having been captured at Luray, Va. Was elected Surveyor of Goochland county in 1869, but did not qualify as such. Taught school from 1868 until 1874, in the two Virginias. He was elected to the Legislature of West Virginia in 1886 for the ensuing session and served upon the committees of Claims and Grievances, Counties, Dis- tricts and Municipal Corporations, and Humane Institutions and
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Public Buildings. He is a Commissioner of the United States, County and Circuit Courts, practices law at the county seat, and is a Democrat, prominent and influential in his party.
GEORGE KEITER WHEAT.
T HE subject of this sketch was born January 25, 1825, at Berkeley Springs, Berkeley county, Virginia (now Morgan county, West Virginia). He was a son of James M. Wheat, who came to Wheeling, July, 1832. The son first went to school to William McKay, afterwards attended the Lancasterian Acad- emy kept by Mr. James McBurnie, and later on attended a private school on the southwest corner of Fourteenth and Chap- line streets (then Quincy and Fourth streets), under the tuition of Messrs. Reuter and Smith, successively. Mr. Wheat was always of an industrious turn, and even during his school days aimed to accumulate, to make himself useful and apply himself to anything that presented itself. After leaving school he worked for some time in the printing office of James E. Whar- ton, proprietor of the Wheeling Times, which occupied the site where Friend's furniture warehouse (Water and Eleventh streets) now stands. He also put in some time in the printing office of John McCreary, proprietor of the only other Whig paper then published in Wheeling. In 1837 he moved to Ritchietown (now the Eighth ward), where his father established a tannery.
There are perhaps more interesting items pertaining to the early life and business career of Mr. Wheat than falls to the lot of very many men-his position for several months as a foot- blower in the glass factory of H. Milton Miller; his trip to St. Louis selling wooden bowls, where he worked his passage as assistant cook on the steamer Tioga, commanded by Capt. Mason ; and his position as assistant engineer in the saw mill of Hughes & Martin, furnish many very interesting incidents that, owing to lack of space, cannot be mentioned here.
In March, 1844, he was employed as clerk in Jacob & Thomas Hornbrook's notion store, on the site now occupied by the Bank of the Ohio Valley, where he remained for four years. At first Mr. Wheat received but fifty dollars a year and board ; the sec- ond year seventy-five dollars and board, the third, one hundred dollars and board, and the fourth five hundred dollars. In 1848
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Jacob & Thomas Hornbrook dissolved partnership, each taking a portion of the stock, Mr. Jacob Hornbrook selling his share of the stock to Messrs. George K. Wheat and Alexander Chap- line. During the second year of his engagement with the Hornbrooks, the business being rather contracted, Mr. Jacob Hornbrook entertaining the idea of reaching the outside trade, took Mr. Wheat with him, loaded a flatboat, and taking a crew of four men besides themselves, called on all the stores along the Ohio river between Wheeling and Louisville, Ky. After Messrs. Wheat & Chapline had purchased the interests of Jacob Horn- brook, Mr. Wheat made two trips on his own account along the river between Wheeling and Cincinnati, leaving Mr. Chapline to look after the home business. On the occasion of the first of these trips an incident worthy of mention occurred, viz: During Mr. Wheat's stay at Cincinnati, after having finished his down trip, the tow-boat Lake Erie arrived at Cincinnati with two barges of coal; this was the first experiment made by any steamboat in taking coal from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. The Lake Erie had formerly been used as a canal tow-boat plying between Rochester and Pittsburgh, but after the building of the railroad between those points and the decline in the canal trade, the Lake Erie was brought into requisition to make the trip referred to, after disposing of their coal and in returning with her emp- ties, Mr. Wheat arranged to have his flat boat, containing mis- cellaneous merchandise, traded for such as rags, feathers, bees- wax, ginseng, &c., towed to Wheeling for seventy-five dollars.
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