USA > West Virginia > West Virginia and its people, Volume II > Part 18
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(IV) Thomas, probably son of William Maupin, Daniel Maupin's son, was born in Albemarle county, Virginia. He became a pioneer set- tler and farmer of the Kanawha valley, dying at the age of seventy-two years. This was either Thomas, son of William, or Thomas, son of John. who married William's sister, Peggy. Thomas, son of William, married twice : (first) Catherine White, ( second ) Mary Clarkson. Among the children of Thomas Maupin was Chapman W .: the name Chapman White, as well as Chapman, and White, severally, occurring in the family of William, as shown above.
OR Cheson
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(V) Chapman W., son of Thomas Maupin, pioneer of the Kanawha valley here referred to, was born in Kanawha county in 1811, died in 1900. He was a farmer and southern sympathizer, being also a slave- holder. He married Matilda F. Hope, born at Owensville, Kentucky, in 1823, died in 1905, daughter of Thomas Hope, a native of Ireland, who came to this country as a young man and established himself as a hotel keeper ; he died while still comparatively young. Mr. and Mrs. Chap- man W. Maupin had eight children, of whom six are now living: I. Fannie, now Mrs. C. C. Cranford, of Huntington, West Virginia. 2. Thomas H., of Idaho. 3. Lucy M., now Mrs. J. T. Doyle, of Hunting- ton. 4. Albert B., of whom further. 5. Mary, now Mrs. G. E. Sampson, of Huntington. 6. Shelby W., died in Nevada in 1910. 7. William R., living in Hinton, West Virginia. 8. James H., died in infancy. The names of Lucy and Mary are those of the sister and wife respectively of Thomas Maupin, son of William, who was Daniel Maupin's son.
(VI) Albert Becker, son of Chapman W. and Matilda F. (Hope) Maupin, was born on his father's farm, the old Maupin homestead, in Cabell county, near Ona, West Virginia. April 14. 1852. His education was acquired in the local public schools and at Marshall College, Hunt- ington. Afterward he became a civil engineer and miner in Missouri and Colorado, continuing thus for fourteen years, until 1891. He then returned to Huntington, where he has since been interested in civil engineering, railroad and municipal work. Since 1906 he has been in charge of the major portion of municipal improvements in Huntington. In 1897 he formed a partnership with L. W. Leete, and in 1907 the Leete-Maupin Engineering Company was incorporated. Mr. Maupin is an extremely public-spirited man, and prominent in business and commercial circles in this city. He is one of the very few leading men of the city who were born here. As a member of the Democratic party his influence has been beneficial in municipal affairs, and he is well known also as a member of the Order of Elks. Mr. Maupin has never married.
WILSON Charles Richard Wilson is one of the most enterprising and energetic business men of Huntington. He has risen from a railway clerkship to a high place among men of affairs in the community, and reached success by intelligent and per- sistent effort. His grandfather on the father's side was Asa Lee Wilson. born in Chesapeake, Ohio, over the river, opposite Huntington. He was a millwright and farmer, and lived to be seventy-seven years of age.
(II) John T. Wilson, son of Asa Lee Wilson, is still living in Hunt- ington, at the age of sixty-six years ( 1912). He was in the real estate business at that place for many years, and served a term as sheriff of Cabell county. He had several brothers in the Confederate army. One of them, Lemuel, was several times wounded, and another. Harvey, was killed.
Mr. Wilson married Mary Amizetta McMahon, daughter of Wayne McMahon, a Virginian by birth, who lived to be eighty-four years old ; he was keeper of the Guyan Bridge during the civil war. She was born in Virginia, and lived at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home: she is now in her sixty-second year. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have had three children, all living: Mamie S., the wife of Senator G. A. Northcott, of Huntington ; Charles Richard, of whom further : Garnet Blanche, now the wife of Dr. J. N. Mincey, of Mineral Wells, in the state of Texas.
(III) Charles Richard Wilson, son of John T. Wilson, was born in Cabell county, Octoher 7. 1872. His early schooling was obtained in the local institutions, and continued later in Marshall College. He finished
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his studies in 1890, at the age of eighteen, and began life in the position of assistant postmaster of Huntington, under C. L. Thompson, when the population of the place was, perhaps, eight thousand. He left this place to take a position as clerk in the Chesapeake & Ohio railway shops, remaining thus employed for something over ten years. Then he became the chief clerk of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, at Coving- ton, Kentucky, an important station, situated opposite Cincinnati. Here he continued for two years, and then came back to Huntington as chief clerk for the company there. This position he filled for three years more, until 1906, then resigned and established himself in his present line, founding the concern known as the Wilson Sand & Supply Company, with offices at Thirteenth street and the river front, a concern which has met with marked success.
Mr. Wilson was one of the organizers and is a stockholder, secretary and treasurer of the Wilson Ballast Company, of Tongs, Kentucky, a company that employs from seventy-five to one hundred men. It is engaged in the production of railroad ballast, and has a capacity of one thousand cubic yards of crushed limestone daily. The Chesapeake & Ohio railroad takes its entire product. Mr. Wilson's company is the largest producer of sand and gravel along the Ohio river between Cincin- nati and Pittsburgh. Its equipment for this purpose comprises two powerful dredge boats, a tow boat and ten great sand barges. Its appar- atus pumps gravel and sand up from the bottom of the Ohio river. This is washed and screened and separated, sand from gravel, in different grades, the sand loaded automatically on one boat and the gravel on another for transportation, the unloading is done by a clam shell hoist. It is a highly ingenious and modern plant.
Mr. Wilson is a Baptist, though his wife is of the Presbyterian faith. He married, in Huntington, June 6, 1894. Inez Estelle Healy, born in Medina, New York, October 6, 1874, daughter of Rev. James E. Healy, Presbyterian pastor, at Maben, West Virginia; her mother died when she was an infant. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have two children: Clara Healy, born in Medina, New York, June 7, 1896; Alice Low, born November 19, 1899; both are now ( 1913) at school. Mr. Wilson recently built a very fine new home, where he resides at No. 1400 Fifth avenue, Huntington.
The earliest progenitor of this family in America came
RODGERS over from Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania. A son, James Rodgers, born to him at Franklin, in that state, became a farmer, preacher and temperance lecturer, dying at the ad- vanced age of eighty-four years.
(III) David R., son of James Rodgers, was born in October. 1838, also at Franklin, Pennsylvania. He is now seventy-four years of age. hale and hearty, and still in the oil business in which he has been engaged ever since oil was first found in Pleasantville, Pennsylvania. He was cap- tain in the Eighty-third Pennsylvania Regiment during the civil war. erving until the close of hostilities, and was several times wounded. At the battle of Gettysburg he was in the thick of the fight, and captured Colonel R. M. Powell. He married Julia A., daughter of William Por- ter, a native of Boston, who owned a farm in Pleasantville upon which oil was found at an early date. Mrs. Rodgers is now sixty-nine years of age. She and her husband had four children, all of whom are now living : 1. William James, of whom further. 2. Marshall C., living in Pittsburgh. 3. LaVerne, living in Pittsburgh. 4. Clara A., unmarried, living in Pitts- burgh.
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(IV) William James, son of David R. and Julia A. ( Porter ) Rod- gers, was born at Silver Creek, New York, February 27. 1807. His early education was acquired at Butler, Butler county, Pennsylvania, where his parents removed when he was six years old; and he completed his studies at Teil College, Greenville, Pennsylvania. He entered business life at the early age of thirteen years, engaging with his father in oil, in which he has ever since been interested. His first work was in Butler county ; after which, in 1891, he went to Pittsburgh, where he remained for three years. Going from there to Marietta, Ohio, he continued for thirteen years. In 1907 he came to Huntington and located in the terri- tory from which oil is produced for the Guyan, Hamlin, and Wayne Oil Companies. He is now president of the Guyan and Wayne Oil Com- panies, and secretary and treasurer of the Hamlin Oil Company. These companies were all formed by himself and F. B. Emslow, with whom he became associated as soon as he came to Huntington. Mr. Rodgers has prospered greatly in his business enterprises and is now one of the leading citizens of Huntington. He is a member of the Democratic party, and belongs to the Order of Elks, and is a Mason in high standing.
He married, January 10, 1891, at Jamestown, New York, Mary N. Bailey, a native of that city. Her father, now living at Jamestown, is retired ; and her mother, whose Christian name she bears, is also a resi- dent there. Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers have no children.
HUGHES Mr. James Walsh Hughes, a leading coal operator of this part of the country, has also been postmaster of Hunting- ton for eleven years, and is the father of Congressman James A. Hughes, representative, in the national councils, of the district of which Huntington is so important a part.
Mr. Hughes is of Irish birth and breeding. He was born in the west of the Emerald Isle, September 16, 1834, and has reached, therefore, the age of seventy-eight years. He was raised as a youth in Ireland, where he went to school and married, March 27, 1854. Ellen McNulty, a native also of the "old sod". Their honeymoon was the trip to America, an arduous voyage in that day, by packet, sometimes a matter of months. though but a few days and vastly more luxurious, now. They started in the fall of 1854, fifty-eight years ago, and located first in Canada. With them, at that time, was Mrs. Hughes' father, Anthony McNulty, a farmer, long since passed away ; also her mother. Nellie (O'Malley ) McNulty.
John Hughes, father of James Walsh Hughes, was the first of this family to settle in Huntington. He was a farmer like his forbears, and died here aged seventy years, at "three score and ten" as the proverb has it, a good old significant age. The mother of James W. Hughes was Mary ( Walsh ) Hughes, long since dead. The parents were of prolific old country blood, and had six children, of whom three are living, among them the subject of this sketch.
James Walsh Hughes was twenty years old when he came to this side of the water. He was thirty-nine years old. when he came to Hunting- ton, drawn by its early development and prospects, July 25. 1873. His first employment hereabouts was in the coal mining line; he managed operations of the Starr Furnace, Company, Kentucky, for something like fifteen years. This brings us to March 2, 1901, when he was appointed, by President Mckinley, postmaster of Huntington, then beginning its use. In this office he came in touch naturally with the business interests of the city, and devoted himself, there is uniform testimony, to its advancement. He has been prominent also in other ways, as a man of
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family and a citizen, and is a stockholder in the Huntington Bank and Trust Company. He is a Republican in politics, an Episcopalian by denomination.
He is the father of eight children, four now living, as follows: I. James Anthony, the congressman above-referred to, an able and success- ful man of West Mooreland. 2. John George, of Ashland, Kentucky. 3. Edwin Stephen, of Catlettsburg, Kentucky. 4. Arthur Marcus, of Louisa, Kentucky. James W. Hughes' wife, Ellen (McNulty) Hughes, who came over from Ireland with him, died here in 1898.
Hansford Watts, a Virginian, born in Tazewell county of
WATTS the Old Dominion, who died in 1900, at the age of eighty- nine,-born therefore in 1811,-was the paternal grand- father of our subject. He was a farmer of Wayne county, West Vir- ginia, pretty much all his life, following this vocation there except in war time, near Lavalette. He was a wheel-horse of the confederacy, in the days of the Rebellion, from first to last "in the thick of it," as one of Sam Vinson's command. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Watts was Jesse Maynard. He was of Wayne county, also, and likewise attached to the soil. He too was a soldier of the "gray," and served it with devo- tion and heroism. He died at the age of eighty years in the old Watts home.
( II) Harrison Watts, still living on a small farm in the outskirts of Huntington, at the age of seventy years, is Mr. Watts' father. He served also under the stars and bars, though for a short time, being hardly more than a boy during the war between the states. His wife was Sarah ( Maynard) Watts, born in Wayne county, West Virginia, died there in October, 1904, at the age of sixty-four years. Of their issue, numbering seven, five are still living : Alderson, of Huntington ; Dr. Alvis J., also of that city ; Charles N., a member of the police force there; Hansford, of whom further; Jessie Mary, died at the age of eighteen in 1887; and Harrison, died in 1902.
(III) Hansford Watts (known as "Hans") was born in Wayne county, West Virginia, February 4, 1873, on his father's farm, East Lynn, the old Watts homestead. His earlier schooling was acquired in that part of the country. When the boy was seventeen years old, about 1800, the father bought a flour mill at Wayne Court House, Wayne county, West Virginia, and moved the family there. In this mill our subject was employed. He was head miller there, until he came of age in 1894. Then he received an appointment in the Federal service, and abandoned the milling line. This appointment was that of Deputy United States Marshal in McDowell county, under Marshal S. S. Vin- son. He held this place with credit until 1896. That year brought him co Huntington, and embarked him in the hotel business with Walter Davis. They established together the Hotel Adelphi, and with its man- agement Mr. Watts was successfully identified for something like five years.
Then he started the Hans Watts Jewelry store in Huntington, on Third Avenue, between Ninth and Tenth streets. That was in 1901. The following year the building was torn down, the goods were removed to Ashland, Kentucky, where the business was continued. Mr. Watts went then into the hotel business again, and in 1906 into the real estate business, at first by himself for a year, and then as one of the firm of Thompson, Thornburg & Watts, at No. 313 Ninth street, the original con- cern, the Hans Watts Realty Company, still continuing. Mr. Watts is a
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Democrat, an Elk and a member of the Fifth Avenue Baptist congrega- tion. He is a man of family and substance.
He married, at Wayne Court House, Wayne county, his former home, July 20, 1889, Jennie Booton, a native of the place. Her father, McFarland Booton, was a prominent Wayne county cultivator of the soil. He is now living, in Huntington, the life of a man retired from business. Her mother, Margaret (Saunders) Booton, is with him. Mr. and Mrs. Watts have two children, both living; Vickers Booton Watts, born April 10, 1902; and Margaret Vivian, November 17, 1904.
This family name was originally spelled O'Neal, the prefix NEAL being dropped in familiar usage, after the immigrant ances- tor had reached America. Thomas Neal, or O'Neal, ran away from home when he was a mere lad. He settled in the vicinity of the Kanawha salt mines, later moving to the Ohio country, where he mar- ried and reared a family. Among his children was a son, Elliott, of whom further.
(II) Elliott, son of Thomas Neal or O'Neal, was born in Lawrence county, Ohio, and died in 1892, aged sixty-three years. He was a resi- dent and farmer in his home county. He married -- , and had a son, Thomas J., of whom further.
(III) Thomas J., son of Elliott Neal, was born in 1852, died in 1904. He was a merchant and general storekeeper in the town of Bradrick, Ohio, for fifteen years or more of his life. He married Alice Langdon, born about 1855, died in 1892, daughter of Elijah Langdon, also a farm- er of Ohio, who departed this life in 1889, at the age of fifty-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Neal had two children : 1. Dr. William Elmer, of whom further. 2. Leonard B., who died of fever in the Philippines, having been a soldier in the Spanish-American war, a regular of Com- pany I, Second Regiment United States Army, and holding the rank of corporal. He was a rising man when his career was cut short by death in 1900.
(IV) Dr. William Elmer Neal, son of Thomas J. Neal, was born in Lawrence county, Ohio, October 14, 1875, on his grandfather's farm. He attended school as a boy in the home district, and after a course at the Proctorville high school, from which he graduated in 1894, engaged in teaching school. This he followed for six years in Ohio and Kentucky. In 1900 he graduated from the National Normal University. Lebanon, Ohio, and from there proceeded to the Medical College of Ohio to study for his profession. He graduated from that institution in 1906. After spending part of 1906-07 in the Good Samaritan Hospital in the Queen City, he began practice. The first three years, 1907 to 1910, he put in at Proctorville, Ohio, coming then to Huntington, where he opened an of- fice at No. 10031/2 Third avenue. He entered at once into an active and profitable career, which is expanding and progressing day by day. He has had business experience, also, having been manager for five years of his father's store at Bradrick.
Dr. Neal is a Republican, though taking no active part here in poli- tics. He is a Mason, an Odd Fellow, a member of the Elks, and the Knights of the Golden Eagle. . He also belongs to the Cabell County Medical Society, the West Virginia State Medical Society and the Amer- ican Medical Association, being also president of the Cabell County Or- ganization. In 1913 he became a member of the Huntington Chamber of Commerce. In the Greek letter fraternities, he has affiliated himself with Nu Sigma Nu. His religious belief is that of the Methodist church.
Dr. Neal married, September 11, 1912, Susan, daughter of L. A. and Ruth (Garden) Witten, who was born in Monroe county, Ohio.
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There are supposed to be at least three Emmons fami- EMMONS lies in the United States: One of Dutch origin found in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; one English, descended from William Emmons, who came from England about 1718, and settled first at Taunton, Massachusetts, afterward near Litchfield, Litchfield county, Connecticut ; and the third, also English, whose ances- tor settled at Newport, Rhode Island. From the second of these families have come several distinguished men.
(I) Carlton Emmons, the first member of this family about whom we have definite information, was born in New York state, and lived to the age of seventy-five. He was a farmer. Child: Delos White, of whom further.
(II) Delos White, son of Carlton Emmons, was born at Oneonta, Otsego county, New York, about 1829, died at Huntington, Cabell coun- ty, West Virginia, in 1905. He succeeded Jolin J. Gould in a tanning busi- ness in a Fulton county, New York, village, which village was afterward named from him, Emmonsburg ; the tanning business was the chief in- dustry of the place. Here he was postmaster and kept a general store. For twenty-five years he was associated with Collis P. Huntington. He selected the site of the present city of Huntington, West Virginia, and named it after Mr. Huntington. His sons have erected a ten-thousand- dollar mausoleum to his memory, in Spring Hill cemetery, Huntington. He married Mary J., born in 1831, daughter of Asa Stoddard, now (1913) living at "Pleasant View," the Emmon's homestead in Huntington. She is a sister of the first Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, and a relative of the famous lecturer, John L. Stoddard ; her father was a farmer near Litch- field, Connecticut, and had a large family. Children of Delos White and Mary J. ( Stoddard ) Emmons ; all living at Huntington : Arthur Stod- dard, of whom further ; Collis Huntington, engaged in the hardware busi- ness : Carlton D., engaged in the hardware business ; Julius A., engaged in the real estate business: Elizabeth S., who owns the big Watts store at Huntington and other valuable properties.
(III) Arthur Stoddard, son of Delos White and Mary J. ( Stoddard) Emmons, was born at Oneonta, New York, August 5, 1852. He attended school at Fairfield, Herkimer county, New York, and at Utica. He helped his father in the general store and postoffice at Emmonsburg, and was with him in business ten years in all. Coming then to West Virginia, he was for three years with the construction department of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad, at various points, supervising the moving of cars and locomotives, on barges, from Parkersburg to Huntington. Afterward, he was in the service of this railroad as engineer, car distributor, conduc- tor, way master, traveling auditor, ticket agent at Richmond, Virginia, for three years, and general purchasing agent for nine years, making a total of nineteen years' service. In 1890 he purchased an interest in a wholesale hardware business, the Emmons-Hawkins Company, the larg- est in West Virginia, of which he is vice-president ; and at this time he fixed his residence at Huntington. During the past three years, he has built the Hotel Arthur, at Third avenue and Twenty-second street, of which he has retained the ownership. Two years ago he erected the ele- gant and modern Emmons Apartments, at Third avenue and Twelfth street. Mr. Emmons is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Or- der of Elks, and of the National Union of Commercial Travelers. He is a Democrat. In the First Presbyterian Church, he is treasurer and a deacon. He married, at Little Falls, Herkimer county, New York, May S., daughter of Henry I. and Sarah ( Sherwood ) Petrie, of Emmons- burg ; her parents are both deceased. Mrs. Emmons has taken an active and leading part in social and charitable affairs, and for fifteen years was
Det, Emmons
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president of the Ladies' Aid Society of the First Presbyterian Church. They have no children.
Frederick Charles Prichard is known as one of the
PRICHARD foremost men in the development of the coal fields of Virginia and Kentucky, and is descended from families native to the soil of both states. His grandfather, Lewis Prichard, spent his whole life in Boyd county, Kentucky, as a farmer and slaveholder, and died there at the age of eighty-one years.
( Il) Dr. Lewis Prichard, son of Lewis Prichard, was born in Boyd county, Kentucky, near Catlettsburg, and is still living in Charleston, West Virginia. He is still the president of the Charleston National Bank, and is one of the directors of the Huntington Banking & Trust Company of Huntington, although he has now attained the age of sev- enty-three years. During civil war times, he sympathized with the cause of the Confederacy. His wife, Sarah Belle Mead, born in Green- up county, Kentucky, was the daughter of Henry Armstead and Betsey (Powell ) Mead. Mr. Mead, a native-born Virginian and slaveholder, died at the age of ninety-three in Kentucky, where he moved as a young man, and had become prominent in agricultural pursuits. Dr. Lewis Prichard and his wife had three children: Henry Lewis, and Armstead Mead, who are now living in Charleston; and Frederick Charles, of whom further.
(III ) Frederick Charles Prichard, son of Dr. Lewis Prichard, was born March 21, 1871, in Grayson, Carter county, Kentucky. His educa- tion in the public schools of his birthplace was supplemented by a course in civil engineering at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, from 1887 to 1891. His business career began in the Charleston National Bank, of Charleston, West Virginia, of which institution his father was president, and his brother Henry L., was cashier. He remained in this position until 1895, when he entered the grocery business in the employ of Lewis, Hubbard & Company, wholesale grocers of Charleston, with whom he remained until 1898. Starting an independent mercantile line, he moved to Poca, Putnam county. West Virginia. There he also had the oppor- tunity of using his knowledge of civil engineering by assisting the Mar- mot-Smith Coal Company at their mines near Poca, and other engineer- ing work. In July, 1900, he became superintendent of the White Oak Fuel Company, a large coal plant in Fayette county, controlling five thousand acres of coal. In this connection, one of his engineering feats was the sinking of the first deep circular shaft in that county. its dimen- sions being twenty-two feet wide by four hundred feet deep. After serving this company for a period of thirteen months, he sold his interest in the concern and formed a combination with his present partner, Houghton A. Robson, organizing the Falls Colliery Coal Company, of which Mr. Prichard was chosen president. Having realized on these mines, the partners invested in coal lands of Fayette. Boone and Raleigh counties, West Virginia, and they rode on horseback to make survey of mineral territory in Wise, Dickerson and Russell counties. Virginia, and eastern Kentucky, also. About 1902 they established three mines of their own on Cabin Creek, under the corporate name of the Belleclaire Coal Company. These they sold, in February, 1907. to the Cabin Creek Consolidated Coal Company, which is now operating them. After this insurance and real estate engaged the attention of Messrs. Prichard and Robson, first in the development of Charleston, and after October. 1900, in Huntington ; in February. 1909, they had purchased the lot on which stands the ten-story building of the Huntington Banking & Trust Com-
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