USA > West Virginia > West Virginia and its people, Volume II > Part 26
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(VI) Edmund C., second son of Abia and Elizabeth (Harmon) Rece, was born November 28, 1810, died near Milton, West Virginia, July 16, 1885. He learned the carpenter's trade, which he follewed all his life. He married, December 22, 1836, Sophia P. Love, born October 16, 1813, died at Huntington, West Virginia, March 9, 1895. Children : 1. Charles
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A., of whom further. 2. Eugenia H., born 1841, died 1844. 3. Alice L., born May 24, 1845; married James A. Rece, her second cousin; chil- dren: Clarence, born 1876, died July, 1901; Susan, born 1878, unmar- ried; Virginia, born 1881, married Lewis Mason. 4. T. Heber, born May 6, 1847, died May 30, 1887 ; he served in the Confederate army as a private in Company D Eighth Regiment, Virginia Cavalry ; he married Edna E. Morris; children : William L., born December, 1871, married Norma Keenan; Edmond C., born 1873, married Kathlyn Ellis and has Ellis H., born June 25, 1900, and .A. Louisa, born 1903; Ellen, born 1878, married W. W. Stevens; John C., born 1880, married Mary Giddings, of Missouri, and has Helen; Clyde, born 1882, died 1887; Lena Mary, born 1884, unmarried; Ashby S., born 1876. 5. Edgar, born 1850, died in childhood. 6. William A., born 1853, died in infancy. 7. Virginia S., born July 9, 1860, married William T. Gitt, who died in 1908.
(VII) Charles A., eldest son of Edmund C. and Sophia P. (Love) Rece, was born October 27, 1837. He was educated in the public schools of (now) Cabell county, West Virginia, and learned the carpenter's trade under the instruction of his father, with whom he worked until the outbreak of the civil war. When Virginia seceded from the Union he followed her fortunes, enlisted in 1862 in Company D, Eighth Regi- ment Virginia Cavalry, and served until the surrender at Appomattox, although at that time he was a paroled prisoner with exchange papers in his possession. He enlisted as a private and rose to the rank of first lieutenant. He surrendered at Christenburg, Virginia, and then soon afterward located in the state of Kentucky, where he engaged in the mill- ing business. In 1870 he moved to Missouri where he worked at carpen- tering and farming. In 1890 he came to Huntington, West Virginia, where he has since lived, engaged in building. He is a member of the Masonic Order and of the Society of Confederate Veterans. He is a Democrat in politics, and in religious faith a Baptist. He married Mary J. Pulley, born in Kentucky, May 8, 1841, died March 5, 1910, without issue.
TOOLEY The Tooley family is an old and honored one in Virginia and West Virginia. The original progenitor of the name in America came here in the eighteenth century, and dur- ing the long intervening years to the present time, in 1913, the successive generations have been most successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits, and several representatives of the name have achieved honor and distinc- tion in the various learned professions.
(II) Charles (2), son of Charles (1) Tooley, was born in Virginia. He was reared on a farm and received his educational training in the schools of the locality and period. As a young man he settled in what is now Lincoln county, West Virginia, there engaging in farming opera- tions during the remainder of his lifetime. He married Bettie Mitchell, likewise a native of Virginia, and they became the parents of twelve children, whose names are here entered in their respective order of birth : Nancy, James, George W .. Samuel, Millie Ann, Elizabeth, Sallie, Oba- diah, Charles, mentioned below : Polly, John and Mandy Jane.
(III) Charles (3), son of Charles (2) and Bettie ( Mitchell) Tooley, was born in Cabell county, Virginia, November 13, 1839, and died in Wayne county, West Virginia, July 22, 1898. He was engaged in farm- ing operations during the entire period of his active career and achieved unusual success as an agriculturist and stock-raiser. He married (first) Martha Massie, born in Lawrence county, Ohio, in 1844, a daughter of Moses and Rebecca (Dillon) Massie ; she died in Wayne county, West Virginia. He married (second) Melissa Hay, who was born in Vir-
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ginia, and who is now living in the state of Washington. Children: Dr. George Washington, mentioned below; Moses, deceased; Laura; Oba- diah; Squire; Masten M. Squire; William, deceased; Mary, deceased; James; Benjamin; Henry ; Ida; and two other children who died in in- fancy.
(IV) Dr. George Washington Tooley, son of Charles (3) and Mar- tha (Massie) Tooley, was born in Cabell county, Virginia, now West Virginia, September 8, 1859. He passed his boyhood and youth on the old home farm, in the work and management of which he early began to assist his father. His preliminary educational discipline was obtained in the public schools of his native place and this training was later sup- plemented by a course of study in the Eclectic College, at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the medical department of which excellent institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1896, duly receiving the de- gree of Doctor of Medicine. Subsequently he took a post-graduate course in the Kentucky School of Medicine, at Louisville, Kentucky, in which he was graduated in 1900.
Dr. Tooley initiated the active practice of his profession first at Tooley, and then at Queens Ridge and later at Dingess, West Vir- ginia. He was appointed in 1896 assistant surgeon for the Norfolk & Western Railroad Company, and he served in that capacity with the ut- most efficiency for three years and eight months. In 1903 he went to Logan county and for the ensuing two years practised at Logan Court House. On January 1, 1905, he came to Huntington, West Virginia, where he has since maintained his home and where he controls a large and lucrative patronage. In connection with the work of his profession Dr. Tooley is a valued and appreciative member of the Cabell County Medical Society, the West Virginia State Medical Society and the Amer- ican Medical Association. He is a stalwart Democrat in politics and while a resident of Mingo county was chairman of the Democratic executive committee of the county from 1898 to 1900. He was also president of the Mingo county board of health for two years.
In a fraternal way Dr. Tooley is affiliated with a number of important organizations in his home state. He is connected with Dunlow Lodge, No. 141, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he has passed all the official chairs and is past grand. In 1898 he joined the Encampment of the Odd Fellows at Wayne Court House, and in 1910 he was admit- ted to Huntington Encampment, No. 47. On November 13, 1894, he became a member of Pearl Castle, No. 19, Knights of the Golden Eagle, of Dingess, West Virginia, and in the following year he was made a mem- ber of the Grand Lodge of the State of that organization, being elected grand high priest of the state. In 1896 he was elected grand chief of the state of West Virginia in the Knights of the Golden Eagle. In 1901 he represented the Grand Lodge of the Golden Eagle of West Virginia in the Supreme Lodge which met at Youngstown, Ohio, that year. He was again elected in 1905 in the city of Parkersburg, West Virginia, as grand chief of the state, and in 1906 he became chairman of the Committee on Law, which latter position he still retains. He is affiliated with the Wood- men of the World, being a member of Reese Camp, No. 66, of Hunting- ton ; and in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks he is a member of Huntington Lodge, No. 313. He is likewise connected with Hunting- ton Lodge, No. 347, Loyal Order of Moose, of which he is secretary.
Dr. Tooley has married three times. On February 21, 1877 he was united in marriage to Virginia Copley, a daughter of Josiah and Sallie (Marcum) Copley, and a native of Wayne county, West Virginia. By this union there were three children, whose names are here entered in their respective order of birth: Charles, William Thomas and John, the 12
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last mentioned having died February 22, 1902, at the age of eighteen years. In 1892, in Wayne county, Dr. Tooley was married to Matilda Hunt. There were no children born to this marriage. In 1901 he mar- ried Florence Brumfield, a native of Lincoln county, West Virginia, and daughter of Paris and Kizey ( Rainey ) Brumfield.
FREEMAN This name is supposed to have taken its origin with some one who desired to indicate his position as a free man. At an early date one John le Freeman is found. The family is probably not of Norman origin. The name is found several times in old German chronicles and in the Scandinavian sagas. Distinct houses of this name in England and in Ireland have almost identical arms ; so that, though they are numerous, it is probable that they have a common origin.
So far as the records show, the first person of this name in Virginia was a Captain Bridges Freeman, who was burgess from Pasbehaighs in 1629-30, and held other offices. Bridges Freeman, justice in James City in 1680, was probably his son ; not all Virginian Freemans, however, are his descendants. Virginia had at least two revolutionary soldiers of this name. Captain Samuel Freeman, of Richmond, Virginia, who lived from 1795 to 1870, was a prominent citizen for many years.
(I) Richard Valery Freeman, the first member of this family about whom we have definite information, was born at Richmond, Virginia, about 1857, died at Huntington, West Virginia, November 27, 1889. His father and mother both lived in Richmond. He was an engineer on the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad, and was killed by a wreck, two miles from Huntington. He married Maria Hagan, who now makes her home at Huntington. Children, all born at Huntington: Blanche, married James Alexander Pack, child, Richard Freeman, born at Huntington ; Charles Wilkerson, of whom further ; Annie V.
(II) Charles Wilkerson, son of Richard Valery and Maria ( Hagan) Freeman, was born at Huntington, West Virginia, October 1, 1887. His education was begun at Huntington, and he graduated from the Hunt- ington high school in 1905. He then attended the University of West Virginia, at Morgantown, and graduated from its law department in 1909. In that year he was admitted to the bar, and in the same year he began to practice at Huntington. He is forging ahead in his profession and is a promising lawyer. He is a Democrat.
POTTS This family traces its origin in this country to the state of Maryland, where Benjamin Potts, a farmer, was born in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He removed to Vir- ginia about the beginning of the following century, or some little time previous, and continued his avocation of farming in the new surround- ings for the support of his growing family. He married Elizabeth Cleek ; children : John, Jacob, Mathias C., of whom further ; Jonathan, Samuel, Elizabeth, child, whose name is not known.
(II) Mathias C., son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Cleek) Potts, was born March 6, 1806, in Virginia. He was a farmer all his life, being politically a member of the Democratic party. He became a leading man in the community, holding a prominent position for many years in the affairs of Randolph county, Virginia, now West Virginia, and dying in the possession of the high esteem of his fellow citizens, in Huntington, in the year 1881. He married Rachel McCabe, born in Bath county, Vir- ginia, died in 1878 at the age of seventy years. Her parents were both
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natives of Ireland, having immigrated to this country and made their new home in Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Mathias C. Potts became the par- ents of six children : Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Warwick, James New- ton, of whom further : Lanty G., Eliza Jane, Mathias P. H.
(III) James Newton, son of Mathias C. and Rachel (McCabe) Potts, was born in Pocahontas county, Virginia, now West Virginia, September 14, 1838. When he was eight years of age his parents removed to Ran- dolph county and there he received his earliest education, remaining on the farm until he was twenty-three years of age. At the outbreak of the war between the states he enlisted in the Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry, Company G, of the Confederate troops, as a lieutenant, becoming adju- tant of his regiment and serving for four years. At the close of the war he settled in the town of Huntersville where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and later removed to Williamsville. Virginia, following the same line of business. On October 1, 1871, he came to Huntington, West Vir- ginia, conducting a grocery business here for some years; he then en- gaged in real estate and insurance, in which line he has met with much success, and has become one of the most prominent citizens of the town. In politics M1. Potts is a member of the Democratic party, and has been very active in the public affairs of Huntington. He has often been a mem- ber of the city council, having been for four years city clerk, and for two years a judge of the police court.
He is a member of Camp Garnet, the Confederate Veteran Associa- tion, and is adjutant of the camp; also adjutant of Second Regiment United Confederate Veterans, of which Wayne Ferguson is command- ant. Mr. Potts is a very prominent member of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of Huntington ; he was one of the thirteen charter members when the church was organized in 1877, only four of these charter members being still alive, three of them being members of his family. He is now senior deacon of this church, his wife and family all being members, and for seventeen years successively he has been superintendent of the Sun- day school. He is also president of the Guyandotte Baptist Sunday school convention which responsible post he has held for the last thirty- two years, and for the past fifteen years he has been elected moderator of the Guyandotte District Baptist Association.
Mr. Potts married Margaret Stewart, a native of Cedar Grove, Rock- bridge county, Virginia, daughter of Harry and Virginia (Collins) Stew- art. She is a consistent member of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. Mr. and Mrs. Potts have two children: 1. Harry Stewart, married Etta Eversole and has two children : Helen Margaret and Rachel Virginia. 2. Margaret, married Rudd Taylor Neal and has one child, Margaret Stew- art.
BROWN Charles L. Brown, of Ravenswood, West Virginia, is de- scended from pioneer stock. His great-grandfather, Wil- liam Brown, a native of Maryland, having married Pa- tience Marvel, of Delaware, settled in the Ohio Valley in the year 1773. In April, 1776, alarmed for the safety of his family, in that exposed country where the savages were being incited by emissaries of Great Britain to wage a war of extermination against white settlers, he left his cabin in the wilderness and returned with his family to Delaware; entered the Continental army and served during the war for indepen- dence, and in 1785 returned to Western Virginia and settled in what is now Brooke county, and where he was a prominent man; served as a member of the county court, was the sheriff of the county, and for many years was a member of the legislature.
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(II) It was in Virginia that Joseph Brown, son of William Brown, was born (in 1792) and reared. He married Rachel Hood, a native of Baltimore county, Maryland, and like his father chose the occupation of farming, and lived a long, honorable and useful life, and died as he had lived, triumphing in the glad promises of the Christian's faith, in July, 1882, having passed the ninetieth year of his age. He is buried beside his wife, who with him for sixty years had adorned the divine doctrines of the Master within the folds of the Methodist Episcopal church. They reared and educated a family of nine sons and one daughter, all of whom they lived to see happily married and settled in life, except their third son, James Marvel Brown, who gave up his life at the age of nineteen years in defense of the honor of his country, in her war with Mexico, in 1847.
(III) Judge Robert S. Brown, son of Joseph Brown, was born April 6, 1828. He was brought up on the farm, and early inured to the toils and hardships that attend this honorable but arduous vocation. He attended in winter such schools as the country then afforded; he was fond of reading, and devoted the moments of leisure spared from labor to the per- usal of such books as his father's ample library afforded. The develop- ment of this inclination of mind being observed by his parents, induced them to aid him with the means of obtaining a classical education, and he entered Bethany College, Brooke county, Virginia, in 1845; he chose the profession of law, and commenced its practice at Elizabeth, Wirt county, Virginia, in April, 1849. He soon secured a liberal and lucra- tive practice ; was elected prosecuting attorney, and re-elected to that office both in Wirt and Roane counties until he went on the bench as judge of the circuit in which he resided.
Prior to the war, like his ancestors, he was a Democrat, and voted for John C. Breckenridge for president, in 1860; but when Mr. Lincoln was elected, actuated by those high qualities of patriotism and sound com- monsense, for which he was at all times noted, he at once declared his fixed purpose to support the administration of the president constitu- tionally elected, and opposed those who made the great tragic effort to break up our national unity. He was an early and active advocate, and liberal promoter of the counter revolution set on foot by the loyal- ists of Western Virginia at Wheeling, which resulted in the formation of the new state of West Virginia, and it is confidently believed and as- serted that no man contributed more of his time, talents or means to achieve that happy result for the people of his state than did Robert S. Brown.
In 1864 Mr. Brown was chosen elector for the third congressional district of his state, and cast his vote for the re-election of President Lincoln ; in May, 1868, he sat as a delegate in the Chicago convention, served on the committee on resolutions that prepared the party platform on which General Grant was nominated, and as elector-at-large, with Hon. A. W. Campbell, of Wheeling, canvassed and carried his state for the Republican ticket. On the first day of January, 1869. he went on the bench as judge of the tenth judicial circuit of West Virginia, composed of the counties of Jackson, Roane, Calhoun and Gilmer, to which office he had been elected with unusual unanimity, for the term of six years. He brought to the judicial office the same intelligent zeal and industry that had always characterized his conduct of other affairs, and was uni- versally regarded as a most able, learned and impartial judge. Declin- ing a re-election, his voluntary retirement was marked by meetings of the bar and people in every county of his circuit, who in their published resolutions declared their respect and esteem for him as a man, confi- dence in him as an able, honest and upright judge, and regret at his re-
Charles L. Brown
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tirement from office. In 1878 Judge Brown was elected to the state sen- ate by an overwhelming majority, and served therein four years. His standing in that body may be inferred from the following editorial no- tice in a leading newspaper in his state, in January, 1879:
"Judge Brown is a man of strong character, and as a born leader has spent a life of public service ; he stands confessedly forward in the body of which he is now a member. His character and ability mark him out as a prominent man. He is upon many of the important committees, and his dictum is always listened to with interest. He has retired from active practice of the law, and devotes his time when at home to his large property interests; his home farm at Ravenswood is one of the largest and finest on the Ohio river."
Before the war the Odd Fellows' Lodges in Western Virginia be- longed to the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, and on the re- turn of peace the Grand Lodge of West Virginia was organized, and Judge Brown joined Ravenswood Lodge, No. 15, in 1865 ; he passed its several chairs, and in 1877 represented it in the State Grand Lodge ; was successively elected grand warden, deputy grand master, and grand mas- ter ; and in October, 1881, was elected one of its representatives to the Sovereign Grand Lodge for the term of two years; met with that august body in Baltimore, and in Providence, Rhode Island, at the session of 1883.
He was united in marriage, October 2, 1849, with Anna H., eldest daughter of Ephraim Wells, Esq., a prominent and wealthy citizen of Jackson county, Virginia, who served the public as presiding justice of the county court of Jackson county for two terms, and filled with credit many other positions of honor and trust. Mr. Wells, in 1835, had bought (at five dollars per acre) from Dr. Peter, (husband of Martha Custis) a devisee of George Washington, a large tract of land on the Ohio river adjoining the town of Ravenswood, and moved on it from Brooke coun- ty, in March, 1836. It was then all in woods, as was in fact at that time nearly all the land in Jackson county. This land had been patented to George Washington by King George III. in 1772. Mr. Wells had in years of great labor and perseverance cleared out and improved a large part of this land, and in March, 1866, sold it to Judge Brown for one hundred dollars per acre for the whole tract, which shows the great rise in the price of land in that section. Mr. and Mrs. Brown were the parents of the following children still living : William J., Ephraim W. and Charles L., of whom the two former are farmers.
(IV) Hon. Charles L. Brown, youngest son of Judge Robert S. and Anna H. (Wells) Brown, was born in Elizabeth, Wirt county, Virginia, June 20, 1859. He was graduated from Bethany College on his nine- teenth birthday, June 20, 1878. On November 5, 1879, he represented the alumni of the Neotrophian Society of that college at the anniversary cele- bration, having been elected as the alternate of Hon. John C. New, of Indiana. After reading law for a year in his father's office, Mr. Brown attended law lectures at the University of Virginia, and was admitted to the bar, February 26, 1880, and entered upon practice in the various courts of Jackson and adjoining counties, and the West Virginia supreme court of appeals. Some years ago he relinquished the active practice of his profession, since which time his counsel has been largely demanded by important industrial and financial interests. A Democrat in politics, in August, 1882, he was nominated a candidate for the West Virginia house of delegates by his party convention of Jackson county, and at the October election defeated the Republican candidate, running ahead of his ticket, and receiving more votes than any candidate in the county at that election. In the ensuing session he served as chairman of the com- mittee on federal relations, and as a member of the committees on the
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judiciary, of counties, and of municipal corporations, his being called to such important duties being eloquent attestation of his ability, such as is rarely bestowed by legislative assemblies upon one so young (then only twenty-three years of age), and during his first experience among law- makers. The house journal with its record of his bills introduced and enacted into laws, as well as his extensive committee work, show that this confidence was in no way misplaced. In 1884 he was elected state senator and served four years with usefulness and distinction. Mr. Brown is a member of Ravenswood Lodge. No. 15, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Mr. Brown married, November 20, 1884, Frances, daughter of Hon. Campbell Tarr, a distinguished citizen of Brooke county. To them has been born a daughter, Helen M., now wife of Fred H. Fowler, of Balti- more, Maryland, and of which marriage has been born a daughter, Eliza- beth. Mr. and Mrs. Brown are members of the Presbyterian church. The family home is near Ravenswood, Jackson county, West Virginia; it was formerly owned by his father, and is on part of the General Wash- ington lands. Mr. Brown is a prominent and successful farmer as well as a capable lawyer.
PRICKETT A member of the bar whose reputation belongs not to his own town and county alone but extends through- out his entire section of the state is Nathaniel Camden Prickett, of Ravenswood. Mr. Prickett numbers among his ancestors some of those sturdy pioneers to whose courage and endurance later gen- erations are so greatly indebted.
(1) John Titchnel Prickett, father of Nathaniel Camden Prickett, was born February 15, 1812. He was a farmer in Marion county. Virginia. At the breaking out of the civil war he was appointed assessor of his county. He married Susanna M. Morgan, born March 6, 1814. and was a direct descendant of David Morgan, of Wetzel county, Virginia. In the old fam- ily Bible now in the possession of Mr. Prickett is the following entry of the marriage of his father and mother: "John T. Prickett, of Monon- galia county. Virginia, and Susanna M. Morgan, of Tyler county, Vir- ginia, on I4th day of October. 1834, at Uriah Morgan's house, by James S. West." Mr. and Mrs. Prickett were the parents of the following chil- dren : 1. Edwin M., born July 23, 1835. 2. Sanford H., born December 27, 1839. died June 8, 1885. 3. Charles F., born January 25, 1844; served in Confederate army under Jenkins' command, and later edited the Mountaineer, he died in June, 1909. 4. Isaiah T., born February 6, 1847. 5. Nathaniel Camden, mentioned below. 6. Isabel Anne, born August 29, 1855. John Titchnel Prickett, the father, died September 20, 1897, and the mother survived him but a few months, passing away Jan- uary 27, 1898.
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