West Virginia and its people, Volume II, Part 8

Author: Miller, Thomas Condit, 1848-; Maxwell, Hu, joint author
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 866

USA > West Virginia > West Virginia and its people, Volume II > Part 8

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

(I) Stephen Preston, the first of the present line of whom definite information is to be had, was born October 15, 1794, in Bedford county, but lived the greater part of his life at Glade Hill, Virginia, in the house in which later his grandson, Benjamin Spottswood Preston, was born. The house is standing at the present day and is still owned by the Pres- ton family. He enlisted in the service of his country in the war of 1812. He followed the occupation of farming, dying March 22, 1864, at the age of seventy years. He married Frances Turner by whom he had children : Stephen B., of whom further, Christopher P., Benjamin, Mary, Lottie and Frances.

(II) Stephen Brooker, son of Stephen Preston, was born at Glade Hill, Virginia, November 22, 1838, and died January 15, 1907. He was a farmer and spent most of his life near Glade Hill. When the war be- tween the states broke out hie enlisted in the Confederate army and served throughout the entire period of its duration ; he was appointed as sergeant of Company K, Tenth Virginia Cavalry. He married Isabelle Frances Arrington, born near Glade Hill, December 4, 1840, and died De- cember 30, 1903. They had eleven children of whom seven are now liv- ing: John W., M. D., lives in Roanoke, Virginia : Stephen, D. D. S. ; Ben-

WEST VIRGINIA

jamin Spottswood, of whom further: D. G., M. D., lives at Burnwell, West Virginia ; Christopher B., M. D., lives at Kingston, West Virginia ; H. Tate, is a telegraph operator in West Virginia; Annie M., married F. W. Finley, of Williamsburg, Kentucky. Those that died were: John W. ; child died unnamed; James B., aged five years ; Maggie, aged three years.

(III) Dr. Benjamin Spottswood Preston, son of Stephen Brooker Preston, was born January 2, 1874, at Glade Hill. He attended as a boy the local schools of Glade Hill, and then graduated in pharmacy from the University College of Medicine, Richmond, Virginia, in 1897, and for a year afterwards followed that profession at Richmond and Rocky Mount, Virginia. He then took up the study of medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, Maryland, and was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine from that institution in 1902, en- tering upon medical practice at Burnwell, West Virginia, and remaining there for several years. After this he decided to take up further ad- vanced work, and spent a year in London, England, and in Boston, Massa- chusetts, studying post-graduate courses. He then came in 1909 to Charleston, West Virginia, and has been there ever since. He is a stock- holder and a director in Keeny's Creek Colliery Company, and stockhold- er in the Beckley Electric Light & Power Company. The main offices of the former company are at Winona, West Virginia, and those of the latter at Beckley, West Virginia. Dr. Preston is a Democrat in politics. He is a member of the Christian church, and fraternally, a member of the York Rite Masonic fraternity, and is also a Noble of the Mystic Shrine ; he belongs also to the Knights of Pythias.

Dr. Preston married, January 25, 1911, Danna Kate, daughter of Dr. E. S. Rogers, now practicing at Knoxville, Tennessee. They have one child, Betty Arrington, born December 17, 19II.

ALDERSON The first Alderson who emigrated to America in 1718 was known as the prodigal son ; his father was a Bap- tist minister of Yorkshire, England. His only son, John, became enamored with a young lady, but the match was opposed by the parents, and the father gave him two hundred pounds ($1000.00) to travel on the continent. Young John spent this without getting outside of England. He was induced to come to America by Mr. Curtis, who was just sailing there with a colony for a settlement in New Jersey. Young Alderson became a Baptist minister. He married a daughter of Mr. Curtis, and preached in Bethel church, New Jersey; afterwards moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, and in 1755 settled on Linnville creek, nine miles below Harrisonburg, in the valley of Virginia, and pur- chased a farm adjoining Mr. Linkhorn, the father or grandfather of Abraham Lincoln. Here he preached many years, and afterwards moved to Fincastle, Botetourt county, Virginia, in 1780, where he died.

(I) Squire Joseph Alderson, the first of the line here under consider- ation, died in 1845. He married and among his children was Lewis A., of whom further.

(II) Rev. Lewis A. Alderson, son of Squire Joseph Alderson, mar- ried Eliza Floyd Coleman, daughter of Captain John Coleman, of Locust Grove, Amherst county, Virginia, the old ancestral homestead of the Colemans, which has been in possession of the Coleman family over two hundred years. After the death of his father, in 1845, Rev. Lewis A. Alderson, fell heir to an extensive plantation on the north side of Green- brier river in Greenbrier county, Virginia, in which part the town of

J. Goleman Alderson.

WEST VIRGINIA

North Alderson is now situated. Among the children of Rev. Lewis A. Alderson was Joseph Coleman, of whom further.

(III) Major Joseph Coleman Alderson, eldest son of Rev. Lewis A. Alderson, was born in Amherst county, Virginia, October 29, 1839. There young Alderson was taught by private instructors until about seventeen years of age, when he entered the old Lewisburg Academy, and during the school years of 1859-60 and the fore part of 1861, he attended Alle- gheny College at Blue Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. He was in the graduating class on April 17, 1861, the day that Virginia passed the ordi- nance of secession and seceded from the Union. Mr. Alderson being ani- mated with the doctrine of states rights, and believing as he did in pro- tecting the rights of his native soil, he left school and tendered his ser- vices to the Confederate army, as a member of the "Greenbrier Cavalry," the finest body of men and horses in the commonwealth, as later stated by Governor Letcher, of Virginia. He was promoted from a private to sec- ond and then to first lieutenant of his company, and refused further pro- motion, preferring to stay with the young men of patriotism who had en- listed with him in the cause so dear to their young hearts. He took part in the terrible campaigns in Eastern Tennessee, in the never-to-be-for- gotten winter of 1863-64, under General William E. Jones, when Long- street had General Burnside, of the Federal forces, surrounded in Knox- ville. Lieutenant Alderson often had command of the five companies making up the Thirty-sixth Battalion of Virginia Cavalry. His com- mand was half-clothed and many shoeless, yet it marched or fought near- ly every night and nearly every day during those three months of the coldest weather ever known in that section of the country, when the temperature was frequently far below zero. Longstreet said: "Jones' brigade had performed more actual service that winter than all the arm- ies of the Confederacy," as most of the others were in winter quarters.

The command to which Major Alderson belonged was made the es- cort of honor at the burial of General "Stonewall" Jackson. At Gettys- burg he had the distinction of delivering the first orders, on the Confed- erate side, at the opening of that terrible battle, in which engagement he saw severe fighting. He was midst the shot and shell and bleeding sol- diers who fell on every side of him. In all that great war he participated in more than one hundred battles and skirmishes, some of which were desperate. In three engagements he had hand to hand sabre fights, and was twice wounded, at Hagerstown, Maryland, July 6, 1863, and July 12, 1864, at a point near his birthplace, in Amherst county, Virginia, where he was captured by General Duffe's advance guards and later sent as a pris- oner of war to Camp Chase, Ohio, where he remained nine months, un- til exchanged. While there, six months of the time, he was placed on one-third rations of cornmeal and salt fish, under the rules of retaliation in warfare. When he was finally exchanged in February, 1865, though reduced in flesh to almost a skeleton, he mounted his horse, as soon as able to ride, and started for his old company, but when within a few miles of Appomattox Court House on the morning of the Ioth, he was informed of the final surrender of General Robert E. Lee. During all the four years' service, Major Alderson only had eight days leave-of-ab- sence, except when in prison and hospital.

When the war ended he went to Atchison, Kansas, and during the years 1865-66-67 he had charge of the middle division of the famous Butterfield Overland Freight and Express Company, from Atchison to Denver, Colorado, up the Kaw and Smokey Hill rivers and on over the plains. His division extended two hundred and sixty miles, through the worst Indian and Buffalo region of the far west. The hostile Indians finally broke up the company which was capitalized at three million dol-

WEST VIRGINIA

lars, by murdering its employes, capturing and burning their property and stealing their live stock. Major Alderson rightly believes that the same kind Providence that kept him from death in the many battles of the war between the states also kept him from being killed among the hostile bands of Indians on the western plains. In the autumn of 1867 he returned to Atchison, Kansas, where his father had given him a farm about five miles out from that city. He planted the first grove of trees planted in Kansas, in 1858, while there on a visit. This land he tilled for two years, and it has ever since been known as "Alderson's Grove." In 1869 Mr. Alderson settled in West Virginia, where he em- barked in the general insurance business at Wheeling, in which he con- tinued for twenty-seven years, his agency being the leading one in the state. By much tact and a great amount of work, he succeeded in build- ing up a splendid insurance busines, having associated with him for a time Governor G. W. Atkinson, now of the court of claims, Washington, D. C.

In 1888 Major Alderson commenced to buy coal, gas and timber lands in this state, along the Norfolk and Western railroad; also in Boone, Raleigh and Wyoming counties. Some of these valuable lands he has sold long ago, while others he still possesses and they have come to be very valuable. In 1907 he wrote a work on the timber, gas and coal resources of West Virginia, which booklet had a wide circulation and was the means of many capitalists coming here for investments which have proved very profitable. He holds broad, liberal views upon all living questions and is noted for his integrity, enterprise and gener- osity. No man in the commonwealth could possibly be more charitable to those in need and distress than he has been. Though he has alway been a popular citizen, he has never been induced to hold political public office, preferring rather to aid others to secure such places of honor and im- portance. However, he was induced to hold the position of director of the West Virginia Penitentiary, under Governors Mathews and Jack- son, but resigned under Governor Wilson. In 1888 he was a West Vir- ginia commissioner at the Ohio Valley Centennial, at Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the celebration of the inauguration of George Washington as the first president, at New York City, April 17, 1889. In 1893, under Gov- ernor McCorkle's administration, he represented West Virginia at the meeting of the southern governors, in a great gathering held for the pur- pose of inducing desirable immigration to the southern section of the Union. In 1880 Major Alderson founded Mountain Lake Park, and in 1894 Loch Lynn Heights-two noted summer resorts on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, in Maryland, located in Garrett county. He was also one of the founders of the prosperous towns of Williamson and Bellepoint.

He married (first) February 25, 1874, Mary, eldest daughter of Ex- Governor Samuel Price, of Lewisburg, West Virginia. She died at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland, August 15, 1895. He married (sec- ond) December 29, 190.1. Mary Kirker, of Wellsburg. West Virginia, whose father was Major William H. Kirker, of Confederate army, and whose grandfather Major John S. Calvert, was treasurer of Virginia many years, and killed in 1870 by the falling of the gallery of the old capital building at Richmond, West Virginia. They now reside at a beautiful home at No. 1212 Kanawha street, Charleston. While Major Alderson has never had children of his own, he has helped to care for and educate those of other people.

Сшвейки

WEST VIRGINIA

This distinctively West Virginian family was promi- ALDERSON nent in the pioneer days, and the Aldersons were among the first white settlers west of the Alleghenies George Alderson was the first pioneer Baptist minister west of those mountains, and organized the Missionary Baptist Church in that re- gion. Rev. Joseph Alderson, in 1775, cut out the first wagon road across the mountains, extending as far west as the Greenbrier river. Seven- teen years before that date, among the voters in Frederick county, Vir- ginia, was Rev. John Alderson. Alderson, Monroe county, West Vir- ginia, was named for one of this family. In more recent times the Al- derson family has given men of eminence to West Virginia and to the nation ; among these is John Duffy Alderson, who has been three times a member of the United States congress for the third district of his state.

( I) Curtis Alderson, a descendant of John Alderson, mentioned in preceding sketch, settled on Lick creek, at the foot of Keeney's Knob, and built a two-story log house. The place is known to the present day as the Curtis Alderson place, despite changes of ownership. He had a large family, including: Lina Mims, married (first) - - Dunsmore. ( second) - Peters : Asa, of whom further.

( II) Asa, son of Curtis Alderson, died at an advanced age, about 1882. He lived on Keeney's Knob mountain, in what is now Summers county, West Virginia, where he had a tract of one hundred acres of land. A notable Virginia law suit had to do with this land, which Cap- tain A. A. Miller claimed as belonging to himself. In the first contest, Alderson was successful: but Miller obtained from the circuit court a supersedeas and a judgment in his favor ; on appeal to the supreme court of appeals of Virginia the case was finally decided, in 1859. in Alderson's favor. Mr. Alderson afterward sold this land, and removed to Green- brier. Child, Samson Isaac, of whom further.

(III) Samson Isaac, son of Asa Alderson, was born in what is now Summers county, West Virginia, about 1841. He is now living at As- bury, Greenbrier county, West Virginia, and is a farmer. He was a vol- unteer in the Confederate army, in the civil war, but on account of ill health served only one year. He married Martha, daughter of Andrew Hedrick, who was born near Asbury, about 1845. died in 1909. Her father, a farmer, was a native of Greenbrier county, Virginia, now Sum- mers county, West Virginia, and died in young manhood. Children of Samson Isaac and Martha (Hedrick) Alderson : William A., deceased : Charles Marion, of whom further : Granville Smith, now living at Alder- son, owns the Alderson Academy: George, deceased : Edward M., now living at Mansfield, Ohio, a dealer in automobiles : Cora Belle, single, liv- ing at Asbury : Ella M., single, living at Asbury : Jennie, deceased, mar- ried J. D. Dias.

(IV) Charles Marion, son of Samson Isaac and Martha (Hedrick) Alderson, was born in Greenbrier county, West Virginia, June 18, 1867. He attended the local schools and afterward the Concord State Normal School. In 1891 he graduated from the University of Nashville, Nash- ville, Tennessee : this course was followed by a law course at the Uni- versity of West Virginia, from which he graduated in 1893. He has practiced law from that time at Charleston, West Virginia. For nearly four years he was in the office of Joseph Chilton; he then formed the present law firm, which is now practicing under the name of Enslow, Fitzpatrick, Alderson & Baker. He is one of the owners, the only own- er by the name of Alderson, of the Alderson-Stephenson building, at Charleston, the most modern, costly and tallest building of its character in the state of West Virginia ; it is fourteen stories in height. Mr. Alder- son is a stockholder and director in the Holley & Stephenson Coal and

WEST VIRGINIA

Coke Company, the Horse Creek Neck Coal & Land Company, and other commercial corporations. He is a Mason, being a member of all bodies from the Blue Lodge to the Shrine. He is a Democrat. His church is the First Presbyterian. He married, at Charleston, May 20, 1903, Mary Comstock, born at Charleston. Her father, a physician, is deceased; her mother, also deceased, was of the famous Ruffner family. Children : Mary Elizabeth, born November 2, 1904; Martha, May 20, 1907 ; Charles Marion, February 13, 1909.

The Brooks family, of which this narrative will treat, is

BROOKS an old Connecticut family, now represented in West Vir- ginia by the Walter B. Brooks family, of Charleston, Kanawha county. Five generations in the United States are here men- tioned briefly.

(I) Mr. Brooks, the English immigrant to the colonies of New Eng- land, whose Christian name is not now known, had a son John.

(II) John Brooks, son of the immigrant, married a Connecticut young lady, who lived to the extreme old age of ninety-six years. It is related that she had the honor of dancing with General George Wash- ington. in Boston, just prior to his becoming the first president of the United States. She was then a young woman. John Brooks and wife, just mentioned, had four sons: Charles; Chauncey, of whom further ; Frederick, of whom further; and John, who, after marriage, remained with his widowed mother on the old homestead.

(III) Chauncey, son of John Brooks, left his native state and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he became a very wealthy man, leaving an estate worth six million dollars. He was the first president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, and head of four extensive whole- sale establishments in the city of Baltimore, where he was a noted char- acter. He was twice married and had a large family of children, seven being by his first marriage. Two of his sons served in the Confederate army. Charles, one of the three who emigrated, settled in New York City, married and had a family.

(III) Frederick, brother of Chauncey, and son of John Brooks, when a young man set out for Tennessee, for the purpose of engaging in business; but at Manassas Junction, Virginia, en route, he chanced to meet a very interesting and attractive young lady, with whom he fell in love, and they soon married. This changed his whole course in life. He settled down at that place for a time and conducted a store. His wife's maiden name was Frances Oden. In 1816 he went to the Kanawha Val- ley. Virginia, where he purchased salt property, and in 1818 settled at the Salt Licks, four miles east on the Kanawha river. He there engaged in the production of salt. A few years later he removed to the present site of Charleston, Kanawha county, this state, and purchased a block of log houses, on the spot now marked by the crossing of Brooks and Kanawha streets. In 1857 he purchased a large plantation in Kentucky. upon which he lived throughout that long protracted period of the civil strife. Though like the other members of the Brooks family he held slaves, his sympathies were with the union cause, and when victory was finally declared in favor of the north, he felt it no great hardship to sur- tender the right to his human chattels ; at least, he made the financial sac- rifice willingly. Others members of the Brooks family entered the Southern confederacy, and were slaveholders as long as the law of the land permitted it. Frederick Brooks died on his Kentucky plantation, in 1869. aged seventy-seven years. He was always an active man of af-

WEST VIRGINIA

fairs and an elder in the Presbyterian church, to which denomination most of the Brooks people belonged. In politics he was really a Whig, and a party worker. His wife died in Kanawha county, this state, some years after, aged ninety-four years. She was the daughter of James and Frances (Skinner) Oden, her mother being a daughter of General Skinner of the revolutionary war, who was such a prominent soldier. She reached the age of ninety-six years. Her youngest son, Major James Oden, was born when she was fifty-eight years of age, and was noted for his daring energy as displayed in the war between the states. Frederick Brooks and wife had seven sons and one daughter, all of whom reached maturity. All seven sons are now deceased, together with their wives. The only one remaining of the family in Charleston, West Virginia, in direct line of descent, is Walter Booth Brooks. Among the children was William Chauncey, of whom further.

(IV) William Chauncey, second son of Frederick and Frances (Oden) Brooks, was born in Loudon county, Virginia, October, 1820, died in Kanawha county, West Virginia, September 30, 1881. He chose law for his profession and was educated at Princeton (New Jersey) Col- lege ; but subsequently he left the law and engaged in salt making, then a very profitable industry and one he followed many years. He became part owner of two boats, the "Blue Wing" and the "Blue Ridge," that carried his salt to Louisville, Kentucky, where he did a large business as a commission merchant and spent liis active life. Politically he was originally a Whig, but never cared to be called Republican or Democrat. He was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and frequently spoke in public meetings. When he died his funeral procession was made up largely of more than two thousand men and women in his employ at his extensive salt works. This is given to show the almost universal respect with which he was held by the people who knew him best. In Charles- ton, he married Lavinia Virginia Patrick Brigham, of an old family of Virginia, but who originally resided in Boston, Massachusetts. She was born in Kanawha county, Virginia, in 1825, died in Denver, Colorado, October, 1894. They were the parents of thirteen children, seven dying in infancy ; the others were: I. Walter B., of whom further. 2. Alethia B., deceased ; was the wife of Charles Small, of Denver, Colorado, and left two children : Lavinia and Charles. 3. Fannie, became the wife of B. L. James, of Denver, Colorado. 4. William, a mine owner in Mexico, where he has succeeded well in his operations ; unmarried. 5. Nona, un- married, resides at Denver, Colorado. 6. Henry F., also in Denver, ex- tensively engaged in manufacturing enterprises of the city ; married Lulu McNamara, of that city : they have no issue. William Brigham, Mrs. Brooks' father, settled in Kanawha county, engaged in the salt business and in it accumulated a handsome competency.

(V) Walter B., son of William Chauncey and Lavinia V. P. (Brig- ham) Brooks, was born May 1, 1846, in Kanawha county, Virginia. He was educated in a college at Louisville, Kentucky, in which city he later engaged in the tobacco business. After five years he engaged in the salt industry, and continued in it for ten years with his father, until it had come to be no longer a profitable enterprise. He with other mem- bers of his family, still owns eight hundred and fifty acres of salt and coal lands adjoining Charleston. Then he again entered the tobacco trade at Danville, and at Greensboro, North Carolina. After seventeen years thus engaged, he removed to Charleston, West Virginia, where he has since resided. He is the executor for the Dr. Hale estate ; also secre- tary, treasurer and general manager for the Rosin Coal Land Company, owning eighteen hundred acres of land adjoining the city of Charleston.

WEST VIRGINIA

Politically Mr. Brooks votes an independent ticket. Both at Danville and in Charleston he has served as an elder in the Presbyterian church.

He married, at Maysville, Kentucky, Mary E. Blatterman, a refined lady, born in that city, daughter of George W. and Eleanor (Collins) Blatterman. Her father was born in London, England, in 1820, died March 24, 1912, at the home of his daughter, in Charleston, West Vir- ginia. His wife lived until 1903, when she was seventy-six years of age. She came from Kentucky. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks are : I. George B., born January 17, 1877 : now an accountant in Charles- ton, West Virginia : married Mary Hasell McCoy, of Wilmington, North Carolina. 2. Edward S., August 25. 1878, died in infancy. 3. Eleanor Collins, February 21, 1880; unmarried. 4. William Chauncey, February 9. 1883, died in infancy. 5. Walter Booth ( 2), March 26, 1884; now with the Cabin Creek Coal Company. 6. Goldsborough R., November 22, 1887, died in infancy. Mrs. Brooks and her surviving children are con - nected with the Presbyterian church at Charleston. Mr. Brooks is a member of the Masonic fraternity, being in the Commandery.

GEARY

The Geary family is of Irish extraction, the first American ancestor having come to the country in 1820.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

West Virginia and its people, Volume II, Part 8

Author: Miller, Thomas Condit, 1848-; Maxwell, Hu, joint author Publication date: 1913 Publisher: New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 866

Author: Miller, Thomas Condit, 1848-; Maxwell, Hu, joint author
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 866