USA > West Virginia > West Virginia and its people, Volume II > Part 85
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BURNSIDE (IV) Captain Edward A. Burnside, son of Joseph (3) (q. v.) and Elizabeth J. (Martin) Burnside, was born t Middleport, Ohio, May 17, 1865. He at- tended the public school at Middleport. Throughout his whole life he has been a student, and is strictly a self-made man. At the age of fourteen he entered the employment of the Campbell Coal and Coke Company. of Cincinnati, Ohio, and has remained continuously in their employment from that time to the present day (1913), working his way up from the condition of a common laborer, in which he started, un- til he now holds one of the most responsible positions in the service of the company, that of manager of transportation and steamboat building. His residence is at Point Pleasant, Mason county, West Virginia. He built the "E. R. Andrews," "George F. Dana" and "Robert P. Gillham," and is now building the "W. B. Calderwood." The steamers are drafted and designed by him ; he purchases the lumber, machinery and equipment. and all that is necessary for managing and maintaining the transportation steamers. Mr. Burnside is a regularly licensed captain and pilot, and has spent his whole life in connection with river transportation and its devel- opment. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias. In politics, he is Independent.
He married, September 22, 1886, Minnie Bell, daughter of Robert Fulton and Elizabeth Ann (Humphrey) Morris, born in Jackson county, West Virginia, March 4, 1867, daughter of Joseph and Elmira Hum- phrey, of Washington county, Ohio, where her father was a farmer. Her father, a native of Pennsylvania, was a guard in the Union army in the civil war. In civic life he carried on a large lumber and timber business and owned a large flour mill. His parents were David and Mary Morris and the family is of Scotch-Irish descent. Children of Robert Fulton and Elizabeth Ann (Humphrey ) Morris : Minnie Bell, mentioned above, Charles Everett, born June 27, 1868. Children of Captain Edward A. and Minnie Bell (Morris) Burnside: Morris Claiburne, born April 3, 1887; Don Gillham, January 1, 1891 : Edwin, April 29, 1892 ; May Eliza- beth, July 13, 1900.
This well-known name is borne by the descendants of many LYNCH immigrants who came at various times to various parts of the present United States. The family now under consid- eration has been settled in America from colonial days.
(I) John Lynch, the founder of this family, was born in Ireland, about 1742, and came from Ireland to this country near 1763 and settled in what is now Pocahontas county. West Virginia. At one time he was the owner of five hundred acres of land opposite the present city of Cin- cinnati, Ohio. He married Mary Moore, of Irish descent but American birth, of Pocahontas county, now West Virginia. Children: John, of whom further ; Levi and George.
(II) John (2). son of John (I) and Mary ( Moore) Lynch, married Isabella, daughter of Colonel Isaac Gregory. Children: Sarah, Polly,
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Isaac, George, John, Isabella, Adam, of whom further : Susann, Betsy, Nancy and James.
(III) Adam, son of John (2) and Isabella (Gregory) Lynch, was born near Webster Springs, Webster county, Virginia, and died in Grassy Creek, Webster county, Virginia. There also he was buried. He mar- ried Sarah, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Friend) Arthur. Wil- liam Arthur was one of the first settlers at Webster Springs; his wife was a daughter of Colonel Joseph Friend, a well-known pioneer and army officer, who was the builder of Friend's fort, in Randolph county, Virginia, now West Virginia. Children : Margaret, Mary, Jane, Columbia, Fran- cena, George A., Lee, Vanlinden S., of whom further.
(IV) Vanlinden S., son of Adam and Sarah ( Arthur) Lynch, was born at Webster Springs, October 25. 1855. In his earlier life he was a farmer, but he has now for many years been interested in oil and gas. His residence is at Buckhannon, West Virginia. He married (first) Parmelia, daughter of Jacob P. and Elizabeth ( Alkire) Conrad, who died December, 1885 : (second) Thursey, daughter of Colonel Currence B. and Ann (Haymond) Conrad, of Glenville, Gilmer county, West Virginia. The Conrad family is well-known in the history of what is now West Virginia. Jacob P. Conrad was son of John Conrad, born July 15, 1784, died September 8. 1854, and Elizabeth Currence, born April 16, 1788, died September 3. 1846. They married in 1807. and had nine children. This John Conrad was born in Pendleton county, Virginia, and his father, also named John Conrad, was for twenty years a member of the Virginia legislature. John Conrad Sr., is said to have built the first stone house in what is now West Virginia, west of the mountains, and is believed to have married a daughter of Colonel Rutherford, of Jefferson county, Vir- ginia. Elizabeth (Alkire) Conrad was niece of Jonathan Bennett, of Weston, Virginia, one of the most prominent of Virginians living west of the Alleghanies : Louis Bennett and George Bennett, of Weston, West Virginia, are his sons Children of Vanlinden S. and Parmelia (Conrad) Lynch : Frederick Lee, of whom further ; Orin Benedum, of whom further : Charles Patrick, of whom further: Tamblyn, died at the age of four.
(\) Frederick Lee, son of Vanlinden S. and Parmclia (Conrad) Lynch, was born at Webster Springs, October 29, 1878. His education included the course at the West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, from which he graduated in 1904. After finishing his college work he made a study of civil engineering. In this capacity he has been in the service of the Republic of Bolivia, in South America, and has since leaving that country visited Mexico also, in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. While he was in Mexico, Mr. Lynch became in- terested in oil and gas : he now has large mining interests in that country, and real estate holdings in Texas and Oklahoma. He is general manager of the San Lorenzo Mining Company, of Parkersburg, West Virginia, and of the Parkersburg-Buckhannon Oil and Gas Company. Further, he is largely interested in the Alkire Oil and Gas Company and in other oil and gas properties. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In 1909 Mr. Lynch was appointed assistant clerk in the house of delegates of West Virginia. He has not married. He has trav- eled in England, France, the Canary Islands, and all over South America, Mexico and Canada.
(\') Orin Benedum, son of Vanlinden S. and Parmelia ( Conrad) Lynch, was born November 21, 1879. He is a graduate of the academic department of the West Virginia Wesleyan College and the medical de- partment of the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. In June,
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1913, he was united in marriage to Olive Dunn, of Mobscot. Raleigh county, West Virginia.
(V) Charles Patrick, son of Vanlinden S. and Parmelia (Conrad) Lynch, was born at Hacker's Valley, Webster county, West Virginia, October 15, 1881. He has studied at several institutions of advanced grade, the West Virginia Wesleyan College, Weaverville College at Weaverville, North Carolina, and the medical department of the Univer- sity of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, but is not a graduate. During the years since 1905 Mr. Lynch has spent a large part of his time on the west coast of Mexico, in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, and he has gained a wide acquaintance with the people of that region and with busi- ness conditions there. He is interested in Mexican mining properties ; seven years ago, in 1906, he was one of four to denounce the now well- known San Lorenzo mine, in Arizpe district, state of Sonora, Mexico. Mr. Lynch's home is at Buckhannon, West Virginia.
He married, at Paul's Valley, Indian Territory, May 27, 1903, Willie, daughter of Rev. William and Martha (Henry) Boyd, of Dexter, Texas. Children : Wilma, born October 18, 1904: Boyd Conrad, born January 10, IQII.
For more than thirty-five years. Mr. Robert Miller
BROWNE Browne has been actively identified with the business and civic interests of Wheeling, where he is now the senior member of the firm of Browne Brothers, the leading merchant tailors of this city. He is a man of high civic ideas and essentially one of the repre- sentative business men of the city.
He was born February 8. 1859, in Leatherwood, Ohio county, Vir- ginia (now West Virginia), one of the attractive suburbs of Wheeling. He is one of the eight children of Henry K. and Gertrude (Clements) Browne, natives of Port Glenone, county Derry, Ireland, who came to this country in 1850 and settled in Wheeling, where they lived until the close of their lives.
In the year 1873, Robert accepted the position of clerk with the old firm of Thomas Hughes and Company, established in 1840. After man- aging the office several years he became a partner in the business and for more than a quarter of a century continued to be identified with the concern with which he connected himself when a youth.
In 1899 a partnership was formed with his younger brother, Mr. An- drew G. Browne, of New York City, and the present firm of Browne Brothers was established under the most favorable conditions. This firm erected, in 1904. a thoroughly modern business block at 1420 Mar- ket street, known as Browne Brothers' Building, equipped on the finest metropolitan order and their reputation for strictly high class work is the very best, not only in this city, but in Ohio, Pennsylvania and throughout the entire state of West Virginia.
Mr. Browne is a member and director of the Wheeling Board of Trade, chairman of the Committee of Education and Health, a director of the Business Men's Association : also a prominent Mason and an in- fluential churchman, having served as vestryman in St. Matthew's Church for twenty-five years and is treasurer of the parish. He is also prominently identified with the diocese of West Virginia and is a trustee of the Episcopal Fund.
Masonry has conferred many honors upon Mr. Browne. He is a past master of Bates Lodge, No. 33, a past commander of Cyrene Com- mandery, No. 7. Knights Templar, and the present preceptor of Consis- tory No. I, of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry
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for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, having attained the thirty-second degree, Knight Commander, Court of Honor, by the Su- preme Council at Washington, D. C.
On January 29, 1884, he was united in marriage to Miss Amelia Woodward Smith, who is the daughter of the late DeWitt Clinton and Elizabeth Getz Smith, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Browne have two children, Elizabeth Hayes, who resides with her parents, and Rob- ert Miller, Jr., who is a student at the Wheeling high school.
Mr. Browne's character and services are such that he merits the un- equivocal esteem of all who know him. He has traveled much, par- ticularly through his native state and probably no man in the state of West Virginia has a wider acquaintance. He is a progressive, public- spirited citizen in business, in church, in fraternal and in social relations.
WALTERS John Walters, of Bluefield, West Virginia, has presented in his quiet and unobtrusive way a phase of successful business life which we do not often see, and one that illustrates the fundamental principles of a true life, whatever the forms its enterprise assumes. Permanent success does not grow out of mere activity, perserverance and judicious action, but personal virtue, com- bined with these. He is a son of Hiram Walters, of Virginia, a soldier in the Confederate service, participating during the period of the war.
John Walters was born in Montgomery county, Virginia, September 29, 1864. He attended the free schools and later spent nine months in the graded schools of Hylton, Floyd county, Virginia. When about sev- enteen years of age, he ran away from home, after starting out for Sun- day school, and remained away for eight months; all the capital he pos- sessed was a quarter of a dollar ; he landed in Pocahontas, a distance of seventy-five miles. He hegan his active business career as clerk in a store, in which capacity he served for one year, after which he farmed for about two years. He then came to Freeman, West Virginia, and engaged with Freeman & Jones as tipple boss, remaining with them for eighteen months. He then returned home and engaged in the saw mill and threshing business, which he disposed of six months later. He then returned to Freeman and clerked for his old employers, Freeman & Jones, in their commissary department, remaining for one year. The following four years he served in the capacity of buyer for the firm. He then went on the road, selling flour for Dr. N. L. Coiner, and afterwards was engaged in the brokerage business, as manufacturer and packers agent. After a period of about three years his business had increased to such an extent that he was unable to handle it himself, and accordingly he admit- ted Mr. R. B. Williamson as partner, under the style of Walters & Wil- liamson, Mr. Walters owning the principal part of the business, and this connection was continued for several years, after which it was turned into a stock company, Mr. Walters disposing of his interest to three part- ies. In 1893-94 he promoted the Bluefield & Hinton Electric Railroad Company, and was president of the same for several years. This road was later consolidated with the East River Electric Light Company under the style of Bluestone Traction Company, and served as its vice-president until the time said company sold its holdings to the Appalachian Power Company. On July 23, 1904, the first electric car was run over the Blue- field & Hinton Electric railway road. In 1905 Mr. Walters promoted and was president and manager of Walters & Company, wholesale grocers of Graham, the company having $100,000 paid up capital ; later they estab- lished a branch wholesale house at Princeton, West Virginia, under the name of the Princeton Wholesale Grocery Company, and was manager
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of same until 1907, when Walters & Company consolidated their business at Graham with the Flat Top Grocery Company, of Bluefield, West Vir- ginia, and later he sold out his interest in the Princeton Wholesale Gro- cery Company to his partners. During the years 1904-05-06 Mr. Walters was president of the Stone Branch Coal Company at Stone Branch, Logan county, West Virginia, also interested in other coal lands in same county, and in 1906 exchanged his interest in said company and coal lands for all of the holdings of the Bluefield Building Company, and has served as president and treasurer of that company since that time. About the year 1900 Mr. Walters organized a stock company under the name of Coiner Milling Company, at Lynnwood, Rockingham county, Virginia, and took over Dr. Coiner's flouring mill and business, greatly increasing its capacity, and served as president of the company until 1908, when he disposed of his interest.
In 1909 Mr. Walters removed to Bluefield, his present residence, for the purpose of looking after the interest of his real estate business. He holds membership in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Free and Accepted Masons, United C. T., was eminent commander of Ivan- hoe Commandery, No. 10, Knights Templar, in 1898, and was first eminent commander of Graham Commandery, No. 22, of Graham, serv- ing for the first and second years.
Mr. Walters married, December 24, 1889, Laura F. Shuffleburger, born in Montgomery county, Virginia. September 17, 1863, daughter of the late Paris Shuffleburger. of Virginia, who was a farmer by occupation. They are the parents of one child, Harry Paris Walters, born in Freeman, West Virginia, August 27, 1892.
SILVER The emigrant ancestor of Senator Gray Silver was Captain James Silver, who was captain of the Fifth Company of the Association Regiment of Lancaster County, Pennsyl- vania, 1747-48, Benjamin Chambers, colonel. See p. 24. vol. I, Pennsyl- vania Archives, fifth series. He also saw active service as an officer ( with the rank of captain ) in the French and Indian wars. Captain James Sil- ver was one of the first permanent settlers in the Cumberland valley, and was located at Silver Spring, Silver Spring township, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, as early as 1724.
(II) Francis, son of Captain James Silver, removed from Silver Spring, Pennsylvania, in 1798, and settled in Virginia in that year.
(III) Francis (2), son of Francis ( 1) Silver, was born February 14, 1775, died October 7. 1852. He married Ann, born March 6, 1787, died February 22, 1845, daughter of Zephaniah and Ann Beall. and a descen- dant of the well known Beall family of Maryland.
(IV) Zephaniah, son of Francis (2) and Ann (Beall) Silver, was born in Berkeley county, then Virginia, now West Virginia. May 24, 1605, died October 18, 1875. He was a courtly, cultured man, and like many large land owners and slave holders in Virginia and the south of his day, was a gentleman farmer, following no other occupation at any time of his life. True to the aristocratic traditions of his class, he was an ardent old line Whig, taking little or no part in politics after the disruption of that party. The family were all Presbyterians. James Silver, the emigrant ancestor, having been largely instrumental in the establishment of the old Donegal presbytery, the first organization of its kind in the Cumberland valley.
Zephaniah Silver married, at Spring Hill, the Henshaw homestead, Martha Jane Henshaw, born March 17, 1811, died September 16, 1891. They had children : Mary A., born January 16, 1835, married Morgan Morgan ; Francis, see forward: Hiram Henshaw Sidwell, born July 4.
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1837; Zephaniah, March 13, 1839: Henry Clay, June 11, 1840; Ann Beall, September 23. 1842; William Earnest, July 18, 1845; John Moore, November 16, 1846, died March 19, 1912; Ruth Eleanor, August 26, 1849.
The ancestry of Mrs. Martha Jane ( Henshaw ) Silver is as follows: William Henshaw, of Poxteth Park, near Liverpool, England, married Catherine, only daughter of Evan Houghton, of Wavertree Hall, and his wife, Ellen Parker, of Bridge Hall, county of Lancashire, England. Wil- liam Henshaw and his father-in-law were killed June 20, 1644, at the storming of Liverpool by Prince Rupert. They were fighting against King Charles the First. William Henshaw left two young sons, who were brought to Dorchester, Massachusetts: Joshua, see forward; Daniel, who died without issue. Joshua, son of William and Catherine ( Hough- ton ) Henshaw, married Elizabeth Sumner, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and had several children. John, third son of Joshua and Elizabeth (Sum- ner ) Henshaw, removed first to Philadelphia, then to Virginia, and there established the Henshaw homestead in 1766, where his children were born. Martha Jane, daughter of Hiram Henshaw, was born at Spring Hill, the family homestead, and there married Zephaniah Silver, as above stated. Martha Jane, daughter of Hiram and Mary ( McConnell) Henshaw, was a granddaughter of Captain William Henshaw and Agnes Ann Ander- son, his wife. Captain William Henshaw was born and died in Vir- ginia ; he was in the Dunmore war under Lord Dunmore, and also saw active service as an officer ( with the rank of captain ) in the American revolution.
The ancestry of Agnes Ann Anderson, wife of Captain William Hen- shaw and grandmother of Martha Jane ( Henshaw ) Silver is as follows :
"William Anderson of Scotland descended from a family of prominence, born in the Highlands in 1693, implicated in the rising of 1715 in the behalf of the pre- tender. Prince James, son of James 11., fled in disguise, after the cruel suppression of this incipient rebellion, through Ingland to Virginia where British loyalties of his views ever found a warm welcome; it was not long after his arrival in Virginia until he received remittances with which he bought real property in Maryland and Virginia. He owned in 1738 and prior thereto several plantations in the Conego- chiege Manor in Prince George's county, Maryland, one of which, called Anderson's Delight, he sold to Dr. George Stewart of the city of Annapolis in 1739. It was soon after coming to the country that a rich and beautiful valley, far up the Potomac, on the North Branch, attracted his notice and on it he encamped and built a hunting lodge. This valley has ever since been known as the Anderson Bottom. When Hampshire county, Virginia, was erected, it embraced the Anderson Bottom, which was only five miles from Fort Cumberland, constructed in 1754. William Anderson died on the Anderson Bottom in Hampshire county. Virginia."
(V) Colonel Francis (3) Silver, son of Zephaniah and Martha Jane ( Henshaw ) Silver, and better known as Colonel Frank Silver. was born May 10, 1836, died April 28. 1885. He was a gentleman of the old school, handsome and generous, courtly in his manner, whose only business in- terests were those of a gentleman farmer. In religion a Presbyterian ; in politics a Whig. until the disruption of that party. After the civil war he voted with the Democratic party, and was a candidate for legislature in 1876. He was a soldier in the Confederate army, having volunteered as a member of Company B at the time of its organization as a part of the First Virginia Cavalry, starting out from Harpers Ferry in 1861, and surrendering with Lee at Appomattox. He was in nearly all the en- gagements of his command, was wounded at the battle of Rood's Hill, and was in the hospital three months.
Colonel Silver married. in Hagerstown, Maryland, November 6, 1867, Mary Ann Gray, born on the Gray homestead at Grayville, Berkeley county, Virginia, now West Virginia, December 19. 1841 (see Gray).
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They have had children : Martha Jane, born August 23. 1868; Gray, see forward: Otelia, October 18. 1871 : Francis Jr., September 3, 1873, died November 17. 1877: Anna Beall, March 15, 1877: Mary Llewellyn, De- cember 8. 1878. married, March 13, 1913. the Rev. Louis Feuxilleteau Harper.
The Gray ancestry is as follows: (I) John Gray, 1702-46, married Jean Wardrobe, "a gentlewoman, brought up in ease at her father's home Bradenhill, near the Village Coults, Fife, Scotland." across the Firth of Forth from Edenburg. ( II) Captain John Gray, son of John Gray, gentleman emigrant from Scotland, was born March 6, 1746, (o. s.) died at Grayville, the home he established in Vir- ginia, July 1, 1816. This estate is still in the possession of the family, and the three younger sisters of Senator Gray Silver were born upon it. The occupation of Captain John Gray was that of government surveying. Plats of the land of the then "far western" states of Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and western portions of Virginia are still in the possession of the family. Captain John Gray married ( first ) May 28, 1782, Mary Ann Sherrard Cowen, a widow, who died without issue, September 17. 1800. He married ( second) March 21. 1805, Jane Hyndman Gilbert, and had issue : Mary Ann, born December 25. 1805, died February 22, 1830; James William, see forward: John Edward, born January 22, 1814, died unmarried, August 19, 1837: David Wardrobe, born February 12, 1817, enlisted in the Mexican war as second lieutenant, from Berkeley county, Virginia, and was mustered in January 21. 1847. Captain Alburtus' com- pany, which became Company H. First Regiment Virginia Volunteers, Mexica war, resigned April 30, 1847, and was honorably discharged, to date from May 30. 1847: (see Aler's "History of Berkeley County"). (III) Captain James William Gray, son of Captain John and Jane Hyndman (Gilbert) Gray, was born September 1. 1811, died July IO, 1866. He married Martha Jane, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth ( Ma- loney) Gilbert, and granddaughter of Edward and Jane (Rainey) Gil- bert, the latter emigrants from Belfast, Ireland, about the year 1782-83. They still have in their possession a most vivid and interesting account of the Scotch Covenanter experiences. (IV) Mary Ann, eldest daugh- ter of Captain James William and Martha Jane (Gilbert ) Gray, married Colonel Francis Silver ( see Silver \').
(VI) Senator Gray Silver, eldest son of Colonel Francis (3) and Mary Ann (Gray) Silver, was born at White Hall, Frederick county, Virginia, February 17. 1870. He was educated at private and public schools, being graduated from the latter in the class of 1885. His occu- pation has been that of an agriculturalist since the commencement of his business career, and he has also been interested in the breeding of live stock and the growing of wool. He was a pioneer in bringing ranch sheep to the east for breeding purposes. He was invited to attend the conference of the tariff board to discuss the effect of free wool on the sheep industry. He has been foremost in the development of the orchard industry in the Appalachean apple belt, and is a large owner of orchards at the present time. He is a director in the People's Trust Company of Martinsburg. West Virginia, the largest bank in the lower Shenandoah valley. His political affiliations have always been with the Democratic party : he was elected to the state senate in 1906, and re-elected in 1910. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Benevolent and Protec- tive Order of Elks, Berkeley Club of Martinsburg, West Virginia, and of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He is a member of the Presbyterian church.
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