Barbour County, West Virginia Biography of Hugh S. BYRER ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Submitted by Valerie Crook, , March 2000 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 352 HUGH S. BYRER is a member of the Philippi bar, an expert title lawyer, and has done a great deal of profes- sional business with the coal interests of the state. His grandfather and father were both men of prominence in Barbour County, and the name is therefore one of long and honorable standing here. His grandfather was David Frederick Byrer, who was born in Uniontown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and from there came to West Virginia. He was in the tan- ning business at Philippi, his old tanyard being located on Main Street. He built and operated it long before the Civil war, and he lived out his life in that city, where he died in 1899, at the age of seventy-four. David F. Byrer was a Union man in sentiment, and after the close of the war became interested in the success of the re- publican party. He was a Methodist, a pioneer in build- ing up the organization of that church at Philippi, and was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He married Mary Lewis, of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, who survived him for a number of years. Their children were: Frederick Samuel, Arabella, wife of John C. Mayer, of Terra Alta, West Virginia; John, who died unmarried; Emma, who died as the wife of Dr. R. B. Rhoderick; and Charles Marshall, who spent his life at Philippi, where he died in 1916. Frederick Samuel Byrer, father of the Philippi lawyer, was born in that city May 25, 1848. His early youth was spent in the vicinity of his father's tanyard, and he supplemented his public school education with a course in a commercial school at Pittsburgh. As a young man he was a merchant at Philippi, and he continued in that business uninterruptedly until his death on August 29, 1911. He was not a citizen who sought the honors of politics, was rather modest and retiring, but was active in the Methodist Church and its Sunday school. He was a republican and for many years affiliated with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. He was probably the first in Barbour County to engage in the business of leas- ing coal lands to prospective operators. Frederick S. Byrer married Isabella Woods. Her father was the late distinguished citizen and able jurist and lawyer, Judge Samuel Woods. Isabella was born at Phil- ippi, August 15, 1852, and survives her husband. Her oldest son, Harry Hopkins Byrer, is a lawyer at Martins- burg, West Virginia, is former assistant United States at- torney of the Northern District of West Virginia, and now a member of the law firm of Walker, Kilmer and Byrer. Joseph Woods, the second son, is secretary and treasurer of the Tri-State Surety Company at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The last son is Hugh S., and the only daughter is Margaret Collins, wife of Frank F. Collins, of Beaver, Pennsylvania. Hugh S. Byrer, who is a native of Philippi, attended the public schools there, graduated in 1903 from the West Virginia Conference Seminary at Buckhannon, and in 1906 was given his LL. B. degree by the University of West Virginia. In the same year he was admitted to the bar at Philippi, but he soon located at Huntington, where he practiced law until the early spring of 1917, when he re- turned to his old home. While in Huntington he was for two years in the coal fields of Northeastern Kentucky, abstracting titles to coal properties in behalf of the Beaver Creek Consolidated Coal Company. That service was a valuable schooling to him in the matter of real estate titles. Mr. Byrer in politics differs from his father and has always voted as a democrat. He was the democratic can- didate in the Thirteenth Senatorial District for the State Senate in 1920. He has been active in several campaigns. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and has done much work in the Sunday school. He is affiliated with Huntington Lodge of the Elks. At Harrisonburg, Virginia, February 16, 1921, Mr. Byrer married Miss Elizabeth Rothwell Ott, a native of that locality, where she finished her high school educa- tion. Her parents were Frank Campbell and Mary (Boyd) Ott, also natives of that section of Virginia, farming peo- ple. Mrs. Byrer, who is the oldest of a family of two sons and two daughters, is the mother of one son, Frederick Ott Byrer, born January 16, 1922.