Barbour County, West Virginia Biography of Nelson B. MICHAEL, M. D. This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 308 NELSON B. MICHAEL, M. D. The good service proceeding from his knowledge and skill as a physician and surgeon Doctor Michael has exercised chiefly for the benefit of the people of the prosperous little mining community of Junior in Barbour County. His father was also a physician, and the family is one of the older ones of Preston County. His grandfather, William G. Michael, was born in the vicinity of Brandonville, Preston County, and devoted his active life to the farm. He was in the Union army at the time of the Civil war, and received an injury while on duty, though not on a battlefield. He frequently attended the reunions of his comrades, was a republican and a mem- ber of the United Brethren Church. He died on his farm near Fellowsville about 1881. William G. Michael married Mary Forsyth, and they had a family of five sons and four daughters. Dr. John F. Michael, father of the physician at Junior, was born near Fellowsville in Preston County, April 17, 1842, and his varied gifts made him a useful man through- out his career. At the time of the Civil war he enlisted in the Seventeenth West Virginia Infantry and served three years as a Union soldier. In one battle he was wounded in the thigh. Soon after the war he married, and then employed his liberal education to teach school for a num- ber of years and also farmed, for about a dozen years he operated a grist-mill between Tunnelton and Fellowsville. He left milling to begin the study of medicine, reading in the office of Doctor Kennedy at Grafton, and with Doctor Harvey at Tunnelton, and later entered the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, where he graduated in 1883. He returned to his home community to practice, and was one of the busy professional men of Preston County for a quarter of a century. After two or three years he moved from his home in the country to Fellowsville, and a short time before his death he went to Morgantown to live with a son, E. W., where he died September 26, 1910. Dr. John F. Michael married Annie Myers, daughter of Daniel Myers, who married a Miss Wiles. Mrs. John Michael is still living, and divides her time among her children. These children comprise a notable family of nine sons, and there is not a daughter in the family. A brief record of the sons is as follows: Rev. Albert E., a Metho- dist minister near Fairmont, who married Sarah Cin Clair and has three children: Doctor Willis S., who is a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, in practice at Bower, West Virginia, and married Lena Roy and has three children: Ezra W., of Phoenix, Arizona, who married Delia Bollyard; Oliver O., of Pittsburgh, who mar- ried Sarah Shahan and has four children; Doctor Nelson Burton; J. Frank, veterinary surgeon of Buckhannon, who married Annie Pratt; Jasper K., unmarried and associated with his brother in Arizona in the real estate business; Charles Walter, a Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph operator at Terra Alta, who married Annie Watkins, who died leav- ing four children; Harvey R., telegraph operator of the Baltimore and Ohio at Piedmont, who married Mattie Moore and has two children. Nelson B. Michael was born near the village of Fellows- ville, December 9, 1874, his birthplace being within three miles of that of his father. He had learned to support himself and provide for his needs before he became a physi- cian, and was a teacher before he entered medical college. He acquired his own education in public schools and in the Fairmont State Normal School. He taught for five terms, his last work as a teacher being done at Thomas, West Vir- ginia. He left there to enroll as a student in the Maryland Medical College at Baltimore, from which he graduated in 1904. Doctor Michael practiced for two years at Rock Cave in Upshur County, and in 1908 moved his residence to Junior. He carries on an extensive practice, largely among the miners of this locality for eight years, until the mines closed down. He then moved to Hendrick in Tucker County, where he practiced three years, after which he returned to Junior, and now regards that as his permanent home. Doctor Michael is a member of the Tri-County, West Vir- ginia State and American Medical associations. He has been town health officer of Junior, also a member of the Common Council, but has never been in polities beyond voting the republican ticket, beginning with the McKinley campaign of 1896. Doctor Michael is not a member of any fraternity, and he and his wife are Methodists. On July 29, 1908, at Hendricks, West Virginia, Doctor Michael married Rachel Roy, daughter of Washington J. and Catherine (Simmons) Roy. She was born in Tucker County, October 25, 1881, and was educated in the public schools. Of the two children of Doctor and Mrs. Michael, Blake Allison, the youngest, was born May 7, 1910. Loyal, the first born, died aged five months.