Barbour County, West Virginia Biography of Philip A. SWITZER 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. 335-336 PHILIP A. SWITZER. When a boy just in his "teens" Philip A. Switzer worked in and had the chief responsibili- ties of mechanical management of a country mill. After that he was otherwise engaged, picking up a somewhat varied experience in business, but milling has remained his chief occupation. He is one of the prominent men of Philippi in the suburban industrial village of Mansfield, where he is a member of the firm E. R. Dyer & Company, millers and lumber dealers. Mr. Switzer was born in Pendleton County, at Upper Tract, June 16, 1857. His father, David N. Switzer, was a native of Hardy County, West Virginia, and was of Swiss ancestry. He married Frances Wilson, also a native of Hardy County and of an old family of Western Virginia. David Switzer was a miller, and lost his life by accident in 1859, when the mill headgate fell upon him. His wife sur- vived and died at the village of Mansfield in 1900, when eighty-five years old. Her children were: Miss Mary, de- ceased; Virginia A., who was the wife of John A. W. Dyer, of Mulvane, Kansas; Daniel S., who died unmarried at the age of twenty-five; David P., who became a miller and died at Spencer, West Virginia; Jesse O., who died in Har- rison County; Gabriel T., who died in Pomona, California, leaving a son, Claude; Charles K., of Philippi, who married Minnie Dyer and has three daughters; and Philip Anderson. Philip A. Switzer grew up in Pendleton County, attended the free schools for four months each year, and was thirteen years old when he took charge of the operation of an old water mill at Tipper Tract. He remained at that work about a year, and subsequently was placed in a coun- try store and had a considerable mercantile experience in different parts of Pendleton County. His first independent experience as a merchant was in partnership with Edmond R. Dyer, his present partner. For about four years they conducted a business at Ruddle, until Mr. Dyer left the county. Mr. Switzer was then a member of the firm Snell and Switzer, wholesale and retail grocery merchants at Har- risonburg, Virginia, for about two years. Leaving there he returned to Pendleton County, and in the fall of 1888 engaged in milling, conducting the mill of E. D. Ruddle until March, 1891. At the latter date Mr. Switzer again became associated with Mr. Dyer at Philippi, and for over thirty years has been a partner in the Dyer Mill at Mansfield. This milling enterprise is the chief feature in that community and com- prises a flourmill, with a capacity of fifty barrels daily, a sawmill and planingmill. The output of these mills is sold almost entirely in the local market. With a record of over thirty years operation the plant has never shut down except for repairs, and has proved itself one of the large, healthy and growing concerns of Barbour County. Around the mills and depending upon them as the chief source of livelihood has sprung up a village com- munity. Mr. Switzer is a partner with his brother C. K. Switzer in the Mansfield Mercantile Company, conducting a mercantile business in the village of Mansfield. Mr. Switzer is a business man and has never been what might be called a leader in politics, though he has per- formed his duty when required. He served as a member of the County Court of Barbour County from 1910 to 1916, and during the last year was chairman of the court. During his term the old bonded debt of the county was liquidated and the last of the railroad bonds were paid off. Mr. Switzer was elected as a democrat in a district normally re- publican by more than 400, and his own majority was 430. His colleagues on the board were E. A. Waugh, Z. Taylor Crouso, L. P. Bennett and William Scrimgeour. July 1, 1887, Mr. Switzer married at Baltimore, Mary- land, Miss Rachel Virginia McClung, who was born in Highland County, Virginia, and was reared in Pendleton County, West Virginia. Her father, Silas B. McClung, has spent his life as a farmer and is living in Pendleton County at the age of eighty-eight. He was a Confederate soldier go- ing into the war at the beginning and doing his duty in the Army of Northern Virginia until the close of the struggle, and was never wounded. He married Miss Nannie Lemmon, of an old family of Botetourt County, Virginia. She died in 1916. Her children were: Mrs. Switzer, who was born January 20, 1869; Warren, who died in Pendleton County in May, 1921; Clarence, a farmer on the old McClung home- stead in Pendleton County; Josie, who married Rev. William Compton, of Jarrettsville, Maryland; Henry McClung, of Los Angeles, California; and Edgar, a traveling salesman out of Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. Switzer have reared three children, all of whom are now established in vocations or homes of their own. The oldest is Lena Virginia, connected with the auditing department of the Income Tax Bureau of the U. S, Treasury Department. The son, Charles McC., graduated from Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Vir- ginia, in 1915, and on August 25 of that year became a chemist in the laboratories of the Dupont Corporation, con- tinuing with that great industry until 1920 and is now a manufacturer of cellulose product at Rutherford, New Jersey. The youngest child, Ethel C., is the wife of Austin C. Merrill, deputy United States clerk at Philippi. Mr. and Mrs. Switzer are members of the Crim Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Philippi. In Masonry he is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling, is a past noble grand of Philippi Lodge No. 59, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is a member of the Encampment of that order, and is a charter member and for ten years has been recordkeeper of the Knights of the Maccabees.