Berkeley County, West Virginia Biography of Gray SILVER ************************************************************************** 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 Sandra Reed , May 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II, pg. Gray Silver. What promises to be the most significant and important move ever made for the advancement and welfare of American farmers and necessarily by virtue of that fact benefiting the entire nation as well, was the organization of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which is now in its third year and which at the close of 1921 was a national organization representing through its local constituencies every state in the Union except two and comprising nearly a million members distributed among the approximately fifteen hundred county farm bureaus and the forty-six state farm bureau federations. The Federation in its plan for practical work has nine administrative divisions, one of which, with official headquarters at Washington, is the legislative. The man in charge of this legislative department, located in the Munsey Building at Washington, is a West Virginia farmer and fruit grower, member of an old and distinguished family of Berkeley County, and who has expressed his chief life enthusiasm in practical farming and fruit growing and all the problems incidental thereto. James Silver, colonist to America, was one of the first permanent settlers in the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania ( about 1725.) He gave the site for Silver Spring Presbyterian Church, six miles from Carlisle, and was a leading spirit in securing the erection of Cumberland County, and served with the rank of captain in the French and Indian war. He died in 1776. His son, Francis Silver, Sr., born in 1740, was a large owner and operator of mills in Cumberland Valley, and took his father’s place in business and in ecclesiastical affairs. He was a soldier of the Revolution, and his mills helped feed the Continental Army. In 1798 he moved with his family to Berkeley County, Virginia, where he died in 1820. Francis Silver, Jr. (1775 - 1852), lived at Bunker Hill, acquired a large land estate, operated several mills, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and a force for good throughout his community. He married in 1802 Anne Beall, daughter of Capt. Zephaniah Beall, a soldier of the Revolution, a son of William and Sarah ( Magruder) Beall, the latter a descendant of the Scotch clan McGregor. The only son of Francis and Anne (Beall) Silver was Zephaniah Silver, grandfather of Gray Silver. He was born at Bunker Hill May 24, 1805, and lived at White Hall, Frederick County, where he dispensed a generous hospitality. He married in 1834 Martha Jane, accomplished daughter of Captain Hiram and Mary ( McConnell) Henshaw. Spring Hill, her birthplace, was founded by her great-grandfather, John Henshaw, in 1766. The first chapter of the D. A. R. in West Virginia, organized in 1899, was named in honor of her grandfather, Capt. William Henshaw. Martha Jane Silver, a granddaughter of Mrs. Martha Jane Henshaw Silver, was a chapter member and regent of the chapter 1901-04 and 1914-19. Hiram Henshaw was a captain in the War of 1814. Col. Francis Silver 3d, familiarly know as Col. Frank Silver, was born near White Hall, Frederick County, May 10, 1836, was educated in private schools and was in Company B of the First Virginia Cavalry from the outset of the war until the surrender at Appomattox, being severely wounded at Roods Hill. He was reared a federalist in politics, but after the war voted as a democrat, was a Presbyterian, and was a gentleman of the old school, courtly in manners, handsome and generous. Like most Valley Virginia of his day, his business interests were mainly those of a farmer. He was a director of the Old National Bank and of Shenandoah Valley Agriculture Society of Winchester. He took an active part in the reconstruction of his native state. He died at his home in Berkeley County April 28, 1885. November 6, 1867, he married Mary Ann Gray, who was born on the Gray homestead, later known as Grayville, Berkeley County, December 19, 1841. She was descendant of John Gray ( 1746-1816), who came from Scotland 1765 and settled in Berkeley County, was a government surveyor, acquired a large landed estate, and in 1787 laid out the village of Gerardstown. His oldest son, James William Gray, born in 1811, married Martha Jane Gilbert, daughter of Edward Gilbert, Jr., and their oldest child was Mary Ann. The parents of both Colonel Silver and his wife Mary Ann Gray, were representatives of the best type of Valley Virginians of protestant faith, intelligent and prosperous, living on large plantations of considerably more than a thousand acres and until after the War of 1861-5 surrounded by a large number of well cared for and contented servants. This property was devastated, or entirely swept away, by that dreadful conflict between the North and South. The Silver and Gray plantation homes were both situated in the fairest part of the beautiful and far famed Shenandoah Valley, the immediate scene of the fiercest conflict between the contending armies during those four years of dreadful warfare. It was such a traditions and ancestry and under the foregoing circumstances that Gray Silver began the battle of life. He was born, February 17, 1870, at White Hall, Frederick County, Virginia. In his early infancy his parents removed from the Silver homestead at White Hall to Mrs. Silver’s paternal estate near Gerardstown, Berkeley County, West Virginia, where the family thereafter made their home, where their younger children were born, and where Colonel Silver spent the remaining years of his life and where his five children grew to maturity. With later additions this estate, now comprising about 900 acres, is the well known “Silver Hill Farm” of Inwood, Berkeley County, where the family hold large orchard and other interests. Gary Silver was educated in the private and public schools of Berkeley County, be graduated from the latter in the class of 1885, when but fifteen years of age. Having lost his father at an early age, he soon learned to assume leadership and responsibility, consequently we find him in the business world when most youths are in school. His occupation has been largely that of an agriculturist and horticulturist since the beginning 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 proposes. He was invited to attend the conference of the tariff board to discuss the effect of free wool in the sheep industry. He had been active in the development of the Appalachian apple belt, and is a large owner of orchards at the present time. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of different local banking institutions. At present he holds a directorship in the Merchants and Farmers Bank in Martinsburg. He was appointed commissioner on inland waters by President Taft. During the World war he was appointed by President Wilson as chairman of the County Liberty Loan Board, as well as controller of food and fuel and representative of labor distribution. In the selection of Mr. Silver for his present important responsibilities with the American Farm Bureau Federation his qualifications rested not only upon his very close touch with the practical side of American agriculture, but also upon his familiarity with and experience in the public affairs of his home state. For eight years he was a member of the State Senate of West Virginia and a leader in that body. He was elected to the Senate on 1906, beginning his work in the session of 1907. The district he represented embraced Berkeley, Jefferson, Morgan and Hampshire counties. He was president of the Senate, being thereby ex-office lieutenant governor of the state. Mr. Silver is a member of the Masonic fraternity being a thirty-second degree, a Knight Templar, Scottish Rite and a Shriner; Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; the following patriotic and hereditary societies: National Society of Sons and Daughters of Pilgrims, with forty-two ancestral gold stars to his credit; the American Clan Gregor Society, Deputy Chieftain for West Virginia; the National Society of Sons of the American Revolution; Sons of Confederate Veterans; the Imperial Military Order of the Yellow Rose. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church; holding the office of Deacon. Because of the interests he represented and also for his leadership he was one of the group of American farmers who were most active in the organization of the American Farmers Bureau Federation in 1919. He had be interested in all farmer movements, particularly the Grange, and state lecturer in his home state for that organization. He was active in the work which began and led up to the organization of local Farm Bureaus. Some 850 County Farm Bureaus had been organized into their respective state federations, and these were the units which made the American Farm Bureau Federation in 1919. When the organization was completed he was put in charge of the legislative department in Washington. This Washington office is designated as a general aid agency to all farmers activities in the national capital, and has been particularly helpful in furthering the Federation’s program to national legislation affecting the farm industry in general, and in providing a nucleus of influence to bring agricultural questions to the attention of Congress. Undoubtedly the legislative office shares to a large measure the credit for the extensive program of legislation passed during the year 1921, including such vital measures as those increasing the capital and the working efficiency of the Federal Farm Loan system, the limitation of foreign immigration, the regulation of grain exchanges and packing houses. Mr. Silver not only understands the farmers immediate problems, but his long contact with men of affairs and his experience in politics makes him familiar with the avenues of approach to Congress and higher Government officials. Mr. Silver and his wife. Kate (Bishop) Silver, have five young children, as follows: Mary Gray Silver; Gray Silver, Jr.; Anne Beall Silver; Francis Silver 5th; Catherine du Bois. Mrs. Kate (Bishop) Silver was educated at Randolph Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg, Virginia, class of 1907, is an accomplished musician, and is an active member of the Wednesday afternoon Music Club of Martinsburg. She is a member of the Alumnae Association of Randolph Macon Woman’s College; a Chi Omega; is a member of the Martinsburg Golf Club, and of the following patriotic and hereditary societies; National Society of Sons and Daughters of Pilgrims, and by an interesting coincidence is entitled to forty-two ancestral stars, exactly the number accredited to her husband by the same society, indicating that they have the same number of Pilgrim ancestors. Mrs. Silver is also a member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, the National Society of the United State daughters of 1812, the United daughters of the Confederacy and an associate member of the American Clan Gregor Society.