Biography of Roy H. CUNNINGHAM, Cabell County, West Virginia

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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II pg. 56

ROY H. CUNNINGHAM is a graduate mechanical engineer, and his active services
have been given principally to mining corporations, chiefly in connection
with the great coal resources of West Virginia.  Mr. Cunningham is a resident
of Huntington, where he is secretary and sales manager of the Twin States
Fuel Company.

His father, the late James Stuart Cunningham, of Charleston, West Virginia,
one of the state's most widely known business men and industrial leaders, was
born at Eckley, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1856.  He was the son of Peter
Blair Cunningham, who was born in County Derry, Ireland, 1829.  Peter Blair
Cunningham, in 1850 married Mary Ann Crawford, who was born in County Derry
in 1833.  As their wedding journey they came to the United States, settling
at Eckley, Pennsylvania.  Peter B. Cunningham was a skilled inventor and also
a manufacturer.  About 1867 he removed to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and lived
in that city until his death in 1905, his widow passing away there in 1910.

James S. Cunningham spent his early life at Allentown and graduated with the
degree Mechanical Engineer from Lehigh University in 1879.  For two years he
was a mechanical engineer for the Lehigh & Susquehanna Coal Company, for
three years was general manager for the Midvale Ore Company, with
headquarters at Everett, Pennsylvania, after which he entered the service of
the Berwind-White Coal Company, a corporation with which he was identified
the rest of his life.  As consulting engineer he had a varied routine of
duties for this corporation on its properties in Pennsylvania, West Virginia,
and other states.  In 1900 he removed to Charleston, West Virginia, and
remained in that city until his death, December 12, 1921.  He was regarded as
a leading authority on the value of coal lands in the United States, and his
business and professional duties frequently required his presence in many
parts of the United States and foreign fields.  In behalf of the
Berwind-White Coal Company he purchased over 300,000 acres of coal lands.  He
was president of the Bengal Coal Company and personally interested in a
number of other coal companies in Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky.
James S. Cunningham was a republican, and an active member and trustee of the
Presbyterian Church of Charleston.   He was a Royal Arch and Knight Templar
Mason, also a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, was a life member of
the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, a member of the American Institute
of Mining Engineers, the Charleston Rotary Club and a member of social and
technical clubs in Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania towns, including the
University Club.  He served with the rank of colonel on the staff of Governor
Glasscock of West Virginia.  James S. Cunningham was a director of the Union
Trust Company of Charleston, a director of the Provident Life & Casualty
Company of Charleston.

His wife was Mary Hammer, who was born at Newville, Pennsylvania, in 1860,
and is living at Charleston.  Her father, George Hammer, was born at
Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1811, and as a Presbyterian minister held classes at
Newville, Titusville and Upper Lehigh, Pennsylvania.  During the Civil war he
served two years as chaplain, and was then commissioned a captain in the One
Hundred and Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry and served with that rank until the
close of the war.  He was captured during 1863, and spent several months in
Libby Prison, until exchanged.  Captain George Hammer, who died at Colfax
Springs, Iowa, in 1870, married Catherine Ulmer, who was born in Philadelphia
in 1823 and died in that city in 1904.  The children of James S. Cunningham
and wife were:  Walter H., a business man of Huntington, is secretary of the
West Virginia Coal Operators' Association, secretary of the Kentucky Mine
Owners' Association, a director in several Huntington banks, member of the
firm Cunningham, Miller & Enslow, coal lands and real estate, and is vice
president of the Gano-Moore Coal Mining Company, Inc.  The second child,
Florence, is the wife of Dr. Worth Clark, a physician and surgeon at Atlantic
City, New Jersey.  Roy H. is the third.  J. Earl, a geologist by profession,
died at Charleston in 1919 at the age of thirty.

Roy H. Cunningham was born at Everett, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1886, and
acquired his early education in public schools in different towns in
Pennsylvania.  In 1905 he graduated from the Mercersburg Academy of
Pennsylvania and gained his technical education in Cornell University at
Ithaca, New York, where he was graduated with degree of mechanical Engineer
in 1901.  He is a member of the Zeta Psi College Fraternity.  Mr. Cunningham
in 1908 became a resident of Charleston, and during 1909 he was employed in
making reports on coal properties in Eastern and Western Kentucky, and in
1910 was employed as a construction engineer with several mining companies in
Arizona and old Mexico.  During 1911 for six months he was a special mine
inspector in the Department of Mines of West Virginia, with headquarters at
Charleston.  Following that he did work in the land and operating departments
of different coal mining corporations of West Virginia and Kentucky.  In 1915
Mr. Cunningham joined the Foreign Department of the Berwin-White Coal
Company, with residence at San Juan, Porto Rico.  He remained there until
November, 1917, when he entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis
for a special engineering course.  Early in 1918 he was commissioned naval
ensign and was assigned to duty as an assistant engineer officer on the U. S.
S. Huntingon in cruiser and transport service.  While in the navy he made
several trips to France, and was on duty until honorably discharged in June,
1919.  Mr. Cunningham on leaving the navy became field agent for the Kentland
Coal & Coke Company, owners of extensive coal properties in Kentucky and
Virginia.  He remained with those duties until the winter of 1919-20, was
appointed secretary and sales manager of the Twin States Fuel Company.  This
is the sales organization of the Cunningham, Miller & Enslow firm, with
offices in the First National Bank Building of Huntington.  Mr. Cunningham is
a stockholder in a number of other mining enterprises.

He is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, a member of the
Cornell Club of New York City, the War Society of the Cruiser & Transport
Forces, is a republican and Presbyterian, and belongs to the Guyandotte Club
of Huntington and Guyan Country Club.

On June 18, 1916, at San Juan, Porto Rico, he married Miss Iraida
Rauschemplat, daughter of Adolf and Senora Antonio Gueteriz de Arroyo y
Rauschemplat.  Her parents reside at San Juan, where her father is manager of
the Porto Rico mercantile Company and owner of extensive sugar interests.
Mrs. Cunningham was educated in the United States, in the public schools of
Boston and in a private school at Fortress Monroe, Virginia.  Mr. and Mrs.
Cunningham have two children:  Florence Gloria, born October 1, 1917, and Roy
H., Jr., born February 13, 1919.