Cabell County, West Virginia Biography of Marion Lee HARRISON ************************************************************************** USGenWeb Project NOTICE: : In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for commercial presentation by any other organization. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed USGenWeb Project archivist. Submitted by Elizabeth Burns, , Feb 2003 ************************************************************************** MARION LEE HARRISON Cabell Co. WV Virginia: Rebirth of the Old Dominion, pg. 369 Marion Lee Harrison of Wytheville, is a banker and lumber man with business connections that permanently identify him with many localities in Southwest Virginia and adjacent states. Mr. Harrison is a member of the Harrison family of Virginia and his ancestry includes a number of names in the Colonial history. He was born in Cabell Co. West Virginia, September 6, 1873, a son of John Henry and Eliza (Chapman) Harrison. His mother died September 16, 1912, being a daughter of Henry M. and Polly Ann (Wooton) Chapman, the latter a daughter of Simon Wooton. Henry M. Chapman was a son of Jack Chapman, who married a Miss Menefee, of Buckingham County, Virginia. Jack Chapman was a son of John Chapman and grandson of John Chapman, I who was a soldier during the border Indian warfare of the Revolutionary period. John Chapman was a son of Isaac Chapman, of Culpepper County, Virginia. The Chapman family moved from Culpepper County to the Shenandoah Valley in 1768 and in 1771 to the New River Valley, where they were for years exposed to the dangers of Indian raids. John Henry Harrison was born in Franklin County ,Virginia, August 13, 1837 and died November 29, 1898. He and his wife were married December 27, 1870. He was educated in private schools, served as a private in the Confederate army during the Civil War for three years and was three times wounded in action. After the war he settled in Cabell County, West Virginia, and was identified with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad during its construction. He lived on a farm for many years, and he and his wife are buried in the cemetery at Hurricane, West Virginia. They had a family of nine children: Emily F., born November 10, 1871 became the wife of George B. Soward of Hurricane, West Virginia; Marion Lee; William H., born May 12, 1876, a resident of Huntington, West Virginia; Albertie, born July 11, 1878, married William Searles; Pearl S., born September 22, 1880, married Howard H. Soward of Russell, Kentucky; Martha Virgie, born November 28, 1882, died at the age of thirteen; Lucy L., born in September 1885, married Henry Howell of Hurricane West Virginia; Homer Harrison, born August 13, 1888 lives at Hurricane and Charles, born November 27, 1892 is also a resident of Hurricane, West Virginia. Marion Lee Harrison was educated in schools at Hurricane, West Virginia, until 1891 and during the following ten years was a telegraph operator and agent for the Chesapeake and Ohio on the Huntington Division. His railroad training was no doubt a valuable factor in his subsequent business career. He left the railroad service to take up the lumber business at Hurricane, West Virginia, where he remained until 1904 since which year his home and business headquarters have been at Wytheville, Virginia. The business organization with which he is identified and which represent a large aggregate of financial power are the M.L. Harrison Tile and Lumber Company of which he is president, the First National Bank of Pearlsburg, Virginia of which he is president and a director, the Farmers Bank of Southwest Virginia at Wytheville, of which he is vice president and a director, the First National Bank of Bluefield, West Virginia of which he is a director, the Harrison Hancock Wholesale Hardware Co. of which he is president, the T. & S.E. Railroad of North Carolina of which is vice president and a director, the Blackwood lumber Company of north Carolina, in which he is a director, the Taylor Colquitt Creosoting Company of Spartanburg, South Carolina, of which he is vice president and a director, the Southwest Lumber Company of Alamogordo, New Mexico of which he is a director, the Laval Sand Company of Hinton, West Virginia of which he is president, the Kentucky Cardinal Coal Company of Cardinal, Kentucky of which he is vice president and director and the Wytheville Mink and Fur Farm of which he is president. Mr. Harrison married May 5, 1898 at Huntington, West Virginia, Miss Laura A. Swindler, who was reared and educated at Huntington, graduating from Marshall College in 1896, following which for two years she taught public schools in Putnam Co. West Virginia. She is a member of the Baptist Church, the Eastern Star and White Shrine of Jerusalem. Mrs. Harrison is a daughter of James L. and Evelyn Narcissus (Burgess) Swindler of Putnam Co. Her mother was born in 1854, daughter of Hiram a. and Amanda Melvine (Hutchinson) Burgess, and a granddaughter of Hiram and Nancy (Bowling) Burgess. Members of the Burgess family have been in Maryland and Virginia from early Colonial times and many of them were staunch Quakers. Nancy Bowling was a daughter of Jesse Bowling, who served with the Maryland Continental troops in the Revolutionary War and after the war settled in Southwestern Virginia. Mrs. Harrison's father was for many years connected with the Kanawha and Michigan Railroad in West Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison have two daughters, Evelyn Marion, born Feb. 9, 1899 and Virginia Randolph, born July 30, 1914. Evelyn graduated from the music department of Hollins College and from the Peabody College of Music at Baltimore, spent some time abroad in study, subsequently taking two post-graduate courses in Peabody College and is an accomplished leader in the musical life of Wytheville, being organist for the Baptist Church. The younger daughter, member of the Class of 1930 in high school, has also exhibited much musical talent, being a violinist.