Cabell County, West Virginia          Biography of Hiram Elmore PILCHER

This file was submitted by Joyce Vickers,
E-mail address:  <vickers225@worldnet.att.net>

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 II,
pg. 267-268

	Hiram Elmore Pilcher is one of the progressive and influential  exponents
of the real estate and fire insurance business in the City of Huntington,
where his offices are established at 607 Ninth Street.  He is president  of
the Huntington Real Estate Association and is a director of each, the
Huntington Business Men's Association, the local Credit Men's Association
and the Chamber of Commerce.  He served as city treasurer of Huntington for
the fiscal year 1918-1919, his political affiliation being with the
democratic party.
	Mr. Pilcher was born at Hinton, Summers County, West Virginia, June 18,
1882, and is a son of Charles T. Pilcher, who was born in Spottsylvania
County, Virginia, March 12, 1852, and who was killed in a railroad accident
at Thayer, West Virginia, May 2, 1911, he having been a locomotive engineer
in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company.  He was one of
the first engineers to run trains on this railroad out from the City of
Huntington, where h maintained his residence from 1890 until his tragic
death.  For eighteen years he was engineer of the F. F. V. Limited between
Huntington and Hinton.  He was a staunch democrat, well fortified in his
political convictions, and was a member of the Johnson Memorial Church,
Methodist Episcopal, South, as was also his wife. Pilcher was affiliated
with Huntington Lodge No. 53, A. F. and A. M.:  Huntington Chapter No. 6,
R. A. M.; Huntington Commandery No. 9, Knights Templars: and Beni-Kedem
Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston.  At Culpeper Court House,
Virginia, in 1881, was solemnized his marriage with Miss Florence Garner,
who was born at Stevensburg, that state, March 22, 1857, and whose death
occurred at Huntington November 5, 1919, their home having been maintained
at Hinton until their removal to Huntington in 1890.  Of their children the
subject of this sketch is the eldest;  Walter died at the age of seven
years; Ernest Lee is secretary of the Florida Cane Maple Syrup Company at
Tampa, Florida; and Roy is associated with his eldest brother in the real
estate and insurance business at Huntington.
	Hiram E. Pilcher was a lad of eight years at the time of the family
removal to Huntington, and after profiting by the advantages of the public
schools of this city he here attended Marshall College two years.  In 1899
he graduated from the Mountain State Business College at Parkersburg.  For
two years thereafter he was clerk in the office of the roundhouse foreman
of the Chicago division of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at Garrett,
Indiana, and during the following year he held a more responsible position,
in the master mechanic's office at that place.  He was then transferred to
Huntington and assigned to service as trace clerk in the freight
department, in which he eventually won promotion to the office of cashier. 
In 1906 he resigned his position and accepted that of chief accountant for
the Wheeler-Holden Tie Company of Buffalo, New York, with which corporation
he had charge of the accounting department in the Huntington office for a
period of five years.  In 1911 Mr. Pilcher resigned this position and
assumed that of cashier in the office of the Huntington Advertiser, with
which representative newspaper he thus continued his association until
1915, when he established himself in the real estate and fir insurance
business, to which he has since continued to give his attention, his
enterprise having been developed to one of major importance in these lines
in the City of Huntington and in this section of the state.  He is the
owner of much valuable real estate at Huntington, including his attractive
home property at 205 Belford Avenue.
	Mr. Pilcher is a past senior warden of Huntington Lodge No. 53, A. F. and 
A. M.; is affiliated also with Huntington Chapter No. 6, R. A. M., and
Huntington Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar, of which he served one term
as recorder, and he is a member of Beni-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine
at Charleston, and of Huntington Lodge No 313, B. P. O. E., of which he
served three years as a trustee.  He was specially active in advancing
local patriotic measures in the World war period, served as member of
committees in charge of Government loan drives in Cabell County, as a
member of the Local Draft Board, and aided in filling out questionnaires
for the recruited men of  the county.  He is a member of the Johnson
Memorial Church (Methodist Episcopal, South).
	January 1, 1911, recorded the marriage of Mr. Pilcher and Miss Claudia
Trainer, a daughter of William E. and Rosa Lee (Garner) Trainer, the latter
of whom now resides at Garrett, Indiana, the father, a locomotive engineer
in the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, having met his death in a
railroad accident at Hicksville, Ohio, in 1903.  Mrs. Pilcher graduated
from a business college at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and prior to her marriage
was in the employ of the American Bank & Trust Company of Huntington, and
later of the Ohio Valley Bank of this city.  She was a devoted companion
and helpmeet to her husband, assisted him materially in the conducting of
his real estate and insurance business, and the supreme loss and
bereavement of his life came when she died, of influenza, on the 13th of
October, 1918.