Cabell County, West Virginia Biography of Noble Kimbrough SNEED This file was submitted by Joyce Vickers, 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 II, pg. 269-270 Noble Kimbrough Sneed has no minor status as a general contractor in railroad and other heavy construction work, and is claimed by the city of Huntington as one of its progressive business men. He has been concerned with the carrying through of numerous contracts of specially important order. Mr. Sneed was born in the historic and beautiful little City of Charlottesville, Virginia, on the 21st of may, 1876, and is a scion of a family that was founded in Virginia in the Colonial period of our national history, the original representatives of the family in American having come from Ireland. Benjamin Noble Sneed, grandfather of the subject of this review, passed his entire life in Virginia and became the owner of a large plantation adjoining Monticello, the fine old plantation of Thomas Jefferson, near Charlottesville, and he served as a gallant soldier in the Mexican war. Both he and his wife, whose family name was Goodloe, died on the old homestead near Charlottesville, and a portion of this fine estate is still owned by their son, Benjamin Noble Sneed, Jr., father of him whose name initiates this review. Of their family of eight sons and four daughters, seven of the sons were valiant soldiers of the confederacy in the Civil war. Benjamin Noble Sneed Jr. was born on the old home plantation near Charlottesville in 1850, and there he is now living retired after a specially successful career as an agriculturist in his native county. He is stalwart in the ranks of the democratic party, and has been influential in public affairs in the community which has ever represented his home. He is a zealous member of the Baptist Church, as was also his wife, whose death occurred in 1910. Mrs. Sneed, whose maiden name was Caroline E. Moss, was born at Charlottesville in 1853. Of the children the eldest is Edward B., who is in the employee of the N.K. Sneed Company of Huntington; Gertrude, who died at the age of forty-three years, at Richmond, Virginia, was the wife of Ernest L. Taylor, who is still engaged in business in that city; Noble K., of this sketch, was next in order of birth; Alice died at the parental home when twenty-three years of age; Lillian is the wife of Harry G. Browning, a progressive farmer near Charlottesville; and Frederick W. has charge of the steam-shovel outfits of the N. K. Sneed Company of Huntington. Noble K. Sneed was seventeen years of age when he left the Charlottesville High School and entered the employ of the Farmers Supply Company in that city. He continued this alliance until he was twenty-two years old, and then entered the employ of Langhorne & Langhorne, railroad contractors. >From the position of stable boss he worked his way forward until he was admitted to partnership in the business, in 1905, when the name of the firm was changed to Langhorne, Langhorne & Sneed. He became the firm's general manager, and in 1917, after the death of his partners, he engaged in railroad contracting in an independent way. As a matter of business expediency, with the expansion of the enterprise, he effected in 1921 the incorporation of the business, under the present title of the N. K. Sneed Company, but he still continues as the sole owner of the business. As a contractor in railroad construction Mr. Sneed has one of the largest and most modern general equipments in the United States. He operates fourteen steam shovels and is prepared to carry through the heaviest of construction contracts. The firm of Langhorne, Langhorne, & Sneed built the S. V. & E. Railroad from Shelby, Kentucky, to Jenkins, that state; the Silver Grove yards of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, these being among the largest terminal yards of that system; and handled many other important contracts. In his individual contracting Mr. Sneed dredged the Lundale Channel of Buffalo Creek in Logan county, West Virginia, for a distance of ten miles for the Amherst Fuel company; he double-tracked the line of the Hocking Valley Railroad between Marion and Delaware, Ohio; and has assumed other large and important contracts, and has assumed other large and important contracts, his receiving of which indicates the high estimate placed upon him and his work. The general offices of his company are at 417-18 First National Bank Building in the City of Huntington. The political allegiance of Mr. Sneed is given to the democratic party, he is a member of the Guyandotte Club at Huntington and the Redland Club at Charlottesville, and in his native place he also retains affiliation with Charlottesville Lodge No. 389, B. P. O. E. He is the owner of valuable real estate both in Charlottesville and Huntington. On the 3rd of November, 1897, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sneed and Miss Lena Roberts Wood, who was born and reared at Charlottesville, Virginia, and who was there graduated in Charlottesville College. Her father, the late Llewellyn Wood, was a leading hardware merchant in that city for forty years, and there his widow, whose maiden name was Catherine Parkinson, still resides. Mr. and Mrs. Sneed have four children: Noble K., Jr., who was born February 10, 1900, was graduated from the Charlottesville High School and is now associated with his father's contracting business; Catherine, who was born in 1905, is, in 1922, a student in Ste. Anne's Seminary at Charlottesville; Allan Langhorne and Lena Wood, born respectively in 1909 and 1913, are attending the public schools of Charlottesville, where the family home is still maintained.