Cabell County, West Virginia Biography of John Edwin THOMAS 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. 263-264 John Edwin Thomas. Beginning when a boy, John Edwin Thomas was in the railroad service until he located at Huntington about twenty years ago. Here he became identified with the sale of mining machinery and equipment over West Virginia coal fields, and for some years past has been the manager and one of the executives in an important sales organization in this field, known as the Huntington Supply & Equipment Company. Mr. Thomas was born at Syracuse, Meigs County, Ohio, September 6, 1871. His father, Joseph Thomas, was born at Lantrisant, South Wales, in 1824, and devoted practically his entire life to the coal mining industry. He was raised in his native town in Wales, and as a young man came to America, was married at Pittsburgh, followed coal mining at Syracuse, Ohio, and in 1874 located at Cannelton, Kanawha County, West Virginia. In 1881 he moved to Coal Valley, now called Montgomery, Fayette County, West Virginia, and was mine superintendent of the W. R. Johnson Coal Mining Company's mines situated at Crescent. He continued his duties for this company the remainder of his active career, and died at Montgomery in 1892. After becoming an American citizen Joseph Thomas voted as a republican, was an active member of the Baptist Church and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He married Catherine Griffith, also a native of Lantrisant, South Wales, where she was born and received training. She died in Montgomery, West Virginia, in 1897. Of the four children of these parents John Edwin was the youngest. The oldest, Lydia, died at Montgomery in 1907, the wife of John W. Carson, a passenger conductor on the Cavon Creek branch of the Chesapeake & Ohio. Miss Kate, the second child, died unmarried at the age of twenty-one. Elizabeth is the wife of Dr. Thomas H. Elliott, a physician and surgeon at St. Elmo, Tennessee. John Edwin Thomas was three years of age when his parents came to West Virginia, was reared in and educated in the public schools of Cannelton and Montgomery, but left school when only fourteen and since then has been making his own way in the world. His first employment, lasting two years, was that of delivery boy for a grocery store at Montgomery. He then entered the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company at Cannelton, was station call boy, a year later was promoted to yard clerk at Covington, Kentucky, and was then transferred to Ashland, Kentucky, where until 1897 he was yard master's chief clerk. Leaving there, he became night yardmaster for the Norfolk & Western Railroad at Kenova, Wayne County, West Virginia. He was stationed at Kenova until 1899, and then at Buffalo, New York, on year. Mr. Thomas became a resident of Huntington in 1901, and for three and one-half years he traveled over the coal fields along the Norfolk & Western Railroad as salesman for the Miller Supply Company, and at the end of that time he was taken off the road and put in charge of the machinery department of this company at Huntington, remaining with the firm a year and a half longer. The Huntington Supply and Equipment Company he organized in 1906. This company acts as manufacturers' agents for machinery and supplies, with Mr. Thomas as active manager. The company's offices are in the Robson-Prichard Building at Huntington. Among other business interests Mr. Thomas is a director in the Huntington National Bank and the Atlas Rubber & Belting Company of Cincinnati. He has found a number of interesting duties and diversions in his life at Huntington. He is a deacon and chairman of the finance committee of the Presbyterian Church, votes as a democrat, is affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 53, A. F. and A. M., Huntington Chapter No. 6, R. A. M., Huntington commandery No. 9, K. T., Beni-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston, is a member of Huntington Council No. 53, of the united Commercial Travelers, the Huntington Rotary Club, and in the Chamber of Commerce he served two years as vice president and six years as a member of the Board of Directors. during the great war he was a member of committees and otherwise active in promoting the success of various drives for the Liberty Loan and other causes. He was a "Four-Minute" speaker with the local war organizations. At Ashland, Kentucky, in June 1904, Mr. Thomas married Miss Adelaide Fisher, daughter of Nathan E. and Sarah (Smith) Fisher, her mother a resident of Ashland, where her father died in 1912. Her father was an undertaker at Ashland.