Doddridge County, West Virginia Biography of OLBERT C. NOBLE This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, 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. 619-620 Doddridge OLBERT C. NOBLE is vice president and general manager of the Tygert Valley Glass Company, one of the most im- portant industrial establishments of Grafton. He is him- self a past expert in the glass business, which he has followed since early youth, and has been an executive in the present plant at Grafton over ten years. He was born at Taylorstown, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1881. His grandfather was a native of Ireland, one of the early stage drivers over the Alleghanies, served as Union soldier in the Civil war, and later was a successful farmer in Washington county. He became wealthy through the development of oil on his farm. He had a family of five daughters and two sons. Lafayette Noble, his older son, was born at Taylorstown, had the advantages of only the common schools and devoted his active life to farm- ing. He died at Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1909, aged fifty-two. He is survived by his widow, whose maiden name was Mary Houston, a daughter of Abram Houston. Of her four children Olbert is the oldest; Harry is super- intendent for the contracting firm of Regan & Hormel at Charleroi, Pennsylvania; Charles is an upholsterer at Wash- ington, Pennsylvania; and Mabel is married and living in Washington. Olbert C. Noble began his business career with a com- mon school education. His early training was on a farm. and he was about nineteen when he left the farm and went on the payroll of the Hazel-Atlas glass plant at Washington, beginning as a common laborer at 70 cents a day of ten hours. He liked the work because he felt that he was accomplishing something for himself as well as for his employers. That has been the spirit dominating him and his work throughout, and is doubtless the chief explanation of his advancement. Within six months he was shipping clerk of the factory, and in 1905 was made assistant superintendent of an industry with 400 employes. In 1909 he was promoted to superintendent, and con- tinued these duties two years longer at Washington. The Beaumont Glass Company, manufacturers of table- ware, moved their plant from Martins Ferry, Ohio, to Graf- ton, in 1894. Later it was converted into a plant for the manufacture of glass food-containers, and about that time the business was taken over by the Tygert Valley Glass Company. Its exclusive output is glass food containers, and from a plant employing 100 men and with a daily output of one carload, it is now an industry with 300 persons on the payroll and manufactures four carloads of goods daily. Mr. Noble moved to Grafton and assumed the active management of this plant in 1911. He is one of the di- rectors of the Grafton Chamber of Commerce. He was superintendent of the Tygert Valley Company two years, then general manager, and since 1917 has been vice president and a director and general manager. Edward C. Stewart of Washington, Pennsylvania, is president of the company, and S. A. Waller, secretary and treasurer. The Christian Church of Grafton was organized in Mr. Noble's home November 7, 1911, with twelve members, and he has been a stimulating and sustaining member ever since. The congregation has recently completed a new house of worship on McGraw avenue. Mr. Noble is a Master Mason and in politics a democrat. At Washing- ton, Pennsylvania, August 21, 1901, he married Catherine Clemens, youngest of the four daughters of Peter Clemens, a farmer in that county. She completed her education in the Washington high school. Mr. and Mrs. Noble have three children: Harold, who graduated with honors from the Grafton High School in 1921 and is now in West Virginia University; Frances and Olberta, who are in the public schools.