Fayette County, West Virginia Biography of George James DICKERSON This file 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 III, pg. 215 GEORGE JAMES DICKERSON is a citizen and business man upon whom high estimate is placed in the City of Hunting- ton, where he is president of the Dickerson Lumber Com- pany. He was born at Ravens Eye, Fayette County, this state, January 21, 1878, and is a son of Albert Reuben Dickerson, who was born in Virginia, March 3, 1845, and who now resides near Barboursville, Cabell County, West Virginia. His parents removed to what is now Fayette County, this state, about 1856, and he was there reared and educated, and his marriage was there solemnized. He con- tinued as one of the representative farmers of that county for many years, and since 1914 has resided on his fine farm in Cabell County. He is a democrat, and while a resident of Fayette County he served in various offices of local trust, including that of county superintendent of schools, a posi- tion which he retained two terms. He has exceptional abil- ity as a practical surveyor, and has probably surveyed more land in Fayette, Greenbrier and Nicholas counties than has any other one man. He surveyed and purchased all of the land for Mrs. Joseph Berry, who became the owner of a very large landed estate. He is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, while his wife is a member of the Baptist Church. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, and he gave gallant service as a sol- dier of the Confederacy during the last three years of the Civil war. His wife, whose maiden name was Pheola V. Rodgers, was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia), March 2, 1849, and is a representative of an old and influential family of that county. Of the chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Dickerson the eldest is Herbert J., who is a prosperous farmer in Fayette County; William Rodgers is a merchant at Lansing, that county; Lulu M. died at the age of three years; George James, of this re- view, was next in order of birth; Grace C., who now resides at Huntington, is the widow of Wallace D. Amick, M. D., who was engaged in practice at Glenalum, Mingo County, at the time of his death; John Edward is traveling salesman for a wholesale lumber company of Birmingham, Alabama; Lawrence A. is associated with the Azel Meadows Realty Company of Huntington; Alice is the wife of Walter D. Boone, cashier of the bank at Mount Hope, Fayette County; Ida is bookkeeper for the Dickerson Lumber Company at Huntington. The rural schools of Fayette County afforded George J. Dickerson his early education, and thereafter he was for one year a student in Valparaiso University at Valparaiso, Indiana. In 1902 he became stenographer in the office of the O. L. Packard Machinery Company in the City of Chi- cago, and one year later he went to Baltimore, Maryland, where he was for three months a stenographer in the offices of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He next took the posi- tion of bookkeeper in the Bank of Mount Hope in his na- tive county, won promotion to the position of assistant cashier, and retained this office until 1905, in May of which year he removed to Huntington and organized the Carolina Lumber Company, of which he continued the general mana- ger until March, 1918, when he organized the Dickerson Lumber Company, of which he has since continued the presi- dent and general manager. Walter Perkins, of Bluefield, is vice president of the corporation, and L. P. Quesenberry is its secretary and treasurer. The company handles all kinds of lumber and building supplies, with offices at 632 Ninth Street, and under the progressive direction of its president has been developed the leading enterprise of its kind in Huntington—in fact, the concern is conceded to be one of the largest and most important in the exclusively retail lumber trade in the entire state. Mr. Dickerson is also secretary and treasurer of the Piney Creek Coal Com- pany. While the activities of so called practical politics have had no appeal to Mr. Dickerson, he is most loyal and pro- gressive as a citizen and is a staunch supporter of the principles of the democratic party. He is a vital member of the local chamber of commerce, holds membership in the Guyan Country Club, and is affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 313, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He owns and occupies one of the fine, modern residences of the city, at 210 Sixth Avenue. In September, 1909, at Huntington, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Dickerson and Miss Clara Medford, who was born near Wheeling, this state, and who was a student in Marshall College nearly four years. Mr. and Mrs. Dick- erson have three children: George "Jim," Jr., born in August, 1910; Mary Louise, born in July, 1913; and Albert Medford, born in January, 1915. Mr. Dickerson is a scion of a family that was founded in Virginia in the Colonial period of our national history. There his grandfather, William Dickerson, was born in the year 1807, and he removed to what is now Fayette County, West Virginia, in 1856. He there became a pioneer farmer and there he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives, his death having occurred in 1891, and his wife, whose maiden name was Mary J. Maddox, having died at the ven- erable age of eighty-six years. Lawrence A. Dickerson, youngest brother of the subject of this sketch, responded to the first call for volunteers when the nation became involved in the World war, and at Port Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, he received his commis- sion as a second lieutenant. He later was in service at Chillicothe, Ohio, and he was at Camp Sevier, North Caro- lina, where he was commissioned first lieutenant, and re- ceived his honorable discharge after the close of the war.