Greenbrier County, West Virginia The Biography of the PRICE Family The Biography of the PRICE Family was submitted by Sandy Spradling, E-mail address: 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 Source: History of Greenbrier County J.R. Cole Lewisburg, WV 1917 p. 60-62 THE PRICE FAMILY The numerous Price relationships in Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties, West Virginia, Giles and Botetourt counties, Virginia, claim descent from one Samuel Price, who emigrated from near Cardiff, Wales, about 1735 and landed in South Carolina, where some of the name had previously settled, and their descendants are numerous in the Carolinas and in southern Virginia. His wife was Margaret Calvert. They may have had more than three children; there is authentic record of but three boys, Samuel, Jacob and Thomas. About 1748 he moved to Virginia and settled in that portion of Botetourt that was afterwards called Greenbrier, near what is now known as Savannah, where Washington Price, a direct descendant of Samuel, now resides. Jacob Price, Sr., son of Samuel, Sr., was born in 1750 and married Wineford Tillery. They had nine children: James, John, Samuel, William, Jacob, Abraham, George, Isaac, Austin, Margaret Calvert. He was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, enlisting at Fincastle, Va., in 1776 and belonging to Capt. Thomas Posey's company and Col. Daniel Morgan's famous Seventh Virginia regiment, known as Morgan's Rifles. He was wounded in a skirmish with the British and was not able for active service thereafter. He was pensioned February 23, 1796, on account of his wounds. He resided in Greenbrier county, Virginia, until 1836, when he went to Piketon, Pike county, Ohio, to live with his son, Isaac Austin, where he died January 28, 1841. Jacob Price, Jr., was born November I, 1790, on the old Price place near Savannah, and married Mary B. Cox, of Pendleton county, October 22, 1816. They had eight children: Charles, Abraham. Addison, John Mason, Sarah, Margaret, Mary and Rebecca. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, enlisting in Capt. James Robinson's Greenbrier company, in Col. Dudley Evan's Second regiment, First brigade, Virginia militia, and was wounded at Fort Meigs. He was granted a pension by the United States Government, which he drew until the day of his death, in 1877. John Mason Price was born near Frankford, October 7, 1834; married Elizabeth Mary Erwin, who died in i88i.. By this union seven children were born: Mary B., married R. S. Lovelace; Hentietta M., married K. M. McVey; Jane Erwin; Porteaux Anson, Poplar Bluff, Mo.; Mathew Nolting, New Cumberland, W. Va.; Oscar A., Washington, D. C., and Charles A., East Liverpool, Ohio. In 1882 he married his second wife, Isabella (Campbell) Williams, who had one child, Vera Lee. At the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted and was made orderly sergeant of Company D, Twenty-sixth Virginia, Edgar's battalion, Confederate States Army, and was promoted to sergeant major in 1862. He participated in all the battles his battalion was engaged in; was captured at the battle of Cold Harbor in May, 1864; taken as prisoner of war to Elmira, N.Y.; was released in February, 1865, and reached Richmond just before its evacuation by General Lee. After the war he engaged in the mencantile business at Price's shop, Irish Corner district, afterward called Organ Cave, and moved to Ronceverte in i885, where he was in the agricultural implement business for years with A. E. White and the Ronceverte Foundry and Machine Shop Company. In civil life he served as justice of the peace, member of the Greenbrier county court, deputy sheriff two terms, 1884-88, 1888-92, and was elected mayor of Ronceverte eight terms of two years each. He died Augtist 17, 1912. Oscar A. Price, son of John Mason Price, was born at Organ Cave, W. Va., November 9, 1873; married Gertrude Fulton, of Augusta county Virginia, February 17, 1898; has three children: Elizabeth Mary, Gertrude Fulton and Alice de Barre. He attended the public and high schools of Ronceverte and the Greenbrier Military Academy, Lewisburg, W. Va., and engaged in the mercantile business at Ronceverte, W. Va., until the outbreak of the Spanish war, April 26, 1898. At that time, having served through all grades to first lieutenant in the West Virginia National Guard, he volunteered and was made second lieutenant of the First West Virginia volunteer infantry in the United States service, and was promoted to first lieutenant June 21, 1898; served as quarter-master, Second division, First corps, on the staff of Brigadier General Arnold at Chickamauga, Ga.; also aid on the staff of Brigadier General Poland; was transferred to office as aide on the staff of Brigadier General Randall, Knoxville, Tenn., August, 1898, and was ordered by the secretary of war to report to Brigadier General McKee, Macon, Ga., on whose staff he served from October, 1898, to February, 1899. He was mustered out of the service with his regiment at Columbus, Ga., February 4, 1899; engaged in the milling business at Port Republic, 1899-1903; bought the old Edgar mill site, Ronceverte, and built the large milling plant now on that site in 1904 and managed the same from that date until March, 1915; served as president of the board of education, Fort Spring district, 1906-1910. Was chairman of Greenbrier county Democratic executive committee, 1910-1915, and was appointed auditor for the interior department, Washington, D. C., by President Wilson on March 3, 1915, and is now occupying that position.