Greenbrier County, West Virginia    Biography: Joseph Laconia McCLUNG

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Transcribed and submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook @earthlink.net>, 1999.
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    JOSEPH LACONIA McCLUNG. A representative of a prominent old Greenbrier County family, 
Joseph Laconia McClung is a graduate Doctor of Dental Surgery from Baltimore, and for a 
number of years has been securely established in his professional work at Huntington.
    Doctor McClung was born at Rupert, Greenbrier County, October 26, 1877. The McClung 
family is of Scotch Irish ancestry, and there were seven brothers of the name who came 
to Virginia in Colonial times. The grandfather of Doctor McClung was Hinton McClung, a 
native of old Virginia and an early settler in Greenbrier County, where he was a farmer.
He married Miss Jones, also born in old Virginia, who died in Greenbrier County. Their 
son Madison McClung, father of Doctor McClung, was born in Greenbrier County in 1838, 
was reared and married there, and owned and operated an extensive farm. After 1894 he 
farmed in Putnam County, and after he retired from his farm in 1917 he lived in 
Huntington until his death on February 1, 1919. He was a democrat, has served four
years in the Civil war as a Confederate soldier, was a very earnest member of the 
Baptist Church and was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. Madison McClung married
Martha Martin, who was born in Greenbrier County in 1845, and died at Hurricane,
Putnam County in 1903. Her father, John Mack Martin, was born in old Virginia in 1923, 
was a circuit rider of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and carried on his work in many 
of the mountain communities of Western Virginia, where he was widely known and greatly
beloved. He died at Hurricane in 1900. His first wife and the mother of Martha Martin
was a Miss Crane, a native of old Virginia, who died in Greenbrier County. Madison 
McClung and wife had thirteen children, two of whom died in childhood, and a brief 
record of the others is given: Nora, wife of Leonard Shawver, a farmer of Crickmer,
Fayette County, West Virginia; Clownie V., who was connected with the International
Harvester Company and died at Hurricane at the age of forty-five; Mintie, wife of 
William F. Wilson, building contractor of Louisa, Kentucky; Laura, who died at Hurricane 
at the age of twenty-four; Samuel Tilden, a physician, who died in Colorado, aged 
twenty-six; Richard, for a number of years a civil service employe of the Government, 
living at Huntington; Joseph L.; Albert, a foreman for the Norfolk and Western Railway 
at Portsmouth, Ohio; Mrs. Dena Leighton, of Huntington, widow of a railroad contractor;
Maude, who died at Huntington at the age of twenty-seven, wife of Hugh Irwin, now a 
locomotive engineer, living at Russell, Kentucky; and Mrs. Mona Slack, wife of a 
railroad machinist living at Handley, West Virginia.
    Joseph Laconia McClung acquired his early education in the rural schools of 
Greenbrier and Putnam counties. He grew up on his father's farm and at the age of
twenty-one began teaching, and for two years taught in Putnam County and two years
in Fayette County. After leaving the work of the school room he entered the 
University of Maryland at 13altimore for his dental course, and graduated in 
1905 with the degree D. D. S. Doctor McClung practiced six years at Olive Hill, 
Kentucky, and four years at Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and since 1914 has been
one of the permanent dentists of Huntington. He is a member of the National Dental
Association, is a stockholder and formerly was vice president of the Mid West Oil 
Company and has other interests in oil and coal companies.
    He is a democrat, a member of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church and assistant 
secretary of the Sunday School, is affiliated with Mount Sterling Lodge, A. F. and 
A. M., in Kentucky. Among other real estate in Huntington is his home, located
in a restricted residential section, at 1221 Ninth Avenue. On October 11, 1905, 
near Hurricane, West Virginia, Doctor McClung married Miss Stella Smith, daughter
of John P. and Sarah (Martin) Smith, residents of St. Albans, West Virginia. Her
father is a farmer. Doctor and Mrs. McClung have one child, Daryl Smith, born 
August 24, 1906.

SOURCE:The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume II, pgs. 368-369