Robert R. Hobbs Bio. Hancock County, WV ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Submitted by: Valerie Crook The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 250 Hancock County ROBERT R. HOBBS. Included among the men who have the responsibility for good government in Hancock County on their shoulders is Robert R. Hobbs, occupying the posi- tion of clerk of the County Court. Mr. Hobbs is well known to the people of the county a.a an efficient, energetic and conscientious official, for he is. now serving his second six-year term in his present office, and prior to becoming the incumbent thereof had acted in other public capacities. He has spent his entire life in the county, where he has been the architect of his own fortunes. Mr. Hobbs was born at Fairview, Hancock County, September 5, 1875, a son of John Wesley and Elizabeth Jane (Brenneman) Hobbs. The mother of John Wesley Hobbs was Margaret Ray, a daughter of Joseph Ray, said to have been a Eevolutionary soldier, who settled on Brown's Island, six miles below New Cumberland in the Ohio River, and reached an advanced age, being buried at Pughtown. The father of John Wesley Hobbs was Leonard Hobbs, who died at the age of thirty-four years at Wellsburg. John W. Hobbs was sheriff of Hancock County during the Civil war period, following which he became a merchant at Pughtown. In 1881 he was elected to the State Legislature, when the capital was at Wheel- ing, and after completing his term of office returned to his store at Pughtown, in which community he died at the age of seventy years. Elizabeth Brenneman was a daughter of Jacob Brenneman, a descendant of the original settler of the county, Jacob Nessley, whose home was opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek, Ohio, but over the West Virginia line. There Elizabeth had been brought at two years of age and was reared on the farm in the Ohio Valley. She died at the advanced age of eighty-two years. Robert R. Hobbs secured his education at Pughtown, where he lived until reaching the age of sixteen years, at that time becoming an employe of a merchant at Hookstown, Pennsylvania. At the end of three years he went to Pittsburgh, where he became a clerk for Joseph Hern & Company, and then ran a store at Chester, West Virginia, until 1909, when he was elected sheriff of Hancock County. After spending four years in that capacity he returned to his mercantile operations at Chester, and applied himself thereto without interrup- tion until elected clerk of the County Court for a period of six years, on the republican ticket. When his term expired the citizens, in looking back over his record, found it so satisfactory that he was chosen to succeed himself for another six-year term, and is still the capable, conscientious incumbent of that position. Mr. Hobbs married Miss Effie K. Knowles, of East Liverpool, Ohio, and to this union there have been born four children: Robert Knowles, who graduated from the high school at Chester, West Virginia, in 1922; Ruth Louise, who is attending high school; and Mildred Elizabeth and Ralph Brenneman, who are attending the graded schools. Mr. Hobbs has a number of civic and social connections, and is accounted one of the progressive men of his com- munity, where he has numerous friends.