Lorenzo Franklin Mahan 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. 231 Hancock County LORENZO FRANKLIN MAHAN is one of the venerable native sons of Hancock County, a representative of a sterling pioneer family whose name has been one of prominence in the history of this part of West Virginia, and he has individually contributed his share to the civic and material development and progress of the county that has repre- sented his home from the time of his birth to the present. This sterling citizen of the Arroyo neighborhood in Han- cock County was born at Mahan's Mills, on King's Creek, this county, November 17, 1838, and is the only surviving son of John Mahan, the latter a son of William and Nancy (Jones) Mahan. William Mahan had operated a line of stage coaches out from the City of Baltimore, Maryland, and upon coming to what is now the State of West Vir- ginia he settled at Follansbee in Brooke County, his sons John and Thomas later having established a grist mill on King's Creek in the present Hancock County. In 1842 John Mahan established his residence on the farm now owned and occupied by his son Lorenzo P., of this review, near the Village of Arroyo, and the saw and grist mill which he here erected and operated was later used as a vinegar manufactory. His landed estate here comprised 576 acres. He became one of the owners also of a line of river boats, including barges and the steamboats "Oil City" and "Iron City," which were built in Hancock County. Later he became one of the owners of the navi- gation business conducted under the title of the Cumber- land Tow Boat Company. He was one of the vigorous and resourceful business men of his day and did much to further the advancement of his home community and county. He and his sons eventually converted the saw and planing mill into a vinegar factory, which they operated suc- cessfully. In 1852 Lorenzo F. Mahan assisted in setting out the first orchard in a county that has since become one of the foremost in the apple-growing industry of West Virginia. Lorenzo F. Mahan married Mary H. Lowry, whose father was mayor of the City of Pittsburgh, Penn- sylvania, during the Civil war, and their ideal companion- ship continued for thirty years, the gracious bonds being severed by the death of the devoted wife and mother, who is survived by two children, Grace and Frank Earl, the latter of whom resides at Chester, this county, and is in the employ of the Homer Laughlin China Company at Newell. He is a republican in politics, as is also his ven- erable father, who has been unfaltering in his allegiance to the party during virtually the entire period of its exis- tence. In 1897 was solemnized the marriage of Miss Grace Mahan to William V. Powell, who is engaged in the gen- eral insurance business in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania. Mrs. Powell owns a part of the old homestead estate, and after remaining eight years in Pittsburgh she returned home to care for her venerable parents. She is according to her father the utmost filial love and solicitude, and resides with him in the fine old home-house which he erected fully half a century ago and which, situated on a slight elevation above the Ohio River, commands a fine view of the valley for a distance of many miles, while directly opposite, on the Ohio shore, is the beautiful Chil- dren's Home in Jefferson County, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Powell became the parents of five children. Franklin, eldest of the five, is now engaged in the insurance busi- ness in Pittsburgh, and in connection with the World war he was in the nation's military service in France for a period of eighteen months. The younger children are Ed- ward Hewitt, Mary Elizabeth, William Thomas and Bar- bara Brenneman. Other personal sketches in this publication offer much additional data concerning the Mahan family, and the general history of the county likewise makes proper recogni- tion of the splendid part this family has played in con- nection with the development and progress of Hancock County.