Biography 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 Dale Patterson Copied from " History of the Panhandle, being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall and Hancock, West Virginia". Compiled and Written by: J.H. Newton, G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle Published by: J.A. Caldwell, 1879, Wheeling, W. VA. Biographical Sketches of Hancock County: John Newell: a native of Washington County, Pennsylvania, was born on the 9th of June 1796. His education was obtained in the common schools of his minority days. In 1819 he married Miss Rachel Elder. They migrated to Hancock County, West Virginia, and settled in Fairview (then called Pughtown, or New Manchester), and engaged in tanning, where he followed that business for fourteen years. About 1822 his wife departed this life, and in a few years after he got married again, leading to the altar Lydia, daughter of John Edie. By her he had seven children. She died, and in 1853 he married his third wife, in the person of Joanna Frazier. He moved on the farm where he is now living, in about 1833, remaining a few years then removed to Murry's Mill, and run the milling business for three years, then purchased the Coulter Mills (now Baxter's), staying there for several years, and then returned to his farm. He is still living -- aged eighty-two years.