Hardy County, West Virginia Biography of CHARLES E. VANCE This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. 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 The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 421-422 Hardy CHARLES E. VANCE is one of the prosperous and success- ful business men of Moorefield. He is an official in the Hardy County Bank, has achieved a real constructive triumph in redeeming one of the run down farms of Hardy County, and for many years has been in the service of the Union Tanning Company as woods foreman. He was born at Upper Tract, Pendleton County, West Virginia, August 17, 1876. His grandfather, Robert Vance, came to West Virginia from Mansfield, Illinois, where the Vance family was a large one. He came to West Virginia before the Civil war, and in Pendleton County married a Miss Harman, of a well known family of this state. He spent the rest of his life in Pendleton County. Benjamin C. Vance, father of Charles E., was born in Pendleton County, carefully educated himself, began teaching when a youth, and completed a record of fifty-two terms of school, teaching in Grant, Pendleton and Hardy counties before he retired. He is now living at Fisher in Hardy County at the age of sixty-eight. While living at Petersburg he served as a magistrate, and has been an active member of the United Brethren Church. Benjamin Vance married Susan R. Lough, daughter of Daniel Lough, a carpenter in Pendleton County, whose family came from Germany. Mrs. Susan Vance died at Petersburg in 1918. All her ten chil- dren are living: Charles E.; Myrtle, wife of Calvin C. Bensenhaver; Linnie, Mrs. Will Feaster; Bessie, who mar- ried John Shobe; Kenneth, of Petersburg; Elsie, wife of B. J. Roby, of Petersburg; Harman, who lives in Montana; Mary; Chloe, of Norfolk, Virginia; and Leola, wife of Clarence Emelright, of Winchester, Virginia. When Charles E. Vance was twelve years of age his pa- rents left Pendleton County and settled on a farm near Seymoursville in Grant County. In that locality he grew to manhood, attended school near Seymoursville, and ob- tained a part of his education under the direction of his father. At the age of sixteen he left school and for two years worked as a farm hand in Grant County, and for another two years was employed in the woolen mill at Keyser. He then took up farming for himself at Durgeon in Hardy County, and remained in that locality for nine years. He was farming on the shares, and when the owner of the farm died he had to change locations, and instead of resuming farming he accepted an opportunity to go to work for a tannery concern. His first employment was peeling bark and bossing the bark sheds, but subsequently he was put in charge as woods foreman, and that has been his active business responsibility for sixteen years, since 1906. His individual farming interests are located near Fisher in Hardy County. It is a grain farm, managed both exten- sively and intensively as a food producing proposition. His leading crops are corn and wheat, all of which are con- sumed on the ground, using the corn for feeding hogs for the market. Mr. Vance took possession of this land when it was reduced as a result of years of cropping to a minimum of productiveness. He tiled the land, enriched the soil by many successive crops of clover and manure, and out of the 225 acres he has 135 under cultivation. It is now recognized as one of the most productive tracts of land in the county. Its other equipment and improvements have been greatly added to by Mr. Vance, who has erected two barns, rebuilt the residence, put up a dairy and ice house, smoke house and cellar. Mr. Vance is a director and is vice president of the Hardy County Bank at Moorefield. In politics he is a republican, and at times has been a delegate to county conventions and once was a delegate for the Second District Congressional Convention. His only fraternity is the Modern Woodmen of America. During the great war he assisted in the sale of bonds, in drives for the Red Cross and other auxiliary war funds, and was a member of the County Council of Defense. In Oak Grove Church, near Fisher, Hardy County, October 9, 1898, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Vance and Miss Annie Bensenhaver. She is a daughter of George and Grace (Bobo) Bensenhaver, her father still living. Mrs. Vance was born on the farm where she is now living and where her father was a tenant farmer for a third of a cen- tury. She is the only child of her father, and was well educated in the public schools and holds a state certificate to teach, and spent several years in teaching before her mar- riage. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Vance are: Grace, wife of Alfred Hedrick and mother of a daughter, Juanita; Kenneth Vance, who looked after the farm for his father; while the younger children are Trixie, Robert, Loring, Coker, William and Esther.