BIOGRAPHY OF HUGH B. SHINN, HARRISON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA ******************************************************************* 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 (vfcrook@earthlink.net) The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 603-604 Harrison HUGH B. SHINN, a representative of the historic Shinn family of Harrison County, was one of the founders and has been occupied with the management for twenty years of the Valley Grocery Company of Belington. This is one of the prosperous wholesale concerns that add an imposing volume to the commercial trade centered at this little city. The Valley Grocery Company was founded by L. P. Shinn, G. W. Shipman and Hugh B. Shinn. The company was chartered with an actual capital of $61,000, and with an authorized capital of $100,000. The first officers were G. W. Shipman, president; H. B. Shinn, secretary and treasurer, and L. P. Shinn, vice president. It was in the fall 1902 that the house opened for business, with two trav- eling salesmen representing the firm in the field. The business has grown steadily, and now serves a large and important section of West Virginia. There are three trav- eling salesmen on the staff. The company has steadily kept in touch within its original field, handling groceries and feed. Hugh B. Shinn is a member of the State Wholesale Grocers Association. There is something said on other pages of this publica- tion concerning the historic Shinn family. The Shinns of West Virginia are descended from a remote Scotch ancestor who came to this country and settled in Pennsylvania be- fore the Revolution. The grandfather of Hugh B. Shinn was Jeremiah Shinn, a substantial farmer in the Shinnston community of Harrison County, where he spent his life and where he is buried. He married Mahala Sturms, and they had two sons and five daughters: Luther P. and Byron Shinn; Mrs. Rose Tetrick; Caroline, wife of George F. An- dall; Jane, who married Harry F. Randall; Florence, who became Mrs. Bruce W. Boggess; and Allie, who married D. L. Morrow. There were no politicians, ministers or other professional men in this old family, and hardly with an exception the men have been occupied either with farm- ing or some line of commercial endeavor. Luther P. Shinn, father of Hugh, was born in Harrison County in 1850, acquired a country school education, and has been a business man all his active career. He took up merchandising at the age of twenty-five, and is still in business at Buckhannon. The only office he ever held was as a member of the City Council at Buckhannon. For many years he has been an official in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Luther P. Shinn married Virginia Boggess, daugh- ter of John W. Boggess, of Lumberport, Harrison County, an ex-soldier of the Union Army. She died in 1882, leav- ing two sons, Hugh B. and Guy. Guy was associated with the wholesale business at Belington until he died in 1906, unmarried. Hugh B. Shinn was born in Harrison County in Decem- ber, 1874, but was reared at Buckhannon, Upshur County. He attended the public schools and had a brief course in Wesleyan College. His early life was spent in the atmos- phere of his father's retail store, and at the age of eighteen he became an active helper in the business. He is still associated with his father's store at Buekhannon, although his main time and attention are given to the wholesale house at Belington. The management of this business, in which he has been a factor for twenty years, constitutes a man's job, and Mr. Shinn has permitted himself no special share in politics or other affairs. He was brought up a repub- lican, and cast his first national ballot for McKinley in 1896. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Knights of Pythias. In Upshur County in September, 1897, Mr. Shinn mar- ried Miss May. Brown, who was born in Delaware County, Ohio, daughter of F. W. Brown, but since childhood she has lived in West Virginia and she finished her education at Wesleyan College. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Shinn are: Sherwood, a member of the class of 1923 in the elec- trical engineering course at West Virginia University; Fran- cois, of the class of 1925 in the Baltimore Dental College; Virginia, of the class of 1925 at Wesleyan College; Kenneth is a student in the Belington High School; and Frederick. in grammar school.