BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES WALKER WOODDELL, HARRISON CO,
WEST VIRGINIA
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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 II,
pg. 598-599
Harrison

JAMES WALKER WOODDELL is one of the veteran hotel men
of the state. It is a business in which he grew from boyhood,
and he developed those qualities akin to genius required of
the successful landlord. He has managed several well known
hotels, and is now manager of the Waldo at Clarksburg.

Mr. Wooddell was born at Green Bank, Pocahontas
County, West Virginia, May 14, 1873, son of William J.
and Mattie (Gum) Wooddell, and grandson of James Wood-
dell, a native of Virginia. William J. Wooddell was born
at Monterey in Highland County, Virginia, was a successful
farmer and merchant, served as sheriff of Pocahontas County
and was a member of the Legislature. He was an active
democrat. After many years of residence in Pocahontas
County he moved to Webster Springs, Webster County, and
died soon afterward at the age of sixty. His wife, Mattie
Gum, was born at Green Bank, West Virginia, daughter of
William Gum. She is still living, at the ripe age of eighty-
two, at Webster Springs, where for a number of years she
was proprietor of the old Wooddell House. She became the
mother of three sons and six daughters.

James Walker Wooddell learned the hotel business in his
mother's hotel at Webster Springs, and for twenty years
or more was actively connected with its management. After
the Webster Springs Hotel was built Mr. Wooddell leased
the property, and conducted this popular house for fifteen
years. For three years he was manager of the Hotel Willard
at Grafton, and on April 24, 1916, took charge as manager
of the Waldo, the leading hotel of Clarksburg.

Mr. Wooddell is a democrat, and in 1907-08 represented
Webster County in the House of Delegates. He is a Master
Mason and Elk.

In 1907 Mr. Wooddell married Miss Rebecca Kessler, of
Nicholas County. She died in 1916, leaving four children,
named Beatrice, Martha, Virginia and James W. In 1919,
Mr. Wooddell married Miss Gae Morgan, of St. Petersburg,
Florida.