Jackson County, West Virginia Biography of JOHN MORGAN PRICKETT This biography 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 II, pg. 631-632 Jackson JOHN MORGAN PRICKETT is a newspaper man, his father was a printer and publisher before him, and for a quarter of a century he has been associated with the Jackson Herald at Ripley, being business manager of this well known and influential newspaper. Mr. Prickett was born at Ravenswood in Jackson County, September 25,1873. His grandfather, John T. Prickett, was a native of Marion County, but spent the greater part of his life as a farmer at Ravenswood, though he also con- ducted a store for a few years in Wood County. He died at Ravenswood. He married a Miss Morgan, a native of Marion County. Their son Charles Prickett was born in Marion County, grew up there, and as a youth learned the printer's trade. This trade he followed as a journeyman at Fairmont, Charleston and other places, finally locating at Ravenswood where he later became owner and publisher of The Mountaineer, one of the pioneer papers in that section of the state. About 1896 he removed to Ripley, and con- tinued the publication of The Mountaineer at Ripley until his death in 1911. In the Civil war he fought on the Con- federate side all through the period of hostilities, and was a staunch democrat in his political affiliations. Charles Prickett married Matilda Knotts, who was born in Jackson County in 1846, and is still living at Ripley. John Morgan is the oldest of her children. Mary is the wife of Joseph A. Wooddell, postmaster at Pennsboro in Ritchie County. Mrs. Daisy Whittington died at Hinton. Charles S. is employed in the rubber industry at Akron, Ohio. Ada is a teacher in the public schools at Ripley, and Isaiah, the youngest of the family, is manager for the O. J. Morrison Store Company at Huntington, West Virginia. John Morgan Prickett attended the common schools of Jackson County, but from the age of fifteen his education was more directly the result of his apprenticeship and ex- perience in the printer's trade. Mr. Prickett worked as a journeyman printer at Charleston, at Huntington, at Cincinnati, and in various towns and cities. In 1896 he located at Ripley and became a printer in the office of the Jackson Herald, and has been continuously associated with that paper ever since. He has been its business manager since 1919. The Jackson Herald was established in 1875, and for many years past has been the official republican paper of Jackson County. It is owned by a stock company known as the Herald Publishing Company. The Herald is a substantial business institution, and as a paper has a large circulation and influence throughout Jackson and surrounding counties. Mr. Prickett married at Ripley in 1900 Miss Hallie Kidd, daughter of Dr. Washington W. and Margaret (Vail) Kidd. Her father was a physician and surgeon. Mr. and Mrs. Prickett have a daughter, Ruth, bom July 17, 1901, who now has completed her education and is assisting her father in the Herald office.