Jackson County, West Virginia         Biography of ENOCH STAATS

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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 542
Jackson

ENOCH STAATS.  Some of the many stanch friends
of Enoch Staats, County Court clerk of Jackson County,
recall him as a teacher and farmer in the county, though
for the past dozen years his work has been at the county
seat of Ripley either as deputy or head of the office of
County Court clerk.

Staats is one of the old and well known names of
Jackson County. The founder of the family was Isaac
Staats, who was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, in
1799, and as a young man moved to what is now Jackson
County, West Virginia, and became owner and operator
of a grist mill, long known in the geography of the county
as Staats Mill. Though an old man at the time, he served
as a member of the Home Guards during the Civil war.
He died at Staats Mill in 1885. Isaac Staats married a Miss
Tolley, who was born in that portion of old Mason County
that is now Jackson County. Their son, William Staats,
was born at Staats Mill in 1841, and chose farming as his
vocation. He was reared and married at Staats Mill, but
later moved to the vicinity of Ripley, and he owned and
operated a large and prosperous farm four miles south
of that town, where he died in 1914. He was a member of
the Home Scouts during the Civil war, was an independent
democrat in polities, and very closely identified with the
Methodist Protestant Church.  William Staats married
Emily J. Casto, who was born at Staats Mill in 1847, and
died at the home farm four miles south of Bipley in 1910.
She became the mother of seven children: Cordelia, who
died at Parchment Valley, Jackson County, in 1898, wife
of Lovell M. Parsons, the well known Bipley farmer and
banker; Avah B., who died at Fairplain, Jackson County,
in 1900, wife of Jacob Post, now a retired farmer of that
community; Louisa, wife of David C. Shamblen, a farmer
at Fairplain; Hollie F., a farmer at Flatrock in Mason
County; subject of this sketch; Dora, wife of C. L. Skid-
more, a farmer at Skidmore in Jackson County; and Cora
L., wife of Everett Simmons, a farmer at Kenna in Jack-
son County.

Enoch Staats was born October 7, 1875, and grew up on
the home farm south of Ripley. He attended rural schools
there, the public schools at Ripley, in 1896 graduated from
the Mountain State Business College at Parkersburg, and
during 1897-98 attended the State Normal School at Glen-
ville in Gilmer County. Mr. Staats began teaching at the
age of eighteen. His work was altogether in the rural
districts of Jackson County, where he taught a total of
fifteen terms, devoting his time and energies in the intervals
to farming. This phase of his career was concluded in
1909, when he was made deputy County Court clerk, and
he served twelve years in that capacity, 1909-20. In 1920
he was chosen by election as County Court clerk for the
six year term beginning in January, 1921.

Mr. Staats is a republican, active in the Methodist
Protestant Church, and has served as Sunday School super-
intendent, and is affiliated with Ripley Lodge No. 16, A. F.
and A. M., Ripley Lodge No. 30, Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, and Walker Wright Lodge No. 5, Knights
of Pythias. He is a stockholder and director in the Bank
of Ripley, owns a farm of 275 acres four miles south of
Ripley, on Mill Creek, and another farm of 600 acres four
miles east of Ripley, on Sycamore Creek. His home is a
fine suburban place, recently completed, on a choice tract of
seven acres on the Charleston Pike.

In 1899, at Ripley, Mr. Staats married Miss Allie Carney,
daughter of William A. and Rosa (Wedge) Carney, a well
known family living two miles east of Ripley. Mr. and
Mrs. Staats have four children: William, born November
12, 1900, is a graduate of the Ripley High School, attended
Berea College at Berea, Kentucky, and is now teaching at
Salt Hill in Jackson County; Delbert born December 28,
1903, is a graduate of the Ripley High School and a teacher
at Tracefork; Russell, born in 1906, and Corinne, born in
1910, are students in the public schools at Ripley.