Jackson County, West Virginia Biography of FRED D. WOLFE 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. 469-470 FRED D. WOLFE spent many years as a farmer and teacher in West Virginia, but in recent years has found pleasant and congenial responsibilities as editor and publisher of The Mountaineer at Ripley, one of the three newspapers of Jackson County and the official organ of the demo- cratic party for the county. Mr. Wolfe was born at Given in Jackson County, De- cember 14, 1879. The Wolfe family is of English an- cestry. His grandfather, Abraham Wolfe, was born in Lewis County, West Virginia, in 1806, and as a young man removed to the Given community of Jackson County, where he spent his active life as a farmer and where he died in 1899. At Given he married Miss Mary Boswell. They were the parents of ten children, and those now living are: Nehemiah S.; Margaret, wife of Levi Moore, a farmer at Given; and Abraham, a farmer at Given. Nehemiah S. Wolfe has spent all his active life as a successful farmer at Given, where he was born February 14, 1838, but since 1919 has lived retired at Ripley with his son Fred. He is a democrat, and is affiliated with R. S. Brown Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Rock Castle. Nehemiah Wolfe married Victoria C. Smith, who was born at Letart, Ohio, in 1841 and died at Given in 1913. She represented a very historical family, being a great- granddaughter of Gen. Andrew Lewis. Gen. Andrew Lewis was one of the sons of John A. Lewis, a Scotch-Irishman who came from Ireland to America in Colonial times. John A Lewis married Lady Lynn. They lived on the frontier in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. It was Lady Lynn Lewis who was the distinguished heroine of the frontier who dismissed her four sons with the words "Go, keep back the foot of the invader or see my face no more," and these sons all bore an honorable share in the struggle for inde- pendence. The sons Gen. Andrew Lewis and Charles Lewis were officers in the battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774, a battle that many historians claim marked the begin- ning of the Revolutionary war. Nehemiah Wolfe and wife had the following children: Cora, who died at Fairplain, wife of Benjamin F. Crites, now a merchant at Ripley; Austin Monroe, a farmer at Given; Edward L., a merchant at Dunbar in Kanawha County; Clinton, who was an at- torney and died at Ripley in 1900; Lewis V., a merchant at Dunbar; Fred D.; Helen, wife of Luther A. Parsons, a farmer at Alice, Ohio; and Mary Augusta, wife of Alva Moore, a boiler maker living at Macon, Georgia. Fred D. Wolfe attended the rural schools of Jackson County and the Ohio Valley College at Ravenswood to the age of nineteen. For the first thirty-four years of his life he made his home on his father's farm. His work as a teacher was begun in the Given school when he was eighteen. He taught in that school four years, and his record as an educator is spread over a period of nineteen years, during which time he taught in Jackson, Tyler, Logan, Mingo, Kanawha and Putnam counties. In 1917 Mr. Wolfe went on the road as traveling representative for the Dana Grocery Company of Ripley and for two years sold goods in portions of Mason, Jackson and Roane counties. November 17, 1919, he accepted the post of editor and manager of The Mountaineer at Ripley. This paper was established in 1892, and is a well edited journal, circulated in most of the homes of Jackson and surrounding counties, and is owned by The Mountaineer Company, the plant and offices being on Front Street in Ripley. W. L. Y. Currey, of Sandyville, is president; Kenna K. Hyre, of Ripley, is secretary; while the editor and publisher is Fred D. Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe is a democrat, a member of Ripley Lodge No. 16, A. F. and A. M., and a past chancellor of Walker Wright Lodge No. 95, Knights of Pythias. During the war he sustained his share of activities in behalf of the various drives, and personally he tried to enlist at Parkers- burg, but was rejected partly on account of his age and partly because of his dependents. September 22, 1915, in Jackson County, he married Miss Cleo Rawling, daughter of Luke A. and Ella (Winter) Rawling, farmers in the Fairplain community of Jackson County. Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe have two children: Dana, born October 16, 1916, and Dona, born December 20, 1920.