NORRIS H. REARDON

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

pg. 138
Kanawha
NORRIS H. REARDON is representative of the second gener-
ation of the Reardon family in the petroleum industry.
His work in the oil fields of Pennsylvania began when he
was a boy, and about thirty years ago he came to West
Virginia and is one of the thoroughly expert men in the
handling of all phases of drilling, construction and prac-
tical field operations. Mr. Reardon lives at Jacksonburg
and is field superintendent for the Kanawha Oil Company.

He was born at Hendersonville, Pennsylvania, Novem-
ber 28, 1873. His grandfather, Patrick Reardon, was born
in County Clare, Ireland, in 1791, and was about thirteen
years of age when his parents left Ireland in 1804 and
came to America. The family lived for several years in
New York City and in 1808 they established their home in
Clarion County, Pennsylvania. Patrick Reardon was
reared in Pennsylvania, married in Clarion County, where
he followed farming, and subsequently joined the exodus
to California as a forty-niner. He lost his life as the
result of an explosion in his gold mine in California soon
after going there. His son, Arthur B. Reardon, was born
near Shippensville in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, in
1850, and grew up and married in his native community.
Practically all his life he has been an oil operator and
producer. His experience was in the Pennsylvania fields
until 1885, and since then much of his time has been spent
in South America. He has prospected for oil and gas all
over the southern continent, and for two years was with
Mr. White of Morgantown, West Virginia, in Brazil. He
is still associated with a Brazilian company, and in No-
vember, 1921, he returned to South America for the pur-
pose of completing a well which had been drilled to a
depth of 1,605 feet twenty-three years before. This well
is 263 miles from the coast inland from Sa-Opola. Ar-
thur B. Reardon is a republican and a member of the
United Brethren Church. He married Delilah Amsler, who
was born near Fryburg in Clarion County, October 13,
1851. Since 1879 they have had their home at Bradford
in McKean County, Pennsylvania. He is a member of the
Masonic fraternity. Their children are: Harvey H., a
contractor and producer in the oil fields of Oklahoma, with
home at Winona; Norris H.; Sarah Naomi, wife of Wil-
liam G. Sisson, a real estate man at Olean, New York;
John Milton, whose home is at Bradford, but whose work
is as field superintendent for the Penn-Mexican Oil Com-
pany at Tuxpam, Mexico.

Norris H. Reardon was about six years of age when his
parents established their home at Bradford, and he was
reared and educated in that city. He left school at the
age of seventeen, and his first employment in the oil fields
was in the Timbuck fields of McKean County for the firm
of Jennings and Roth. He did pumping for three months,
and then became a pumper in the Bradford field for John
P. Zane until 1892. In the latter year Mr. Reardon came
to Sistersville, West Virginia, soon after the first oil had
been produced in this section. He began here with the
Kanawha Oil Company as a roustabout, was made gang
boss and soon afterward farm boss. From 1903 to 1915 
Mr. Reardon was superintendent for the Delmar Oil Com- 
pany at Folsom, Wetzel County. Since 1915 his headquar-
ters have been at Jacksonburg, while he has been field su-
perintendent for both the Kanawha Oil Company and the
Delmar Oil Company. Mr. Reardon has a force of forty-
three employes under his supervision, his offices being at
Buffalo Run in Jacksonburg. He has full charge of all
the operations involved in drilling, construction work and
lifting of the oil, and also has charge of four compressing
plants.

Mr. Reardon is a republican and is affiliated with Little-
ton Lodge No. 131. A. F. and A. M.; Sistersville Lodge
No. 333, B. P. O. E.; and Sistersville Tent No. 3, Knights
of the Maccabees. Besides responding to the needs of the
Government like other good citizens at the time of the war
he did much additional work as a member of the oil and
gas committee at Mannington in Marion County.

Mr. Reardon married at Mannington in 1903, Miss Maude
Lemmons, who was born near Jollytown, Greene County,
Pennsylvania. They have three children: William H.,
born July 12, 1905, in the second year of the Jacksonburg
High School; Beulah N., born December 4, 1906, in her
first year in high school; and Lillian, born June 28, 1908,
in the seventh grade of the public schools.


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