Logan County, West Virginia Biography of WILLIAM F. FARLEY, M. D. 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. 576 Logan WILLIAM F. FARLEY, M. D., of Holden, Logan County, has been engaged in the successful practice of his pro- fession in this county for nearly thirty years, and. has special prestige as a physician and surgeon in important service in connection with coal-mining industry in this section of the state. The doctor is one of the honored, influential and progressive citizens of the county, and in 1922 is serving his second term as president of the County Court. Doctor Farley was born at a point near the mouth of Pond Creek, in Pike County, Kentucky, on the 19th of February, 1866, and is a son of Thomas and Nancy (Pil- son) Farley, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of Kentucky. Thomas Farley as a member of the Third Virginia Regiment served as a gallant soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war, he having been in the com- mand of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson at the time when that intrepid officer met his death in battle, and he served also in the command of General Lee, with whose forces he was at Appomattox at the time of the final surrender. Thomas Parley became a substantial farmer in what is now Logan County, West Virginia, and here he served as justice of the peace and also as county assessor. Doctor Farley gained his early education in the schools of Pike County, Kentucky, and Logan County, West Vir- ginia. After leaving the high school at Pikesville, Ken- tucky, he was for ten years a successful teacher in the public schools of Logan County, West Virginia, and in the meanwhile he determined to prepare himself for the medical profession. In 1893 he graduated in the medical depart- ment of the University of Louisville, Kentucky, and after thus receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he was for ten years established in the successful practice of his profession at Logan, judicial center of Logan County. Upon the organization of the United States Coal & Oil Company in 1903 Doctor Farley became its official physician and surgeon at Holden, and under its reorganization as the Island Creek Coal Company he has continued in charge of the medical and surgical service of all of its mines and incidental operations, besides having executive management of the excellently equipped and thoroughly modern hospital which the company established at Holden, the building having been erected and its equipment installed under the personal supervision of Doctor Farley. This hospital, which was erected in 1907, has accommodations for fifty patients. In the war period, when work at the coal mines was brought up to the maximum production, Doctor Parley found exigent demands upon his time and attention in this connection, but he found opportunity also to give effective service as a member of the Logan County Medical Exam- ing Board in connection with the drafting of soldiers, and also to give vital aid in the advancing of the various pa- triotic enterprises and movements in the county. The doctor has taken two effective post-graduate courses in the medical department of his alma mater, the University of Kentucky, and a similar course at Miami Medical Col- lege, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is an active and valued member of the Logan County Medical Society, and is identified also with the West Virginia State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He has completed the circle of both the York and Scottish Rites of the Masonic fraternity, in the former of which his maximum affiliation is with the Commandery of Knights Templars at Logan, and in the latter of which he has received the thirty-second degree, besides which he is a member of the Mystic Shrine, Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Improved Order of Red Men. His religious faith is that of the Baptist Church, and his wife holds membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1904 Doctor Farley wedded Miss Matewood Moore, daughter of F. R. and Belle (O'Brien) Moore, of Louisa, Kentucky, and the three children of this union are Mildred, Thomas Frederick and Elizabeth. The elder daughter is, in 1922, a student in Chatham Institute at Chatham, Virginia, and the two younger children are attending the public schools at Holden. The doctor is unwavering in his alle- giance to the democratic party and, as previously noted, is president of the County Court. He is a grandson of John Farley and a descendant of one of the three Farley brothers who came from their native Ireland and became early settlers in the Kanawha Valley, in what is now West Virginia. Doctor Farley has five brothers who likewise are physicians, and are individually mentioned on other pages of this work.