Logan County, West Virginia Biography of BERNARD SHELL 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. 571 Logan BERNARD SHELL. A modern coal mining district like Logan County requires an enormous aggregate of machinery and appliances used in the mines, in the surface equipment and for the handling and transportation of coal. For keeping this in order such a plant as that of the Guyan Machine Shops at Logan is one of the indispensable auxiliaries. This plant was established in 1913 by W. H. Oliver and Bernard Shell, and in 1914 the business was incorporated with Mr. Oliver as president, and Bernard Shell, a machinist and mechanical engineer of long and varied experience, as vice president and general manager. Mr. Shell was born at Eggleston, Giles County, Virginia, March 30, 1882, son of A. V. and Sallie Caroline (Burton) Shell, who were also natives of Giles County. His father, now sixty-five years of age, had his home at Graham, Virginia, for thirty-five years. He is a skilled mechanic, and for a number of years was boss blacksmith in the Norfolk & Western Railroad shops at Bluefleld, West Vir- ginia, held a similar position at Switchback for the Poca- hontas Consolidated Fuel Company, was then in charge of the shops of the New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Fuel Company at Berwind, West Virginia, taking charge there after his son Bernard moved to Logan, and in 1917 A. V. Shell came to Logan and is now general utility man in the Guyan Machine Shops. He is a Presbyterian and democrat, and his wife is a Methodist. They have two sons and four daughters, the other sons being Sidney Herbert, a resident of Graham, Virginia. Bernard Shell acquired his early education in the Graham public schools, and as a boy began learning the same trade as his father. He served, beginning at the age of fourteen, an apprenticeship in the Norfolk & Western Shops at Blue- field under his father, and on completing that apprenticeship began another as machinist at Switchback under James Jones. He completed this period of training in two and a half years, and then as a journeyman worked in many shops through Canada, the United States and Mexico. In 1908 he was appointed master mechanic of the Raleigh Coal and Coke Company at Raleigh, West Virginia, two years later took a similar position with the New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Fuel Company at Berwind, and left there in 1913 to join Mr. Oliver in establishing the Guyan Machine shop at Logan. These shops have had two consecutive fires, but each time the plant was built bigger and better. The business started on a small scale, has steadily grown and increased its facilities apace with the development of the coal fields and the Town of Logan. In the plant are all facilities for handling every class of repair to the me- chanical and electrical machinery used in mining, including armature winding. It is a business that gives employment to a large force of expert mechanics. Mr. Shell in 1913 married Bessie Berenice Bayless, daugh- ter of H. A. Bayless, of Berwind. Their three children are: Bernard Bayless, Bettie Ann and Robert Louis. Mrs. Shell is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Shell is affiliated with Logan Lodge of Masons, the Royal Arch Chapter at Logan, Wheeling Consistory of the Scottish Rite and Beni- Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston. He is also an Elk and in polities is a liberal democrat.