Marion County, West Virginia Biography of Samuel Dunlap BRADY This file was submitted by CJ Towery, 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, pages 224-225 SAMUEL DUNLAP BRADY, an influential operator who is one of the prominent representatives of the West Virginia coal mining industry at Fairmont, Marion County, was born at Bradys, Maryland, in 1869, a son of the late John Copsey Brady and Caroline (Seymour) Brady. The father was born at Mountain View, Bradys, Maryland, April 29, 1843, and his death occurred July 10, 1906. He was a son of Samuel Dunlap Brady and Susan Foreman (Parsons) Brady, born respectively April 1, 1798, and March 4, 1809, the death of the former having occurred January 18, 1870. Caroline (Seymour) Brady was born November 17, 1844, and died December 31, 1905. She was a daughter of Felix Renix Seymour, born February 1, 1810, and died November 7, 1887, and Elizabeth Ann (Welton) Seymour, born April 17, 1815, and died May 1, 1885. The Seymour family was early established in that part of Hampshire County, Virginia, that now constitutes Mineral County, West Virginia. John C. Brady came to West Virginia in 1888 and established the family home in Mineral County, where he was engaged in farm enterprise until his death, both he and his wife having been earnest members of the Presbyterian Church. Following is a succinct record of the business career of Samuel D. Brady of this review: May-October, 1886, rodman with Piedmont & Cumberland Railroad; October, 1886, to June, 1887, and October, 1887, to June, 1888, student of engineering at Allegany County Academy; June to October, 1887, rodman and leveler on construction; and June, 1888, to July, 1892, levelman, transitman and assistant engineer on preliminary location and construction, West Virginia Central & Pittsburgh Railroad; July, 1892, to January, 1893, chief engineer, Beaver Creek Railroad (seven miles of location and construction work) ; January to August, 1893, assistant engineer on (forty miles location) Baltimore & Cumberland Railroad; August, 1893, to May, 1894, in practice as civil engineer at Davis, West Virginia; May, 1894, to January, 1895, assistant mining engineer Davis Coal & Coke Company; January to July, 1895, mining engineer; July, 1895, to December, 1897, cheif engineer, Davis Coal & Coke Company (developing coal property, designed coal tipples, coke ovens, electrical haulage, air and electric mining machines, and constructed and placed same in operation); November, 1897, to July, 1898, in general practice as civil and mining engineer (designed and installed large coal plants in West Virginia); July, 1898, to May, 1899, lieutenant in Third United States Volunteer Engineers in Spanish-American war, stationed at Cienfluegos, Cuba, his work consisting of harbor sounding and assisting in coast and topographical surveys; May, 1899, to November, 1901, member of firm of S. D. Brady & Brother, consulting, civil and mining engineers, Clarksburg, West Virginia (designing, prospecting and developing coal properties and railroads, also a member of the staff of West Virginia Geological Survey); November, 1901, to March, 1915, chief engineer of Little Kanawha Railroad (seventy miles heavy construction and thirty miles maintenance), Zanesville, Marietta & Parkersburg Railroad (sixty-nine miles location and construction) Parkersburg Bridge & Terminal Railroad (eleven miles location and construction), Marietta, Columbus & Cleveland Railroad (sixty miles location and construction), Burnsville & Eastern Railroad (sixty miles location), Buckhannon & Northern Railroad (eighty miles location and construction); all of above work being branches and extensions of the Wabash Railroad System in West Virginia and Ohio known as the Little Kanawha Syndicate. This was part of the George Gould and Joseph Ramsey scheme of connecting up a coast to coast trans-continental line, on which all construction work was abandoned in 1903 on account of the lack of finances. Through Cool J. M. Schoonmaker about 1913 the Little Kanawha Syndicate properties were sold to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company, a New York Central interest, and afterward the ownership was divided, with the Pennsylvania Railroad owning one-fourth interest, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad one-fourth, and the New York Central owning the other half. Soon afterward the Baltimore & Ohio interests were purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad interests. The construction of the line known as the Buckhannon & Northern Railroad was completed to Fairmont on November 24, 1914. The Buckhannon & Northern Railroad and the Monongahela Railroad were consolidated under the name of the Monongahela Railway, and that part of the line was placed in operation in West Virginia, September 1, 1915. From 1903 to 1915 Mr. Brady was chief engineer and in charge of construction of the Buckhannon & Northern Railroad Company, one of the Little Kanawha Syndicate properties, and the only line which was partly constructed paralleling the west bank of the Monongahela River from the West Virginia-Pennsylvania state line through the counties of Monongalia and Marion to Fairmont, West Virginia, thereby opening up and developing the Pittsburgh and Sewickley vast coal deposits lying west of the Monongahela River. During this period Mr. Brady was senior member of the firm of S. D. Brady & Brother, consulting engineers and president of the Brady Construction Company. In 1914 he he established his residence in Fairmont, and he is here president of the Brady Coal Corporation, the Darby Coal Company and the Brazell Coal Company; vice president of the Forest Coal Company; vice president of the Diamond Coal Company; director and one of the organizers of the Fairmont State bank; chief engineer of the Little Kanawha Syndicate Lines, which own and control about 100,000 acres of coal land in West Virginia; and chief engineer of the Green River Coal Mining Company of Kentucky. From 1915 up to the date the Government took over all railroads after America's entrance into the World war, Mr. Brady was consulting engineer of the Monongahela Railway. Mr. Brady holds membership in the following organiza-tions: American Society of Civil Engineers; American Railroad Engineers Society; Fairmont Rotary Club; International Association of Rotary Clubs; Fairmont Chamber of Commerce, in which he is a director; Fairmont Y. M. C. A. (a director); Morgantown Country Club; a director of the Fairmont Country Club; Fairmont Shrines Club; Allegheny Club; Cheat Mountain Club; and Trough Club. He has received the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite Masonry and is a member of the Mystic Shrine and the Elks. After the Spanish-American war Mr. Brady became a member of the West Virginia National Guard and was appointed by the governor of the state engineering officer on the Brigade Staff, with the rank of major. Mr. Brady married Anna Zell, daughter of Robert H. and Mary (Harness) Zell, the former a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and the latter of Grant County, West Virginia, Mrs. Brady having been born at Cumberland, Maryland. Mr. and Mrs. Brady have two sons, Samuel Dunlap, Jr., born August 10, 1899, was graduated from Cornell University in 1921 as a civil engineer and was there a member of the Students Army Training Corps during the last year of the World war. James Zell, born August 5, 1901, attended the Northwestern Military Academy, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and the Peddie Institute in New Jersey, and 1922 is attending the University of West Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Brady also had one daughter, Margaret Louise Brady, who was born April 5, 1904, and died April 3, 1914.