Marion County, West Virginia Biography of WILLIAM J. LEAHY, 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 III, pg. 540 Marion WILLIAM J. LEAHY, M. D. This family came from New England. William J. Leahy, M. D., a well known physician of Mannington, West Virginia, is the youngest son of John and Ellen (Lane) Leahy, of Ansonia, New Haven County, Connecticut. Both his paternal and maternal an- cestry were of Irish origin and were among the early settlers of that section of New England, famous as the seat of Yale University and for its numerous and diversi- fied manufacturing industries. The old homestead in which Doctor Leahy was born, October 23, 1876, is still occupied by his married brother and is located in the center of the residential section of that now thickly populated New England City. His father, who died January 19, 1922, at an advanced age, was by vocation a mechanical draughts- man and machinist. His mother died in September, 1901. Nearly all his male relatives were killed in the Civil war, being among the first to volunteer. His mother lost three brothers on the field of battle, only one brother, Capt. Maurice Lane, surviving the war. William J. Leahy attended the public school at Ansonia and completed his literary and scientific education in the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1899 he graduated as an honor man from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore. The following year he served as resident physician of the Maternity Hospital of Baltimore and the next year was tendered the appointment of superintendent of the Bay View Hospital in the same city. He declined this appointment in order to enter private practice. He passed the West Virginia State Board examination July 10, 1900, being one of the youngest graduates of medicine ever granted a license by this board. He immediately located in Mannington, where he has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession ever since. He is active in the affairs of his profession and entertains the most cordial relations with his brother practitioners. He is a member of the Marion County Medical Society, the West Virginia State Medical Society and the American Medical Associa- tion. He was president of the Mannington Medical So- ciety in 1910, and was re-elected president in 1911. In January, 1912, he was elected president of the Marion County Medical Society, being the first Mannington phy- sician to receive that honor. He served four years as city health officer. His investi- gation and public exposure of the deliberate contamination of the city water supply was an important step toward securing pure water for the city and improving the health conditions of its citizens. He has a fine general and professional library, and is a frequent visitor to the clinics of the largest medical cen- ters. Although located in a small city, he maintains a modern office, fully equipped and with a complete X-Ray and Fluoroscopic Laboratory in connection. He is a med- ical examiner for about twenty-five life insurance com- panies and fraternal orders, is surgeon to the Marion Win- dow Glass Company, and is a member of the surgical staff of Cook Hospital, Fairmont, West Virginia. He is heavily interested on Mannington city real estate, and owns a large, finely constructed modern office building in the center of the business section, a part of the Post Office Block. He is a member of the Mannington Build- ing and Loan Association, an organization of twenty-five of the leading business men of the city who are endeavor- ing to build enough good houses, in good locations, to sell at such fair prices as to encourage and increase the number of property owners and reduce the rents of all property to reasonable prices. Fraternally he is connected with the Elks, Knights of Columbus and several other organizations. He is a mem- ber of the Fairmont Country Club and the Allegheny and Cheat Mountain Hunting Club. Along with the duties and engagements of a busy physi- cian and surgeon Doctor Leahy has constantly exercised during his twenty-two years of residence there a helpful and hopeful influence in community affairs. His pro- gressive character as a citizen led to his election and serv- ice as president of the Mannington Chamber of Commerce during its existence. Almost as soon as elected he began an active advocacy of good roads building, and helped per- sonally as an organizer of public opinion in securing the adoption of a bond issue for the improvement of the county roads. After a strenuous fight a bond issue for $350,000.00 was carried and twenty miles of brick road built. Fair- mont district immediately followed with a bond issue for $450,000.00 and today as a result of that first campaign Marion County has nearly two million dollars worth of permanently improved roads. Since that time the entire state has awakened to the needs and benefits of improved roads and recently the state voted $50,000,000.00 for state highways, but to the Mannington Chamber of Commerce, of which he was the active, hard fighting president belongs the credit of being among the pioneer Good Roads Boosters in the State of West Virginia. He was successful in locating several industries in Mannington during his term, such as the large Marion Window Glass Company and the James Haggerty Cigar and Machine Company, both of which are still prosperous and busy additions to the in- dustrial life of Mannington. In 1899 he married Alice W. Golden, daughter of Hon. John and Cordelia Golden, of Washington, D. C. Mrs. Leahy died in 1918, no children surviving her. Shortly after her death he volunteered for service in the World war and was commissioned captain in the Medical Corps of the United States Army. Upon his return from service he resumed the active prac- tice of his profession. His strenuous public spirit and willingness to help others was not forgotten, and he was three times elected post commander of Millan Post No. 40, American Legion. He organized and built this post up to a big membership, the morale of which is wonderful and which has the well wishes and backing of every citizen of this community. He also organized a Women's Aux- iliary that has been of wonderful assistance. Upon his declining a renomination the 200 members of the Post presented him with an engraved Service Medal as a token of their appreciation of his services. At present he is engaged in an effort to perfect the local organization of Boy Scouts of America, and holds a com- mission as Scout Master of Troop No. 3. He welcomes this opportunity to aid this organization, since it has already "done much good, and will do more, for it is, in its essence, a practical scheme through which to impart a proper standard of fair play and consideration for others, and courage and decency to boys who have never been reached and never will be reached by the ordinary type of preaching, lay or clerical."