Marion County, West Virginia    Biography of Jacob Frederick STRAIGHT

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@trellis.net>, March 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 11-12

JACOB FREDERICK STRAIGHT, who maintains his residence
and business headquarters in the City of Fairmont, Marion
County, is a successful coal operator and dealer in coal lands
in this section of the state, and is a scion of the fifth generation
of the Straight family in this county, with whose civic and
material development and progress members of the Straight
family have been identified since the early pioneer days.

Mr. Straight was born at Barrackville, Marion County,
January 3, 1877, and is a son of William L. and Mary (Ice)
Straight. William L. Straight was born on a farm on Paw
Paw Creek, this county, and he was seventy-four years of
age at the time of his death in 1913. He was a son of Jacob,
who was a son of Peter, the latter having been a son of Jacob
Straight, the pioneer, who was killed by the Indians on the
Fort Hill farm on Straight's Run, about four miles from the
present city of Fairmont. Mary (Ice) Straight was born
at Barrackville, and, like her husband, continued a resident
of Marion County until her death, she having passed away
in 1913, at the age of sixty-seven years. She was a daughter
of William Bayles Ice and Dorothy (Straight) Ice, her father
having been born on Buffalo Creek, near Barrackville, on
the farm taken up by his father, Adam Ice, who was the first
white child born west of the Allegany Mountains in what
is now West Virginia. He was a son of Abraham Ice, one
of the very first settlers in the present Marion County.

Jacob F. Straight acquired his youthful education in the
public schools of Barrackville, and from the age of ten years
until he was about twenty years old he resided in the home
of his paternal uncle, Edgar P. Straight. He continued his
education by attending the State Normal School at Fairmont
several terms, and thereafter he was graduated in the
Mountain State Business College at Parkersburg. In 1900
he began work as clerk for the Fairmont Coal Company,
with which he continued his association until 1909, when
he resigned the position to which he had been advanced,
that of chief clerk of the billing department. He then
formed an alliance with William E. Watson and, under the
title of the Rosebud Fuel Company, they purchased a coal-
mining plant at Rosebud Station on the Short Line Railroad
to Harrison County. Two years later, in 1911, they pur-
chased also the mining property of the Monroe Colliery
Company, adjoining the original property, and the combined
output of the two mines averaged about 600 tons daily.
lu 1913 Mr. Straight became identified with the organization
of the Fairmont & Cleveland Coal Company, with mines an
Rivesville, Marion County, known as the Parker Run Minet
He contnued his connection with this corporation until.
January 1, 1919, when he sold the greater part of his holdings
to William E. Watson, who is now president of the Fairmont
& Cleveland Coal Company, the Rosebud Fuel Company's
property having been sold in 1917 to the J. M. McDonald
Coal Mining Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Straight
was secretary and treasurer of the Fairmont & Cleveland
Coal Company from its organization until January, 1919,
when he sold his interest therein, as noted above. At the
present time he is giving the major part of his time and atten-
tion to the buying and selling of coal lands in the Fairmont
and adjoining districts. Since January, 1919, he has been
a director of the Fairmont Trust Company. His capitalistic
resources when he came to Fairmont did not exceed $1,000,
and he is today rated as one of the substantial and successful
business men of this city. He still owns all of the land which
came to him as a heritage from his parents. He is a member
of the Fairmont Chamber of Commerce, is affiliated with
the local lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks and the Knights of Pythias of Fairmont, and he and his
wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South.

September 9, 1914, recorded the marriage of Mr. Straight
and Miss Ethel Stump, of Philippi, Barbour County, her
father, Marcellus Stump, being now a resident of Gilmer
County and her mother being deceased. Mr. and Mrs.
Straight have two children: Jacob P., Jr., born February
17, 1918, and William Marcellus, born February 9, 1919.