Marion County, West Virginia Biography of Harry S. SANDS This biography was submitted by Joan Wyatt, E-mail address: 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 11 Page 180 Harry S. Sands One of the best filled professionals today is electrical engineering, due to the enormous development of applied electricity to nearly every phase of life and industry. Thirty years ago, however, the ranks of electrical engineers hardly sufficed to be considered a distinct profession. Harry S. Sands, of Wheeling, proprietor of the Sands Electrical and Manufacturing Company, is one of the veterans of the profession and has been an electrical contractor and engineer at Wheeling nearly thirty years. He was born at Fairmont, West Virginia, August 3, 1867, and his family has long been prominent in banking and the professional life of the state. His grandfather, Dr. William Sands, was a noted physician of his time, who spent his life at Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland. He was born at Annapolis in 1804 and died in Baltimore in 1879. His son, Joseph E. Sands, was born on a farm near Annapolis in 1838, spent his early life there and in Baltimore, and as a young man moved to Fairmont, West Virginia. He had extensive farming interests in that locality, and was also a banker, president for many years of the First National Bank at Fairmont. He died in Fairmont in 1913. He was independent in politics, and one of the foremost laymen of the Episcopal Church at Fairmont, serving as vestryman throughout the period of his residence there. He was also a member of the Masonic Order.Joseph E. Sands married Virginia Eyster at Fairmont, where she was born in 1838. She still lives on the old homestead farm near Fairmont. Her father, Dr. George Eyster, devoted the greater part of his life to the practice of medicine at Fairmont. The children of Joseph E. Sands and wife were: Lawrence E., who is president of the First National Bank of Pittsburgh; Sprigg, who was president of the Traders National Bank of Clarksburg, where he died at the age of forty years; Mrs. Lula Vandervort, who died in 1901, at Fairmont, where her husband, also deceased, was assistant cashier of the First National Bank; Harry S.; Oliver J., president of the American National Bank of Richmond, Virginia; Dr. William H., who under the strain of his excessive professional duties during the influenza epidemic lost control of his automobile and in the resulting accident was killed at Fairmont; Emily, wife of W.T.Hartman, a retired wholesale grocer at Fairmont; Anna, wife of H.W. Showalter, a prominent coal operator in the Morgantown District and a resident of Fairmont. Harry S. Sands attended the public schools at Fairmont, also the State Normal School there, and received his professional and technical training in Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. He was a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa Greek letter fraternity. After his university career he returned to Fairmont and for several years was engaged in installing mining machinery throughout that section. In 1894 he removed to Wheeling, where he established himself in business as an electrical engineer under the name Sands Electrical & Manufacturing Company This is not only one of the oldest but one of the most extensive firms of its kind in the state, and does a business throughout the Upper Ohio Valley. Mr. Sands is also president of the Carle Electrical Construction Company of Akron, Ohio, is vice president of the Engineering & Equipment Company of Wheeling, and is vice president and treasure of the Penn Mold & Manufacturing Company, a company manufacturing ingot molds in their factory at Dover, Ohio. He is a member of the executive committee of the Security Trust Company of Wheeling. Mr. Sands owns a town home at 209 South Front Street and a suburban residence in Brooke County, West Virginia. Another property, constituting something of a derversion from his profession, is a large stock farm in Ohio County, the specialty of which is the breeding of Holstein cattle. Mr. Sands is an independent in politics and has served as a member of the Wheeling City Council. He is a vestryman of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Country Club and the University Club of Wheeling. In 1892, at Baltimore, he married Miss Helen Turner, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Turner. ==== WV-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List ==== ********************************************************************** WV-FOOTSTEPS/USGENWEB NOTICE: These messages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. 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