Mason County, West Virginia Biography of CHARLES K. BLACKWOOD This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the sketch subject. 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. 451-452 Mason CHARLES K. BLACKWOOD, a representative business man and progressive citizen of Point Pleasant, Mason County, is here president and treasurer of the Western Rivers Com- pany and secretary of the Point Pleasant Grocery Company, of which latter corporation adequate record is given in the personal sketch of its president, P. L. Evans, on other pages of this volume. The Western Rivers Company was founded in 1913, the interested principals in the organization thereof having been C. K. Blackwood, Homer Smith, J. S. Spencer, M. T. Epling and C. R. McCulloch. Mr. Blackwood became presi- dent and treasurer of the company and Mr. Epiing, its general manager. The original capital stock of $20,000 has been increased to $100,000. The company instituted opera- tions as a river-dredging concern, and with its dipper dredges did Important channel work for the United States Government. Derrick boats and other modern facilities were later added to the equipment, and the business of the company now includes general contracting in river im- provements, including rip-rap stone work, removing of ob- stacles to navigation, laying of gas mains across rivers, placing intake pipes for water works, erecting filtering cribs, etc. In 1920 the company instituted the conversion of its plant at Point Pleasant into a sand and gravel collect- ing outfit, and this department of the enterprise has since received major attention. On the 1st of January, 1922, J. F. McCullouch became general manager of the company, after purchasing the interest of his predecessor, Mr. Ep- iing. The company gives employment to an average corps of twenty-five men, operates a suction sand-digger of the best modern type, two derrick boats, one steamboat and six barges, all used exclusively in sand and gravel work. The sand and gravel thus removed by the company are utilized largely in the improving of roads and for commercial pur- poses. The company has facilities for the handling of 200,- 000 tons of sand and gravel annually, and the material ex- cavated is derived from virtually illimitable sources, so that its commercial value is certain to be appreciated for gener- ations to come. The material is nearly all granite, with some quartz, results from glacial action, while in the hills are to be found great deposits of the finest type of sand- stone. The rivers of this section produce in the ratio of two parts of gravel and one of sand-the most desirable combination for concrete work. Point Pleasant, at the month of the Kanawha River, which here debouches into the Ohio River, seems to supply the ideal combination for such purposes, localities nearer the head of the Ohio River lacking the requisite proportion of sand. Mr. Blackwood was born in Kanawha County, this state, on the llth of December, 1870. His grandfather, William Blackwood, came from Warren County, Virginia, to what is now Cabell County, West Virginia, in 1854, and here passed the remainder of his life. In that county his son William R. married Miss Henrietta Shelton, and in 1866 the young couple removed to Kanawha County, William R. Blackwood having previously served as a soldier of the Con- federacy in the Civil war and having been captured by the enemy in 1864. at Winchester, was held a prisoner until the close of the war. He became one of the success- ful farmers of Kanawha County, where his old home- stead is now owned by the Government and is the site of the wonderful industrial town of Nitro, there established for industrial production in connection with the nation's participation in the World war. William R. Blackwood died in 1897, and his widow remained on the old homestead un- til her death in 1917, at the age of seventy-five years. Their son Charles K., of this sketch, was born and reared on this old homestead, and his youthful education included a two years' course in a college at Barboursville. As a young man Charles K. Blackwood taught school two years, and for seven years thereafter he was employed in the office of a contracting company. He has been a resi- dent of Mason County for the past twenty-five years, was one of the organizers of the Point Pleasant Grocery Com- pany, of which he is still secretary, and to the affairs of which he gave his effective supervision for a period of ten years. He now centers his activities in his executive serv- ice as president and treasurer of the Western Rivers Com- pany. Mr. Blackwood is a stanch supporter of the principles of the democratic party, and was twice nominated by his party for representative in the House of Delegates of the State Legislature. He was for two terms a member of the Point Pleasant Board of Education, he is actively identi- fied with the Kiwanis Club in his home city, and here he and his wife are zealous communicants of Christ Church, Protestant Episcopal, he being a member of the vestry of this parish. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he is affiliated with the local Blue Lodge and Chapter, of the latter of which he is a past high priest, and at Point Pleas- ant also he is a past commander of Franklin Commandery No. 17, Knights Templars, his Mystic Shrine membership being in Beni-Kedem Temple in the City of Charleston. Mr. Blackwood wedded Miss Margaret L. Neale, daughter of the late E. L. Neale, who was a representative agricul- turist and stock-grower near Ben Lomond, Mason County. The early educational advantages of Mrs. Blackwood in- cluded those of the Lewisburg Female Seminary. Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood have two children: Neale. a member of the class of 1925 in the University of West Virginia, where he is taking an engineering course; and Attarah, who is at- tending the public schools of Point Pleasant.