Biography of Fred Douglas Padbury

FRED DOUGLAS PADBURY is chief clerk for the Pocahontas
Fuel Company at Link Branch, McDowell County, the gen-
eral superintendent of the mining operations here being
Richard S. Whitehead, of whom individual mention is made
on other pages.

Mr. Padbury was born at Cooper, Mercer County, this
state, in the year 1893, and is a son of Joseph Henry and
Fannie (Pickering) Padbury. Joseph H. Padbury was born
in Shropshire, England, November 10, 1858, a son of Joseph
and Martha (Worten) Padbury, the father having been an
operator in an iron-rolling mill and having died when Joseph
H. was a child of eleven months. Joseph H. Padbury at-
tended school until he was fourteen years old, when he
entered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of carpenter
and joiner. He thus served seven years, according to the
old English rule, and he continued to work at his trade in
his native land until he was twenty-three years of age,
when, with the money which he won by defeating an English
champion in a foot race, he defrayed the expenses of his
voyage to the United States. He worked at his trade in
New York City about nine weeks, and then came to Cooper,
'West Virginia, and entered the employ of John Cooper, the
pioneer in coal mining in the Pocahontas field. From 1883
to 1886 Mr. Padbury had charge of all building and general
carpenter work for Mr. Cooper, who had married a sister
of Mr. Padbury. In 1886 he returned to New York, and in
the City of Brooklyn, that state, he followed his trade eight
years. He then returned to Cooper, West Virginia, where
he assumed charge of all construction and timber work about
the Cooper properties. He is now the only living pioneer
of the Pocahontas coal fields, he having been here at the
initiation of mining operations. Mr. Padbury is prom-
inently affiliated with the various bodies of the York and
Scottish Rites of the Masonic fraternity, in the latter of
which he has received the thirty-second degree, besides being
a member of the Mystic Shrine.

In 1886, in the State of New York, was solemnized the
marriage of Joseph H. Padbury and Miss Frances Picker-
ing, who likewise was born in England and who was thir-
teen years old when her father, Thomas Pickering, came
with the family to the United States. Mr. and Mrs. Pad-
bury became the parents of four children: Thomas Henry
died at the age of thirty-three years; Walter Leslie mar-
ried Myrtle Perdue and they reside at Graham, Virginia;
Mary is the wife of George K. Norman, of Coaldale, Mercer
County; and Fred D.) of this review, is the youngest of
the number.

After completing three years' work as a student in the
high school at Bramwell, Fred D. Padbury was for two
years in the employ of the Pocahontas Fuel Company. He
then completed an effective course in the Dunmore Business
College, Staunton, Virginia, in which he was graduated in
July, 1914. He then became pay-roll clerk for the Poca-
hontas Fuel Company at Maybeury, he having since been
advanced to the office of chief clerk and being in line for
that of superintendent.

 January 28, 1918, Mr. Padbury entered the United States
Army for service in the World war. He was first sent to
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, but about a week later was
transferred to Camp Jackson, South Carolina, where he
received four months' training. He passed the ensuing
three months at Camp Wadsworth, that state, and July 7,
1918, he sailed with his command for the stage of war. He
landed in Liverpool, July 21st, and from Southampton
crossed to La Havre, France, whence he went to the front.
He was at Somme during the entire conflict with the Hin-
denburg forces, and took active part in the constant fighting
that continued until the signing of the armistice, he having
been under fire for three months. November 15, 1918, he
went with his command to a rest camp in France, and on the
4th of March, 1919, he sailed for home. He landed in
Philadelphia on the 22d of that month, and two weeks later
received his honorable discharge at Camp Dix. Mr. Pad-
bury is affiliated with the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Corn-
mandery organizations of the Masonic fraternity, and he
and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South.

December 28, 1920, recorded the marriage of Mr. Pad-
bury and Miss Willie Gertrude Sale, daughter of Elsie and
Eunice Sale, of Mercer County, and they are popular
figures in the social life of their home community.


From The History of West Virginia, Old and New, page 48-49

Submitted by Valerie F. Crook <vfcrook@trellis.net>

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