Biography of Johnson H. Lilly

JOHNSON H. LILLY, one of the leading business men and
citizens of Princeton, laid the basis of his business career
as proprietor of a portable sawmill industry, but for a
number of years past has been at the head of a real estate
organization at Princeton that has played a prominent part
in the constructive development of that city.

Mr. Lilly was born at Camp Creek, West Virginia, De-
cember 4, 1877, and is of French ancestry. His parents,
Daniel and Mahala (Wood) Lilly, were both born in West
Virginia. His father is a farmer and for many years has
been a leader in the Primitive Baptist Church and is church
clerk at the present time.

Johnson H. Lilly attended the common schools, and his
subsequent achievement was the result of an active contact
with the world of affairs and men. He began earning his
own living at the age of eighteen, and for eleven years he
was proprietor of and operated a portable sawmill plant.
During that time he cut approximately 25,000,000 feet of
lumber. When he gave up the sawmill business he located at
Princeton, about 1906, and began the buying and selling of
real estate. Out of these operations he has since organized
and incorporated the Lilly Land Company, of which he is
president and general manager, with H. E. DeJarnett as
secretary and treasurer. This is an organization with all
the facilities for a general real estate business, but their
specialty is the subdivision of city property. Their opera-
tions in all departments have reached a value of more than
$500,000.

In 1899, at Dunn, West Virginia, Mr. Lilly married Sarah
E. Lilly, daughter of Lee H. and Elizabeth (Harvey)
Lilly, of West Virginia. They are a family distantly re-
lated to that of Mr. Lilly. Her parents were farmers and
her father was a soldier in the Civil war. The three children
of Mr. and Mrs. Lilly are: Pearl, born in 1900; Ernest,
bora in 1905; and June, born in 1920. Mrs. Lilly is a
member of the Primitive Baptist Church. Mr. Lilly was
one of the organizers and is a charter member of the Prince-
ton Country Club, is a member of the Princeton Business
Men's Club, and has been a member of the board of di-
rectors of the Bank of Princeton since 1918.


From The History of West Virginia, Old and New, page 47

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

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