Mineral County, West Virginia    Biography of Roy E. WISEMAN

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@trellis.net>, July 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. 193

ROY E. WISEMAN spent eight years of his young life in
the service of the Western Maryland Railroad, as agent
and Telegrapher, and was still under thirty when he was
nominated and elected assessor of his native county of
Mineral. He is one of the most popular men in the county
seat at Keyser.

Mr. Wiseman was born near Elkgarden in Mineral
County, November 12, 1892.  His grandfather, Dolphus
Wiseman, came to West Virginia from New York State,
and devoted his active life to farming. He died about
1895, at the age of eighty-eight. He had only one son,
the late John Wiseman, who was born in New York and
was brought to West Virginia when a child. He served
as a Government teamster for the Union army during the
Civil war. Otherwise his years were devoted to his farm
near Elkgarden, where he died in January, 1917, at the age
of seventy-six. He married Ann Nethken, daughter of
Frederick Nethken and of Danish ancestry. Their children
were:   Charles L., of McCool, Maryland; John H., a
photographer who died unmarried when a young man;
James T., of Elkgarden; Frederick P., who enlisted in
the regular army about the close of the Spanish-American
war, and during his three years' service made a trip around
the world, and is now a resident of Luke, Maryland; Bertie
C., wife of Stephen C. Green, of Elkgarden; and Roy
Edgell, who is the youngest child. The mother of these
children is still living at the old homestead of Elkgarden,
at the age of seventy-two. She is a member of the Southern
Methodist Church and comes of a democratic family, while
her sons are equally divided in politics, two of them demo-
crats and two republicans.

Roy E. Wiseman grew up on the farm, and had a part
in its affairs until he was seventeen. He attended public
school there, and he began learning telegraphy in the Elk-
garden station of the Western Maryland Railroad Company
under the regular agent. After completing his period of
training his first assignment to regular duty was at the
lumber town of Dobbin, West Virginia. He went on the
company pay roll in 1910, and when he resigned in 1918
he had done duty at twenty-three stations along the West-
ern Maryland system, including a position for a time in
the main office at Cumberland, and was classed as one
among the fastest and best operators on the railroad.

When he left the railroad service Mr. Wiseman returned
to farming, and for two years was a producer of food stuff
in Mineral County. It was about this time that he became
an aspirant for the office he now holds. In the primaries of
1920 he entered the field in which five other men sought
the same office. He won the nomination by five votes over
his nearest competitor, and as a republican was elected over
his opponent by more than 800 votes. He entered upon his
official duties at Keyser in January, 1921, as the successor
of A. H. Metcalf. His first county assessment showed a
gross gain of approximately $360,000, and the second year
showed a gross gain of more than $3,000,000.

Mr. Wiseman was one of the promoters of the Elk Dis-
trict Highway, now under improvement and construction,
running from Blaine, West Virginia, to the intersection of
the Northwestern Turnpike. He is unmarried. During the
World war he was not called into service, due to his railroad
service, but he registered and was placed in the first class
of drafted men.

Fraternally he was made a Mason at Piedmont, West
Virginia, in 1915, a member of Mount Carbon Lodge No.
28, and has since become a member of the Scottish Rite
Consistory No. 1, Wheeling, the Royal Arch Masons at
Keyser and Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine, is a member
of the Eastern Star, is a past chancellor of the Knights of
Pythias and a member of the Pythian Sisters, has taken
both the subordinate and encampment degrees of Odd Fel-
lowship and is a Rebekah. He is a member of the Potomac
Shriner Club of Keyser.