Mingo County, West Virginia Biography of DAVID MOSSER GOOD This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: ********************************************** ***The submitter does not have a connection*** ********to the subject of this sketch.******** ********************************************** 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 II, pg. 589-590 Mingo DAVID MOSSER GOOD has achieved reputation and suc- cess in his professional work as a civil and mining en- gineer, and as a consulting engineer he has developed a substantial and representative business, with headquarters at the Hill Reservation, Williamson, Mingo County. Mr. Good was born at Ragersville, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, July 27, 1871, a son of David Mosser Good, Sr., and Elizabeth Ann (Shunk) Good, both of whom were natives of Pennsylvania and representatives of families early founded in that state. The father was born Decem- ber 12, 1812, and died at the age of seventy-three years. The mother was born in May, 1833, and passed to the life eternal in 1900. They became the parents of three sons and two daughters. David M. Good, Sr., followed the tanner's trade in his early manhood, and later became a hotel keeper, besides building up a substantial general merchandise business. He became one of the honored and influential citizens of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and there both he and his wife died. He whose name initiates this review attended the pub- lic schools of his native place until he was sixteen years of age, and in the meanwhile he had found employment at farm work, besides working at intervals in the livery and feed stable conducted in connection with his father's hotel. He was finally placed in charge of the livery barn, and thus continued until he was nineteen years old, when he took the position of masonry inspector in the office of the chief engineer of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad at Cincinnati, Ohio. A few months later he became rodman in connection with civil engineering service with this rail- road, and in the ensuing two years was located in turn at Alderson, West Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, and Thur- mond. West Virginia. By study and practical work he had in this period gained valuable experience in civil engineer- ing work, and in 1893 he entered the employ of L. W. Atkinson, a mining engineer at Thurmond, in the capacity of transit man. in June of the following year he became engineer for the Quinnimont Coal Company at Quinnimont, West Virginia, where the company was operating two coal mines, in the spring of the following year Mr. Good became associated with J. M. Clark, a contracting engineer at Kanawha falls, this state, but in the fall of the same year he again took the position of engineer of the Quinni- mont Coal Company. In 1898 he became mechanical drafts- man for the Covington Machine Company at Covington, Virginia, and while thus engaged he took a course in mechanical engineering through the medium of the Inter- national Correspondence School of Scranton, Pennsylvania. In 1900 Mr. Good once more became engineer of the Quinnimont Coal Company, and was also made its assistant superintendent. In 1902 he joined the War Eagle Coal Company, for which he had supervision of the entire work- ing plant for its four mines, and with which he continued as engineer for a period of eleven years. On the 28th of August, 1912, he established himself in independent busi- ness as a civil, mining and mechanical contract engineer, with residence and professional headquarters at William- son, and he is now mining and consulting engineer for the Williamson fuel Company, the War Eagle Coal Company, the Stone Mountain Coal Corporation, at Matewan; the White Star Mining Company, at Merrimac; the Sullivan Pond Creek Company, offices at Tralee; Triangle Coal Company, at Pinson, Kentucky; Sudduth Fuel Company, Bailey Fuel Company, Black Gem Coal Company and Carry-On Coal Company, all at Toler, KentucKy; Grey Eagle Coal Company, Grey Eagle, West Virginia; Webb By-Products Coal Company, at Webb, this state; Inspira- tion Coal Company, at Krum; Katona Coal Company, at Wayne; West Williamson Coal Company, at Williamson; Standard Thacker Coal Company, at Chattaroy; Burning Creek Coal Company, at Kermit. Mr. Good is president of the Good Construction Com- pany, which has been recently organized. His professional ability has further been demonstrated in his building of the suspension bridge at Matewan and the free public bridge across the Tug River at Williamson. In nearly all of the important mining companies with which he is associated, as noted above, Mr. Good has installed the operating plants, and he is financially interested in several of these corporations. During the World war period he gave effective service in promoting the various patriotic agencies in his home district and volunteered his services to the Government, the authorities deciding that his work could be of greater value in connection with fuel produc- tion than in military service, so that he continued his zealous activities in advancing coal production through the medium of the various companies with which he was con- nected at the time. He has the distinction of having been elected to full membership in the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. He is a republican in political allegiance, and he and his wife are active members of the First Presbyterian Church of Williamson, in which he is serving as an elder. March 24, 1889, recorded the marriage of Mr. Good and Miss Mary A., daughter of Frederick F. and Eliza- beth Snellenberger, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Good was born in Ohio, August 12, 1872. The names and respective birth dates of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Good are here recorded: Ethel Blanche, January 13, 1890; Vida Fern, May 15, 1892; William Earle, May 21, 1898; Orpha Elizabeth, February 15, 1903; and Margaret Alice, March 20, 1910. The only son, William E., was a student in the Virginia Polytechnieal Institute at the time when the nation became involved in the World war, and he there remained in study- ing for a commission after he had enlisted in the Marine Corps. Miss Ethel B. Good served as secretary of the local chapter of the Red Cross during the war period, and she still retains this position.