Mingo County, West Virginia Biography of THOMAS HENRY HUDDY 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. 569-570 Mingo THOMAS HENRY HUDDY is one of the progressive business men of Williamson, Mingo County, where he is general manager of the Bailey and the Sudduth Fuel companies of Kentucky. Mr. Huddy was born at Redruth, Cornwall, England, on the 2d of February, 1871, and is a son of John and Mary (Glasson) Huddy, both likewise natives of Cornwall where they remained until coming to the United States. The father was identified with the Cornish mining industry dur- ing virtually his entire active career in his native land, and his father was a wholesale fish merchant. John Huddy died in 1905, at a venerable age, his wife having passed away when her son Thomas H., of this review, was thirteen years old. Her mother was born the same day as was Queen Victoria, and she survived this revered English sovereign. Of the children of John Huddy two sons and two daughters are living at the time of this writing, in 1921. Thomas H. Huddy acquired a rudimentary education in a kindergarten in his native land, and was about five years of age when he accompanied his mother and his two sisters to the United States and joined the father, who had come about two years previously and who was residing at Nelson- ville, Ohio. Thomas H. attended the public schools at Nelsonville until he was a lad of twelve years, when ho began service as a trapper boy in the mines of the Hocking Valley at that place. His vitality and effective service led to his rapid advancement, and by the time he had attained to his legal majority he had gained broad experience in connection with mining enterprise in the Hocking Valley, where he had been employed in various mines. At the age of seventeen years he came under the benignant influence of a Sunday school teacher, who inspired him with ambition for better things. His desire was to become a mine superin- tendent, and his ambition has been fully realized in later years. At the age of nineteen years he began to attend night school, and he has supplemented his early education further by reading and other self-discipline. At the age of twenty-two years Mr. Huddy left the parental home and became helper to a mine electrician. In nine months he was in charge of all machinery and repairs at the San Run Mine, and in 1895 he assumed the position of directing en- gineer with the Jeffrey Company, builders of mining machinery, at Columbus, Ohio. In this connection he had occasions to visit mining districts in all parts of the United States in the installing of electrical machinery. He was thus engaged seven years, and in the latter part of this period he acted also as advisory engineer of the sales de- partment of the business. In 1902 Mr. Huddy became superintendent of six mines in Central Pennsylvania fields, in Cambria County. He thus continued three and one-half years, and then entered the employ of the Ellsworth Colliers, a large corporation at llsworth, that state. The next year he accepted the position of superintendent with the George M. Jones Company of Ohio, and about two and one-half years thereafter he severed this connection to join the Pittsburgh & Buffalo Company at Cannonsburg, Pennsyl- vania, in the capacity of superintendent. Each of these changes represented an advancement, and about six months after taking the position at Cannonsburg he was offered a still better post, that of superintendent with the Bloomer Coal & Coke Company at Bloomer, West Virginia. He ac- cepted this proffer, and as the business of the concern expanded he was promoted general superintendent of the fifteen large mines of the company. June 12, 1920, Mr. Huddy resigned this responsible position to become general manager of the corporations designated in the opening paragraph of this sketch, and in each of these he is an equal stockholder with the other interested principals. While a resident of Boomer, Fayette County, this state, Mr. Huddy served as a member of the Board of Education. In national and state polities he is a republican, but in local affairs is independent of partisan lines. He is a director of the Montgomery National Bank at Montgomery, Fayette County. He and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Church, he is a member of the Kiwanis Club at Williamson, his home city, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. November 9, 1895, recorded the marriage of Mr. Huddy and Miss Belle Wallace, a native of Nelsonville, Ohio, her parents having been born in England. Mr. and Mrs. Huddy have one child, Ruth, born July 22, 1903.