Clarence Watkins McCutcheon Bio
Monongalia Co. WV


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, the American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II, page 125

    Clarence Watkins McCutcheon, a civil and mining engineer of marked 
ability, is the executive head of the McCutcheon Engineering Company at 
Morgantown, Monongalia County, and is a young man who has to his credit a 
fine record of practical achievement in his profession.
    Mr. McCutcheon was born at Winona, Fayette County, West Virginia, on the 
27th of January, 1896, and is a son of John Floyd McCutcheon and Mary L. 
(Hagerman) McCutcheon, both of whom were born in Pulaski County, Virginia. 
Perry McCutcheon, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, 
likewise was a native of the Old Dominion commonwealth, the family lineage 
tracing back to stanch Scotch origin and the original American progenitors 
having settled in Virginia in the Colonial period of our national history. 
John Hagerman, the maternal grandfather of him whose name introduces this 
review, was one of five brothers who emigrated from their native Germany to 
the United States, four of the brothers settling in Western Maryland and 
establishing the settlement that eventually was developed into the present 
City of Hagerman, which perpetuates the family name. John, the youngest of 
the five brothers, settled in Virginia, and there he married Sarah Watkins 
Weigal.
    John Floyd McCutcheon was born in 1862, and his death occurred in 1898. 
He was actively engaged in mercantile business in West Virginia until within 
a few years of his death. His widow is now a resident of Morgantown and 
Clarence W., of this sketch is their only child.
    Clarence W. McCutcheon was about two years of age at the time of his 
father's death, and was about five years old when he accompanied his widowed 
mother on her removal from his native City of Winona to Richwood, Nicholas 
County, where he was afforded the advantages of the public schools, the 
discipline of which he later extended by about one year of study at 
Morris-Harvey College near Huntington, this state. He then entered Marshall 
College at Huntington, where he continued a student about one year, 
principally in high-school work, which likewise he had pursued in 
Morris-Harvey College. In 1911 he was graduated from the high school at 
Richwood, and thereafter he was for one year a student in the Concord Normal 
School of West Virginia. In 1914 he matriculated in the University of West 
Virginia at Morgantown, in which he was graduated December 18, 1917, he 
having been, however a member of the class of 1918 and having thus returned 
to the university to receive in that year his degree of Bachelor of Science 
and Civil Engineer.
    On New Year's Day of 1919 Mr. McCutcheon began practical service as a 
civil engineer at Kanawha Falls, and in June of that year he returned to the 
university for the reception of his degrees, with other members oh his class. 
He then entered the employ of the Monongahela Valley Engineering Company at 
Morgantown, and in the same year was assigned to the limited - service class 
in connection with the nation's entrance into the World War. In September 
1918 he became an instructor in the College of Engineering of the University 
of West Virginia, as a representative of war - preparation work, and there he 
continued in constructive field instruction service until after the signing 
of the historic armistice that brought the war to a close.
    After leaving the nation's service Mr. McCutcheon entered the employ of 
the Bertha Coal Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with headquarters in 
Morgantown, West Virginia, and he continued his professional and executive 
service with this company until September 1920, when he organized the 
McCutcheon Engineering Company, of which he is the executive head and which 
is developing a substantial and representative general engineering business 
in connection with industrial enterprise and public improvements in this 
section of the state.
    Mr. McCutcheon is affiliated with Morgantown Union Lodge No. 4, Ancient 
Free and Accepted Masons, and while in the university he was active in the 
affairs of "The Mountain" fraternity of that institution.
    October 1, 1919, recorded the marriage of Mr. McCutcheon with Miss Ada 
Margaret Pletcher, daughter of Mrs. Jemima Pletcher- Mulvihill. The one child 
of this union is a fine little son, Donald Pletcher McCutcheon, born 
September 12, 1920.