Samuel Allen Phillips
Monongalia Co. WV


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II
pg 91


Samuel Allen PHILLIPS is one of the representative business men and loyal and 
progressive citizens of Morgantown, Monongalia County, and takes lively 
interest in all that touches the welfare of this city, the seat of the 
University of West Virginia. 

He was born at Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania, August 15, 1876, a 
son of James E. B. and Anna M. (Engle) Phillips. The father was born in 
Whitley Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania, in 1855, of Welsh lineage, and 
was but a boy at the time of his father's death. 

After his mother contracted a second marriage young James left home, and most 
of his early life thereafter was passed in and about Masontown, Pennsylvania. 

His marriage occurred at Waynesburg, that state, and after there working a 
few years in a planing mill he engaged in mercantile business at Sycamore in 
the same county. After selling this business he engaged in quarrying stone in 
the same county, and after selling his quarries he returned to Waynesburg and 
entered the employ of the Waynesburg & Washington Railroad Company. He 
continued his active connection with railroad service twenty six years, and 
in 1911 he retired from his position, that of conductor, and assumed charge 
of a moving-picture theater, of which his son Samuel A. was part owner, at 
Grafton, West Virginia. 

Later he became chief of the police department of Grafton, and while in the 
discharge of his official duties as such he was killed by an assassin, Jacob 
Lutz, February 10, 1919. The assassin was later convicted of murder in the 
first degree, after two trials, and July 22, 1921, expiated his crime on the 
gallows in the State Penitentiary of West Virginia at Moundsville. 

Mrs. Anna M. (Engle) Phillips was born at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, in 1858, 
a daughter of Solomon Engle, of English ancestry. Mrs. Phillips still 
maintains her home at Grafton. Of the children the eldest, David C., still 
resides in his native City of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania; Samuel A., of this 
sketch, was next in order of birth; William died in infancy; George W. 
resides at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and is baggage master on the 
Monongahela division of the Pennsylvania railroad; Joseph H. resides with his 
widowed mother at Grafton, West Virginia; and Mrs. Mary Blood resides at 
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania