Ohio County, West Virginia - Biography of Herschel Coombs Ogden

************************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced
in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must
obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal represen-
ative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with
proof of this consent.
************************************************************************

Submitted by Valerie Crook.

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 551
Ohio

HERSCHEL COOMBS OGDEN, publisher of the Wheeling Intel-
ligencer, is one of the most successful newspaper men in
West Virginia.

He was born at Worthington, West Virginia, January 12,
1869, son of Presley Benjamin and Mary Ellen (Coombs)
Ogden. He was educated in the Fairmont State Normal
School and graduated A. B. from West Virginia University
in 1887. He soon afterward entered the newspaper business,
and in 1890 established the Wheeling News. He made the
News the first permanently successful evening paper in
Wheeling, and still continues the active head as secretary
of the News Publishing Company.

In 1904 Mr. Ogden purchased the Wheeling Intelligencer,
which has been an institution in the life of Wheeling and the
upper Ohio Valley sin.ce prior to the Civil war. Mr. Ogden is
secretary of the Intelligencer Publishing Company. Besides
the heavy responsibility involved in the managements of
these two leading papers of Wheeling he is the principal owner
and director of a number of other daily newspapers.

Mr. Ogden holds two honorary degrees, LL. D. from
Bethany College and D. C. L. from West Virginia Wesleyan
College. For years he has been an influential figure in repub-
lican politics in West Virginia. He is a member of the Epis-
copal Church, the University, Masonic, Wheeling Country
and Fort Henry Clubs. On October 15, 1890, he married
Mary Frances Morehouse of Brownsville, Pennsylvania.