Preston County, West Virginia Biography of A. STALEY SHAW 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. 552-553 Preston A. STALEY SHAW, justice of the peace for the Portland District and former sheriff of Preston County, has lived prac- tically all his life in the Terra Alta community and has been a prominent figure therein. He was born near Albright in that county April 6, 1845. His grandfather, Benjamin Shaw, was born in the north of Ireland, and identified himself with Preston County consider- ably more than a century ago. He lived out his life here as a farmer and married Mary Martin, daughter of Daniel Martin, another representative of one of the oldest of Preston Coun- ty's families. Benjamin and Mary Shaw had one son, William Shaw, and by a second marriage Benjamin Shaw had other descendants. William Shaw was born in Preston County December 10, 1812, and grew up on Muddy Creek in the locality of Valley Point. There were few and limited schools during his youth, and his own knowledge of books was meager, though he be- came a man of practical industry. He. married Sarah Gibbs, and they lived on the Gibbs farm near Terra Alta. Her father, Aaron Gibbs, came into Preston County and married here, and spent his life as a farmer near Terra Alta. William Shaw died in August, 1891, surviving his wife just six weeks. He was reared a democrat, but from the time of the Civil war until his death was a republican and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His children were: Nancy A., who was first married to A. P. Jenkins and then to David Wolfe and died near Cranesville in Preston County; Mary, who was married to Garret T. White and died in Terra Alta; Sarah A. who was first married to J. W. Chidester and then to J. H. Rigg, and died just east of Terra Alta; and A. Staley. A. Staley Shaw was a pupil in the early schools of the locality where the family lived, all of his education being acquired in subscription schools. He responded to the call for militia at the time of the Civil war, but did not serve away from the home locality. His tasks and responsibilities were with the home farm until he was twenty-four, when he married, and then remained at the old homestead as a farmer. Subsequently he bought a farm nearby, and continued his career as a practical man of agriculture until 1912. At the death of his wife he turned over the farm management to his sons. Squire Shaw, as he is generally known, has for many years been a useful factor in the public service of the county. In 1877 he was made deputy under Sheriff F. M. Ford, and served throughout that term. In 1884 he was elected high sheriff as successor of Elisha Thomas. He made the campaign as a republican, with which party he affiliated from the casting of his first vote. He won the nomination and convention as one of four candidates, and is now the only one of the four still living in the county and the oldest living ex-sheriff. His service from 1884 to 1888 was a rather peaceful and law abid- ing period, only one murderer being tried and only eleven persons being taken to the penitentiary at Moundsville while he was sheriff. On leaving this office Squire Shaw resumed farming, but soon afterward answered another call to public duty, when he was elected to the County Court as successor of Commissioner J. P. Jones. He was president of the County Board and served four years. During this time the county purchased the poor farm. In 1916 he was elected justice of the peace of Portland District, succeeding Squire Grant Whitehair, and in 1920 he was re-elected and is now serving his second term. On May 27, 1869, Squire Shaw married near Newburg, Sarah A. Jones. She was born in Staffordshire, England, February 16, 1844, and was thirteen years of age when her parents, Thomas and Sarah (Whitehouse) Jones, came to America and settled in Preston County, living on Scotch Hill near Orrs, and in that community Sarah grew up and mar- ried. Her parents are buried at Newburg, and she was one of a large family of children. Mrs. Shaw died April 13, 1912, after forty-two years of married life. Of the children of Squire Shaw the oldest is Emma M., wife of M. H. Dodge, of Terra Alta, and they have a daughter, Edna L. The other two children are twin sons, William Roy and Thomas Ray, both farm owners near Terra Alta, but William R. is officiat- ing as principal of the Terra Alta High School, while Thomas is connected with the People's Store of Terra Alta. William R. married Edna Mayer and Thomas R. married Stella Smith, but neither has children. Judge Shaw since the age of twenty has been an active Methodist, serving in an official capacity in the church, for some years was a trustee and is the present church treasurer. His only fraternity is the Knights of Pythias, and he is a past chancellor of Alpine Lodge No. 35 at Terra Alta. Squire Shaw's first recollection of Terra Alta was when he was about five years of age and when his parents first moved to that community. It then contained its first log cabin, that of E. E. Alfred, who owned much if not all of the ground now embraced within the townsite. The old pioneer cabin has long since been destroyed and its owner died not far from the town he founded upon the mountain top of the Alleghanies in Preston County. In 1850, when the Shaw family settled there, the Baltimore & Ohio Railway was constructing its single track line through Preston County. Staley Shaw, now the venerable district justice, frequently witnessed the progress of the work and saw the diminutive locomotive puffing and struggling under its heavy drag of material until it passed on toward the West and then saw the introduction of freight and passenger traffic, observed its growth from decade to decade, the building of a second track and then a third one, the improvement of the roadbed by the replace- ment of the iron rail with the heavy steel rail, the superseding of the primitive engines and freight cars and passenger coaches by powerful, stronger and better ones, the introduc- tion of the Pullman and the dining car as the culmination of railroad equipment. Terra Alta was developing apace with these improvements as its main traffic artery, and it became a little metropolis marking the east entrance of West Virginia, a beacon light in the march of progress for several genera- tions. Judge Shaw is one of the few survivors of the old players on this human stage, and all who know him say that he has played well his part.