Preston County, West Virginia Biography of William A. BEAVERS This file was submitted by Valerie Crook . 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 III, pg. 388-389 WILLIAM A. BEAVERS, president of the First National Bank of Grafton, is one of the most versatile business men in the state. He is a man who has thriven on hard work, and has remained unspoiled by prosperity. Since coming to Grafton his supporting energy has been a factor in the success of practically every organized movement for more business and more of the substantial facilities for growing city. Mr. Beavers was born near Rowlesburg in Preston County, May 4, 1870. His grandfather, Thomas Beaver was born and reared and married in the vicinity of Rowles- burg, and finally moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and died, when upwards of eighty years of age, at the home his son David in Kingwood, West Virginia. His son George W., David and Moses C., all remain in Preston County, while Coleman and Jacob are residents of Pitts- burgh, and Franklin is in Tucker County, West Virginia. The five daughters, Susan, Nancy, Hannah, Lizzie and Sarah, all live in Pittsburgh. George W. Beavers, father of the Grafton banker, was born on Buffalo Creek in Preston County in 1847. He had only the advantages of the common schools in that neigh- borhood, and he saw some service as an enlisted man in the Union army before the close of the Civil war, in Com- pany K, Sixth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. After moving to Tunnelton he became identified with the mer- cantile firm of Shaffer & Bonafield, and when they retired he entered merchandising for himself, and continued to sell goods until he gave up active business recently. He married Jennie Jones. Her father, Fielden R. Jones, was a native of Frederick County, Virginia, and spent his active career as a miller on Buffalo Creek, near Rowlesburg. The children of George W. Beavers and wife are: Charles, of Pittsburgh; William A.; Arthur, of Pittsburgh; Phil, of Tunnelton; and Clyde, of Pittsburgh. William A. Beavers was an infant when his parents re- moved to Tunnelton, and after a period of study in the common schools he entered the school of experience, from which he has not yet graduated. When he was nine years of age he began helping in the Tunnelton store of Shaffer & Bonafield. At that time he could scarcely reach the top of the counter. Eight years later Mr. Bonafield sent him to Kingwood to become clerk for the firm of Shaffer, Brown & Company, with whom he remained two years. He and William Faucett then became retail dealers in general merchandise under the firm name of Beavers and Faucett, purchasing the business of Bishop and Flynn. After two years they sold out, and Mr. Beavers then set up in general merchandising at Albright for a year, and after selling, established bis home at Terra Alta. During the next five years he was on the road as salesman over the territory east of Grafton for Buhl & Company, wholesale grocers. The next stage of his experience was his association with J. A. Pugh in the firm of Pugh & Beavers, each of the partners putting in a modest capital and working hard to develop a trade as wholesale grocers. Their enterprise prospered, and after a few years they bought the Morgan- town Grocery Company, but soon sold it to the General Distributing Company, which was then operating a chain of wholesale grocery houses in this region. Mr. Beavers and Mr. Pugh remained with the firm, but soon became dissatisfied, and they bought back the Terra Alta house and the Grafton Grocery Company, reorganizing their busi- ness as the Pugh & Beavers Grocery Company. This com- pany soon bought the Randolph Company at Elkins from the same people, incorporating it also in the Pugh & Beavers Grocery Company. These several wholesale and jobbing plants they continued until recently, the Terra Alta house being sold in 1918 and the Elkins house a year later. Mr. Beavers has been a business man and resident of Grafton since 1905, in which year he removed from Terra Alta. In addition to his wholesale business his interests have rapidly extended to banking and to financial and official connections with a large number of successful busi- ness concerns. He became a stockholder in the Terra Alta Bank, and when the First National Bank of that place was organized he soon took stock and became a director. He is still one of the stockholders. He is a stockholder in the Tunnelton Bank, the Taylor County Bank at Grafton, the Flemington Bank, Clarksburg Trust Company, Mer- chants National Bank of Clarksburg, the Fairmont State Bank and is financially interested in a number of other business concerns. He is a stockholder and director of the Piedmont Grocery Company and a director of the Tygarts Traction Company. Mr. Beavers was elected a director of the First National Bank of Grafton upon the death of Mr. Malonee, and on the death of Mr. Reynolds, who succeeded Mr. Malonee as president, Mr. Beavers was elected presi- dent of the bank about five years ago. This bank is one of the largest and most substantial financial institutions in the state, has capital of $100 000, surplus and undivided profits of $330 000, and its deposits have -increased during the presidency of Mr. Beavers from $1,200,000 to $2 500,- 000. The bank has paid steady dividends from the start, and for several years has paid twenty per cent annually. It has been noted as a paradox that the busiest men fre- quently have the most time for matters outside business. Throughout his residence at Grafton Mr. Beavers has been a worker in the city's destiny. He early became a director of the Chamber of Commerce, is a director of the West Virginia Wholesale Grocers Association, is president of the Boy Scout Council, one of the board of trustees of Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church and superintendent of the Sunday school, and was for four years a member and four and a half years president of the Grafton Board of Education, retiring from that office in July, 1921. While he was a member the city high school was con- structed, equipped and furnished at a cost of $115,000, a figure that was a gratifying evidence to the taxpayers that an important work of this kind could be completed as effi- ciently and economically as a similar work for private individuals. Other improvements in school systems during the same period included the installation of new toilets in all the seven schools, and the general elevation of the standard of school work. During the World war Mr. Beavers was chairman of the County Council of Defense, chairman of the Four-Minute Men, and the fact that the county went far "over the top" in every drive showed how thoroughly Taylor had been organized among the counties of the state. Mrs. Beavers was a leader in the advisory and other work of the Bed Cross, being a committee chairman. Mr. Beavers is a past vice president of the Rotary Club. He was reared in a republican home, cast his first vote for presi- dent for Benjamin Harrison, but outside of local and mu- nicipal affairs he has never entered politics as a candidate. Soon after moving to Grafton Mr. Beavers entered upon his Masonic career, is a member of Mystic Lodge No. 75, A. F. and A. M., Copestone Chapter No. 12, R. A. M., De Molay Commandery No. 11, is a past eminent com- mander of Grafton Commandery, a member of West Vir- ginia Consistory No. 1 at Wheeling, and has been assistant director for many years in the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling and recently has been appointed director of the class. In Preston County, September 10, 1891, Mr. Beavers married Miss Ethel Gertrude Field, who was born in Penn- sylvania in May, 1871. Her father, A. E. Field, was a lumberman who moved from Pennsylvania to Preston County. Mrs. Beavers finished her education in West Vir- ginia Normal School and taught two years in Preston County. With her husband she has been associated with the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the For- eign Missionary Society, of which she is president, is the third largest organization of the kind in the Morgantown district. She is a past worthy matron of the Eastern Star, and during her time of office organized the Eastern Star Club. Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Beavers: Jessie, who is now the wife of Dr. Howard T. Phillips, of Wheeling, West Virginia, and they have a son, Howard T., Jr. The daughter, Bernice, died at the age of sixteen. William A. Beavers, Jr., is a student in the Grafton High School. The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Beavers is a generous home, substantial in its comforts, but without any effort at ornateness or display. It is a family home where deep human sympathy abounds and where genuine friend- ships are exchanged. In an important sense this home is the culmination of the career of a man who started life as a boy with complete poverty of all those resources outside of human character and striving ambition.