Preston County, West Virginia Biography of Allen FORMAN This file was submitted by Tina Hursh, 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. 363 Allen Forman. The activities and service by which he has become so well known and esteemed in the Amboy community of Preston County have been extended over the nearly half a century Allen Forman has lived there. He has passed the age of three score and ten, but is still attending to his interests as a farmer and lumberman. Mr. Forman, who is widely known over Preston County on account of his long service on the County Court, was born near Brandonville May 30, 1845. His grandfather, Samuel Forman, came to Preston County, Pennsylvania and settled in the woods at Brandonville, transforming by his labors an unproductive tract into a fruitful farm. He was a member of the Quaker Church and was probably buried in the Quaker Cemetery at Brandonville. By his marriage to Miss Willett he had the following children: Jesse, Ellis, James, Abner, Richard, Hannah, who married John Spurgeon, Anna, who married Alexander Harvey, and Deborah, who married James Harvey, brother of Alexander. It was perhaps due to their Quaker connections that none of these sons became soldiers in the Civil war. Richard Forman, father of Allen Forman, was born in the Brandonville community and though reared a Quaker he united with the Methodist denomination after his marriage. He had only the advantages of the country schools, and his active years were spent in farming. He died in 1892, at the age of seventy-three. He was a democrat, though he voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. About 1875 he moved to the Amboy locality, and is buried at Carmel Church, near there. His wife, Nancy Fike, was a daughter of Jacob Fike, and she reached the age of eighty-one. Their children were: Allen; Elma, who married Rev. Henry J. Boatman and died in California; James, of Terra Alta; Lewis J., a lawyer at Petersburg, West Virginia; and Lloyd, proprietor of the Forman Surgical Hospital at Buckhannon. Allen Forman attended the common schools, the Brandonville Academy, and his labors were given to the home farm until after his marriage. In 1875 he located on the farm he now owns and occupies at Amboy. He arrived there with $500 which his father had paid him in wages, and he used this capital in making his first payment on the land, and finished paying for his farm on the installment plan. Fifty acres have been cleared, and since he took possession a similar area has been made ready for crops. On this farm he has grown both grain and stock, and for the past thirty years has also supplemented his business as a manufacturer of lumber on a small scale. He and his sons now operate their mill in partnership, and their product made from local timber supply is largely used by the local trade, though to some extent shipments have been made outside the county. Mr. Forman became a member of the County Court as successor of Julius Scheer, representing Union District. Among other colleagues during his long service there were Jehu Jenkins and A. Staley Shaw. He served four straight terms of two years each, and then, after an intermission, was again elected, and had ten years of service to his credit when he retired. The principal work during his term was building roads and bridges, and providing for the poor, but he county had not entered upon the program of permanent highway construction until the last term he was on the board. Mr. Forman cast his first presidential ballot for General Grant in 1888, and has been aligned with that party ever since. In former years he was frequently a delegate to county, senatorial and congressional conventions. He has served as a trustee of the Aurora Methodist Church. Mr. Forman has practically all his business interests concentrated on his farm and in his lumber mill, but is also one of the stockholders and a director of the First National Bank of Terra Alta. In Preston County May 30, 1873, he married Miss Carrie Forquer. She was born at Brandonville January 22, 1848, daughter of Samuel and Isabel (McGrew) Forquer. Her mother was a daughter of Colonel James McGrew, representing one of the pioneer families of this section of the state. The original McGrew came from New Jersey to Comberland, Maryland, in pioneer time. Samuel Forquer and wife had four children: Leroy, who served as a Union soldier and is now living in Pennsylvania; Mattie, who married Harry Smith and lives in Morgantown; Mrs. Forman; and Dayton M., a farmer near Brandonville. Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Forman the oldest is Alletta, of Terra Alta, widow of John C. Mayer; Charles H., the oldest son, is associated with his father in the lumber industry at Amboy; Arthur Dayton, a farmer near Amboy, married Myrtle Mason, and their children are Eleanor, Erma and Nancy; Miss Mary is still at home with her parents. The two youngest children were Harry Allen and Nancy, twins. The son died on his graduation day, at the age of twenty-one. Nancy is the deceased wife of E.R. Jones, of Oakland Maryland.