Preston County, West Virginia Biography of CARL EDWARD GUSTKEY. This file 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 III, pg. 281-282 Preston County CARL EDWARD GUSTKEY. It can properly be said that Carl Edward Gustkey was the architect of his own early destinies as well as his mature career. He became a worker when a mere boy, and his work proved a training school in which he has developed his successful career as a merchant, and he has been a business man of inde- pendence in Preston County during the greater part of his life. He was born in Newburg, April 17, 1880. His grand- father, Edward Gustkey, brought his family in company with a party of immigrants from Hanover. Germany, the party being delivered near Hardman, West Virginia, under contract to work for Mr. Hardman in getting out iron ore. This work was the first employment of Edward Gustkey in the United States. After five or ten years he moved to Pittsburgh, where his sons became employes of the steel mills, and he then returned to West Virginia, settled at Newburg, and finally at Independence, where he spent his last years in cultivating a small plot of ground. He died in 1889, at the age of seventy-six. His children were: Anna, who married August Shrader and is now living at Independence at the age of seventy-two; William, now deceased, spent a greater part of his life at Pitts- burgh and several of his sons became men of prominence in railroad circles. Carl Edward Gustkey, Sr., was born in Hanover and was thirteen years of age when brought to the United States. He acquired a limited education, but sufficient to transact the affairs of life. As a young man he entered the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company as a laborer on a repair gang. Later he became an engineer at the Edgar Thompson Steel Mills, and while operating a locomotive in the Edgar Thompson plant of the Beth- lehem Steel Company near Braddock, Pennsylvania, he was accidentally killed on August 4, 1889, at the age of thirty- four. At Independence, West Virginia, he married Eliza- beth Avers, who was born at Terra Alta in 1854. Her parents were John H. and Yetta Avers. John Avers, a native of Holland, was a farmer in Germany, and brought his family to the United States, arriving in very straight- ened circumstances financially. After purchasing a cow he had only seven dollars left. At Terra Alta he began with a small parcel of ground and farmed it. Later he moved to Independence, West Virginia, and entered the railroad employ, and after many years of service in the Newburg, West Virginia, shops of the Baltimore & Ohio he retired. He died at Independence at the age of eighty- eight. He had a large family, and some of his sons be- came prominent in railroad circles. The children of Carl E. Gustkey, Sr., and wife who lived to maturity were: Carl E., now of Independence, West Virginia; Anna, who married Thomas Gough, now of Blaine, West Virginia, and Harry Wilson, now of Detroit, Michigan. Carl Edward Gustkey, Jr., was only nine years of age when his father died. He had the privilege of attending only seven terms of public schools. At the age of four- teen he became an employe in the store of W. E. Sharp & Company, at Independence, West Virginia, at $12.00 per month. Later he worked for Mr. Sharps alone, then for his successors, Hartley & Metzler, and finally, in 1904, bought the intprest of Mr. Metzler, this transaction re- sulting in the change of the firm name to Hartley & Gust- key. This his first partnership, was with J. M. Hartley, now of Fairmont, West Virginia, and a pioneer merchant of West Virginia. The firm is still doing business pros- perously and with a large establishment occupying the site of the first store established in the Village of Inde- pendence before the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was built. Mr. Gustkey is working with undiminished energy and with the efficiency acquired by many years of experience as a merchant, and gives practically all his time to the store, althongh he has had some capital invested in a small way in coal mines. He is a director of the First National Bank of Newburg, and has also served Lyon District three years as a member of the Board of Education. Mr. Gustkey was reared in a home where the politics was democratic, but he cast his first presidential vote for Colonel Roosevelt in 1904 and has supported the republican ticket in national elections ever since. He is affiliated with Newburg Lodge of Masons, the Royal Arch Chapter Find Knights Templar Commandery at Grafton, the Mystic Shrine at, Wheeling, is a past chancellor of Damon Lodge. No. 5 Knights of Pythias, at Newburg, is a past grand of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Independence, and is a member of Grafton Lodge, No. 638, Loyal Order of Moose. While a member of the Lutheran Church, he is also active in the interests of the Methodist Protestant Church. At Independence. June 14, 1906, Mr. Gustkey married Daisy Lenore Wilkins, who was born at Independence, August 14, 1880, only four months younger than her hus- band. Her parents were Isaac and Elizabeth (Helmick) Wilkins, early settlers of Preston County, and her maternal grandfather, Helmick, was a pioneer circuit rider of the Methodist Protestant Church, covering Preston, Taylor and nearby counties, and spent the greater part of his life near the Village of Independence. Mrs. Gustkey was the young- est of four children. The others are: Inez, a teacher in the Grafton public schools; Mrs. May Gibson, of Newburg; and Arthur, a successful architect at Pittsburgh. Mr. and Mrs. Gustkey have two sons, Carl Wilkins, born in 1908, and Earl, born in 1911.