Preston County, West Virginia    Biography: Hon. Samuel B. MONTGOMERY

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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 8-10

HON. SAMUEL B. MONTGOMERY, of Kingwood, grand
keeper of records and seals of the Knights of Pythias of
West Virginia, has for years represented the voice and
leadership of liberalism and progressiveism in West Vir-
ginia. It is doubtful if there is a better known man in
the state, taking all classes of population into consideration.

The experiences of his own life admirably qualified him
for the breadth of sympathy and knowledge of humanity
which are among his prominent characteristics. A native
West Virginian, he was born in Barber County May 15,
1876, and two years later his parents established their home
at Independence in Preston County. His people were poor
but of very sturdy mountaineer stock. Four generations of
the Montgomerys have lived among the hills of West Vir-
ginia. The remote ancestor of this family was Rogers de
Montgomerie, a Norseman who accompanied the army of
William the Conqueror to England in the eleventh century.
A subsequent member of the family settled in Ireland and
was made an esquire and given a grant of land. Two of
Rogers de Montgomerie's descendants arrived at the port
of Philadelphia in 1729, one of them settling at Baltimore,
and from him sprang the West Virginia branch of the
family.

The father of Senator Montgomery was Adam Montgom-
ery, who with his brother Michael and cousins John, Samuel
and Asberry joined the Seventh West Virginia Infantry at
the time of the Civil war. John was captain of Company H,
and this company took part in the engagements at Antietam,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Wil-
derness and in others of less importance, and they helped
make the regiment famous as the Fighting Seventh. At
Antietam, Asberry was killed and Adam Montgomery was
wounded so badly that he was discharged. The effects of
his war service were so severe that he was hardly able to
resume the duties and burdens of civilian life afterward,
and he had been a partial invalid for years when he died
May 16, 1889, at the age of forty-four. On December 11,
1863, Adam Montgomery married Susan Digman, who was
descended from sturdy mountain stock of strong character,
and she was a fitting helpmate for such an upright man as
her husband. They became the parents of eleven children:
John, Sarah, Sophronia, Nancy, Mary, Samuel B., Berta,
William, and three that died in infancy.

This brief record of the family indicates some of the cir-
cumstances that surrounded the childhood and youth of
Samuel B. Montgomery. At Newburg he attended common
schools and select schools, but at the age of eleven was
earning money selling papers, as delivery boy, and at other
forms of common labor. When he was thirteen his father
died, and thereafter his responsibilities were increased as
the mainstay of his widowed mother and the younger chil-
dren of the household. This enforced daily grind deprived
him of certain other advantages, but it also developed in
him a devotion to duty to the fatherless and the helpless
and taught him the principles of loyalty to those who toil,
and to this class of citizenship he has been insistent in his
sympathy and aid during his mature manhood. He gave
up all thought of further education when his father died,
and six days of labor in a week was hardly long enough to
provide the necessities for his mother's household of younger
children. With his older brother he was soon working in
the yards of the Newburg Orrel Coal & Coke Company, be-
ginning as coke drawer, then as day laborer on tipple, later
as boss of a gang of Italians, and also mule driver with the
Monongah Coal & Coke Company, now the Consolidation
Coal Company. In these occupations he acquired his first
impressions of the hardships of the miners for whom he
was destined to spend his after life in an effort to improve,
and about that time he joined his first labor union, the
United Mine Workers of America.

The year following his acceptance into this union he
went into the service, in 1896, of the Baltimore & Ohio
Railway as a brakeman on the Parkersburg Branch and
later on the Cumberland Division. Sickness caused him to
leave the railroad service, and his next work was as an at-
tendant at the Second Hospital for the Insane at Spencer,
where he subsequently became night watchman.

When only twenty years of age he commenced his politi-
cal career. He grew up in a republican atmosphere,
though his father had been a Union democrat. He east
his first presidential vote for William McKinley, and in
1896 he made his first political speech for Major McKinley.
This speech was delivered at Evansville in his home county,
and it made such a good impression that the local manage-
ment put him on its program as a speaker throughout the
rest of the campaign. In 1898 he supported as a delegate
in the Roane County Republican Convention the candidacy
of Governor Atkinson for the United States Senate. That
tall he campaigned over the county in behalf of Gen. Romeo
H. Freer and the rest of the republican ticket. Returning
to Preston County in 1899, he located at Tunnelton and was
on the republican delegation from the county the next year
to the state convention. He spoke in Lewis, Taylor and
other counties that fall, and was himself elected to the of-
fice of justice of the peace for the Kingwood District.
This was his first political office. In 1902 he was elected
mayor of Tunnelton, serving during 1903, and was again
elected in 1908, having in the meantime been a member of
the town council in 1905-06. Mr. Montgomery resigned as
justice of th'e peace in 1903, when President Roosevelt ap-
pointed him postmaster of Tunnelton.

In the state campaign of 1904 he was the successful nom-
inee of his party for state senator from the Fourteenth
District, composed of Tucker, Preston, Mineral, Grant and
Hardy counties. Though opposed by the county, state and
federal leadership he was elected by a large majority, ex-
ceeding that of the national ticket.

As a member of the Senate Mr. Montgomery acquitted
himself well, and his efforts helped in the enactment of
laws which made the state richer and its government bet-
ter. He voted in the Senate for the 2 cent fare law, the
eight hour telegraphers' bill, and for the bill submitting
the prohibition amendment to the people; was a fearless
exponent of all reform and labor measures. The well-known
Montgomery statutory Attorney Bill, credited to his au-
thorship, diverted the fees of foreign corporations from the
office of the secretary of state to the state treasurer, sav-
ing not less than $20,000 a year to the state. He fathered
the Corrupt Practices in Elections Act and fought it to
victory over the protests of its opponents. He framed and
succeeded in having a bill passed fixing a penalty for tres-
passing and cutting timber on lands without the owner's
consent, a measure opposed by the railroads and other
corporations. Besides supporting the prohibition amend-
ment measure he pushed through the Senate, with the aid
of the Protestant Ministerial Association, the bill known as
the Sunday Closing Act, the most drastic anti-liquor legis-
lation yet passed, and he voted for an amendment to the
license law prohibiting the shipment of liquor from wet
into dry counties. He raised his voice in great earnestness
against the guard system around which had grown up the
coal police, warning the Senate that a grave error was be-
ing committed and that dire results would follow—a pre-
diction verified four years later when the miners revolted
against the execution of the law, with great consequent loss
of life, entailing the establishment of martial law and a
heavy expense required before peace was restored. Sena-
tor Montgomery aided in the passage of a law against the
sale of narcotic drugs, a law to raise the salaries of school
teachers, and another bill making it an offense to work
minors of both sexes under the age of fourteen years in
mines and factories during the free school term. He voted
for the state wide primary election law, and was the only
republican in the body who cast a ballot for the initiative,
referendum and recall. In 1905 and again in 1907 he led
the fight in the Senate for a production tax on oil and gas,
and was one of two members of his party who appealed
to the Senate in those years to submit an amendment to the
State Constitution granting the franchise to women. While
in the Senate Mr. Montgomery served on the committees of
mines and mining, and labor, and was embodied to preside
over the Senate during the regular session of 1907 and the
special session of 1908.

His record in the Senate wag such as to cause him to be
singled out by the corporations for defeat in the next cam-
paign. Nevertheless he was a delegate to the Republican
State Convention and helped write the party platform. In
December following President Roosevelt appointed him a
special agent in the Department of Commerce and Labor.
He resigned to study law and labor problems in the Uni-
versity of West Virginia, and began practice at Kingwood.
In 1912 he was chosen a delegate at large to the Republican
National Convention in Chicago. He had declared himself
for Colonel Roosevelt's nomination in 1910, and as the West
Virginia member of the Platform Committee with Governor
Herbert Hadley of Missouri, George A. Knight of Cali-
fornia, and William Draper Lewis of Pennsylvania he con-
tested with the reactionaries for control of the committee
and attempted to have adopted the progressive program that
was subsequently written into the progressive party plat-
form. He was elected chairman of the Republican
Executive Committee of Preston County that summer, but
championed the Roosevelt and progressive party both with
tongue and pen throughout the following campaign.

In October, 1912, he was elected permanent chairman of
the Citizens' Organization of West Virginia, a body dele-
gated with the duty of making a sociological survey in line
with a proposal in the House of Delegates following the coal
miners' strike on Paint and Cabin Creeks. As chairman
Mr. Montgomery went before the people of the state in the
election that fall and declared for the abolishment of the
mine guard system, for the abolishment of child labor, for
a workmen's compensation law, for legislation prohibiting
water power monopoly, for a state pension for widowed
mothers in destitution, for the initiative, referendum and
recall and for the legal right of miners to belong to a
union. Proposed amendments to the Constitution providing
for the establishment of the minimum wage, the initiative,
referendum and recall, and state pension for widows were
defeated by a close vote. The legal right of a miner to
belong to a union was recognized by the state government,
and a law greatly restricting the granting of water-power
privileges was enacted.

While engaged in the practice of law at Kingwood, Mr.
Montgomery was appointed state commissioner of labor for
West Virginia by Governor Henry D. Hatfield, and served
through the administration of Governor Cornwall, his term
ending February 28, 1921. As labor commissioner he suc-
ceeded J. H. Nightingale. Under his department came the
inspection of factories and the enforcement of the Child
Labor Law, and he was also ex-officio commissioner of
weights and measures. During the World war he had addi-
tional duties as director of the U. S. Public Service Reserve,
which had the mobilization and distribution of labor em-
ployed on war contracts. He had the decision in declaring
what were essential industries for the successful prosecution
of the war, and in conjunction with the War Labor Board
the closing down of plants deemed unnecessary in war
times. He was frequently called to Washington, and as the
representative of West Virginia in Labor Councils was
asked to consultations at the White House and the Depart-
ment of Labor, and every labor conference called by the
President included an invitation to Mr. Montgomery. He
also acted as representative of the secretary of war and navy
in inspecting all workshops where war contracts were let as
to hours of employment and general health of employes.
During the war the enforcement of the Federal Child Labor
Law was intrusted to the commissioner, and his permits
were accepted by the Child Labor Bureau without question.

His range of duties went greatly beyond these formal
responsibilities. He took an active part in the speeding up
program, and because of his ability as a public speaker and
knowledge of labor economics and his influence among the
crafts he was one of the men most in demand at Liberty
Loan drives and mass meetings to increase production, and
in conferences between employer and employe to bring about
team work in cooperation. During his four years as com-
missioner with special reference to the war period there
was not a serious industrial disturbance, and this in no small
measure was the result of his tact, diplomacy and stand for
a square deal.

In 1920 Mr. Montgomery made the race for governor of
West Virginia. He was a candidate in the primaries of
the republican party, and later he campaigned independ-
ently, his nomination receiving the endorsement of the non-
partisan league.

The magnetism of Senator Montgomery's personality is at
once apparent. On the speaker's platform he radiates the
sincerity of his conviction, and is known throughout the
state as a brilliant political and fraternal speaker. His
address on West Virginia and its future before the West
Virginia Editorial Association, his discourse on the "writ
of injunction and the right of free speech" before the
State Federation of Labor, and his lecture on "John
Wesley" are perhaps the best known among his formal
literary and oratorical efforts.

For many years Mr. Montgomery has taken a prominent
part in fraternal work. He joined the Knights of Pythias
November 26, 1901, as a charter member of McKinley Lodge
at Tunnelton, and began a rapid advancement as an honor
man in the order. He reached the summit of Pythian dis-
tinction at Elkins when in September, 1910, he was installed
as grand chancellor. His splendid efforts in that office were
rewarded by his selection as grand keeper of records and
seals at the Wheeling meeting on August 18, 1911. When
he took over the work of this office in 1911 there were 173
lodges in the state, with a membership of 13,505. In the
fall of 1921 West Virginia had 268 lodges, with a total
enrollment of 40,000. Mr. Montgomery is a member of
Shiraz Temple No. 29, D. 0. K. K. As a Pythian orator
he is in great demand all over the Supreme Domain.
Among his ablest Pythian efforts, which he has been called
on to repeat on many occasions, was his Fraternal Memorial
address delivered in the Methodist Episcopal Church at
Fairmont, West Virginia. Sunday, June 21, 1914, under
the auspices of Marion Lodge, Knights of Pythias, he
delivered the oratorical address, April 26, 1919, in the
State Armory, Charleston, West Virginia, commemorating
the 100th anniversary of American Odd Fellowship and the
100th anniversary of Washington Lodge No. 1, I. 0. 0. F.,
of Baltimore, Maryland, which was established April 26,
1819, and which was the beginning of American Odd Fellow-
ship. He is affiliated with Kingwood Lodge No. 107,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Woodmen of the World,
Invincible Council No. 147, Junior Order United American
Mechanics at Tunnelton, the Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks No. 308, Grafton, West Virginia, and is
a member of Kanawha Lodge No. 1444, Loyal Order of
Moose, Charleston, West Virginia. He has served three
terms as vice president of the Laymen's Association of the
West Virginia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church of the Oakland District. He is a member of the
Beta Theta Pi Chapter of West Virginia University, and
belongs to the American Academy of Social and Political
Science of Philadelphia, the Southern Sociological Congress
of Nashville, the National Conservation Congress, the Na-
tional Geographic Society of Washington and the National
Popular Government League.

On February 29, 1896, Senator Montgomery married Miss
Grace K. Orr, daughter of the later Maj. and Mrs. U. N.
Orr. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery have one son, William
Newton, born July 8, 1900. On his eighteenth birthday he
enlisted in the marines, joining the Eighteenth Company,
Fifth Regiment of the Second Division, and three months
later going to France. He served near enough the front
to hear the big guns of the contending armies, and after
the armistice he went with his command into Germany
and along the Rhine, stationed near Coblenz and Rodenbach.
After eight months of duty he was honorably discharged
and given an excellent service medal without a demerit. He
is now a sophomore in West Virginia University at Morgan-
town. The only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery is
Susan, a graduate of Kingwood High School, also a gradu-
ate of Dean Academy at Franklin, Massachusetts, and now
a student in West Virginia University.