Preston County, West Virginia Biography of COL. CARLETON CUSTER PIERCE 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. 631-632 COL. CARLETON CUSTER PIERCE is a Kingwood lawyer, has enjoyed a growing practice in the law for twenty years, and has numerous substantial interests, reaching out into financial, horticultural and industrial affairs of the state. Mr. Pierce also belongs to one of the oldest families of Preston County. The Pierces first settled here at Evansville about 1780, more than 140 years ago. The first American ancestor of the name was a native of Ireland, where the family were Orangemen. This ancestor came to America about 1758, joining the Colony of Delaware, and some years later joined the American forces in the Revolutionary war, after which he settled in Virginia. It was the great-great- grandfather of Carleton C. Pierce, Samuel Pierce, who settled in Preston County in 1780. His son, Wesley Pierce, the great-grandfather, moved from there to Wood County, West Virginia, later moving to Ohio, where he died in 1877. His son, Jefferson pierce, spent his active career as a farmer on the Kanawha River near Parkersburg, and at the time of the Civil war left his home to enter the Union Army and died while in service. Jefferson Pierce married Ellen Custer, an aunt of the distinguished Gen. George A. Custer, whose name is immortally associated with the Custer massacre of Montana. Jefferson Pierce and wife had three children: James L.; Mary E., wife of Jacob Cornell; and John F., who lost his life at a railroad crossing in Kingwood, West Virginia, on May 20, 1922. John F. Pierce was born in Wood County, West Vir- ginia, September 5, 1852. He spent his early life on a farm, and in 1872 moved to Preston County, where for nearly a quarter of a century he was in the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company. He was yard- master at Rowlesburg when he left the railroad in 1896, and thereafter until recent years was in the lumber busi- ness, representing a Baltimore exporting firm. John P. Pierce married Amanda Elizabeth Moore, representing an- other old-time family of West Virginia. Her father, George D. Moore, of Newburg, was born in that locality, and had a large number of children by two marriages. The children of John F. Pierce and wife were: Prank R., in the automobile business at Rowlesburg; Carleton Custer; John A. L., who was killed in an automobile accident July 9, 1920, and Edna Estelle, who died at the age of four years. Carleton C. Pierce was born at Bowlesburg, and there he laid the foundation of his education. He was also a student in Franklin College in Ohio, attended West Vir- ginia University, and at the age of seventeen became a teacher. He taught four years, doing his last work in the grade schools at Rowlesburg. An interruption came to his teaching with the outbreak of the Spanish-American war in the spring of 1898. He joined Company H of the Second West Virginia Volunteer Infantry, under Capt. A. S. Hutson and Col. D. T. E. Casteel. The command trained at Charleston, West Virginia, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and was at Greenville, South Carolina, when mustered out in the spring of 1899. Mr. Pierce went in as a private, was promoted to sergeant and first sergeant and came out with the rank of first lieutenant. He re- sumed teaching for a year, and then entered West Virginia University, where he secured his law diploma. In 1902 Mr. Pierce located at Kingwood, and for a year was in the law office of Hon. W. G. Brown. He then established an office of his own, and in 1904 was elected prosecuting attorney of Preston County. Mr. Pierce re- signed as prosecuting attorney in 1907 to accept the ap- pointment from Governor Dawson as adjutant general of the National Guard. As chief officer of the state military organization he had the responsibility of rebuilding and reorganizing that department, and when he left the office he turned over to his successor an organization thoroughly infused with new life. Mr. Pierce then resumed his law practice at Kingwood, and has since been .extending hia enterprise into several departments of the state's industry. He helped organize the Little Capon Orchard Company and the Levels Orchard Company, and is financially interested in these corporations, owning and growing peaches on a quite extensive scale in Hampshire County. He is also a coal operator, having organized the Carleton Mining and Power Company, and is owner and proprietor of the St. George Lumber Company. Mr. Pierce is a stockholder in the Bank of Kingwood, is one of the directors of the Kingwood Water Company, and a director of the West Virginia and Maryland Power Company. Mr. Pierce is a republican in politics, and his first presi- dential vote was cast for William McKinley. Besides the official service already mentioned he was elected in 1914 to the House of Delegates, serving under Speaker Veenon Johnson of Webster Springs. He was made chairman of the committee on agriculture and also a member of the judiciary and other committees. His noteworthy work in the Legislature was in behalf of agriculture, and he wrote and secured the passage of what is known as the "Crop Pest Law," also legislation regulating fertilizers and the pure seed bill. He is now president of the Board of Education of Kingwood District, Preston County, West Virginia. Mr. Pierce is a past master of Kingwood Lodge of Masons and a member of West Virginia Consistory at Wheeling, and he and his family are Methodists. Novem- ber 28, 1902, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he married Miss Mary Buckner, daughter of Jefferson M. and Jeanette M. (Golden) Buckner, of Rowlesburg, West Virginia. The Buckners are an old Virginia family that settled in Wood County and from there Jefferson M. Buckner settled in Preston County about 1872. A great-great uncle of Mrs. Pierce was Col. John Buckner, of Wood County, who was one of the men selected on the jury to try Aaron Burr for treason. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce have two sons: Carleton Custer, Jr., now in his last year in high school; and Oscar Buckner, also in the high school.