Preston County, West Virginia Biography of GUSTAVUS JOSEPHUS SHAFFER 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. 438-439 Preston GUSTAVUS JOSEPHUS SHAFFER. With the commercial development of Preston County during the past half century perhaps no one citizen has been more deeply interested than Gustavus Josephus Shaffer, always known among his many friends and associates as Gus J. Shaffer. Mr. Shaffer is still active in banking and business at Kingwood, and has long been one of the prominent leaders of the democratic party in this section of the state. His grandfather and the founder of the family in Preston County was Adam Shaffer, a native of Germany, who came to America just before the Revolutionary war, locating in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, and from there removing to Maryland. In Washington County, Maryland, he mar- ried Catherine Wotring. She was one of the heroines of the Revolution. On the day the battle of Brandywine was fought she was busy molding bullets for the Patriot Army, and her mother and older sisters raked and set up buck- wheat while the husband and father was fighting in the cause of independence. The bullet molds Catherine used on this occasion can be seen in Aurora, West Virginia, today. Adam Shaffer immediately after his marriage came in company with his wife's father to the German settlement of Aurora, West Virginia, and established his home near Brookside. Adam and Catherine Shaffer had the follow- ing children: Tewalt, John, Jacob, Daniel, William, Samuel, Abraham and Adam, Jr. Daniel Shaffer, father of Gus J., married Elizabeth Isen- hart, of a family that was identified with the Colonial history of Cumberland, Maryland, where Daniel found his wife. Daniel Shaffer was born in 1805 and lived .out his busy career on a farm in Brookside in Preston County, where he died in 1863. His family consisted of five sons and three daughters: George Francis; Martin Luther; Jesse W.; Gustavus Josephus; Arthur McKinley; Susan, who became the wife of Thomas Humbertson, of Frostburg, Maryland; Mary R., who was the wife of George Lantz, of Aurora; and Priscilla, who married James H. Wilson and died at Aurora. Of these children George Francis entered the Lutheran ministry and was president of the North Carolina College at Concord, North Carolina. At the begin- ning of the Civil war, he was, president of a Female Sem- inary in that state. After the war he did missionary work throughout the South, and died at Spartanburg, South Carolina, full of years and with a life of great usefulness to his credit. Daniel Shaffer, father of these children, was a local minister of the Lutheran Church and a justice of the peace. He issued a great many marriage licenses and also per- formed the marriage ceremonies. While he was not a participant in partisan polities, he was in many ways the recognized civic leader in his community of Aurora. An- other son, Martin L., was sheriff of Preston County when the Civil war came on, and then resigned his office and be- came a sutler in the Federal Army. Gus J. Shaffer was born at Aurora in Preston County January 15, 1847, and he was still a schoolboy when the Civil war wag being fought. He learned the blacksmith's trade, and after reaching his majority engaged in merchan- dising at Fellowsville. A few months later fire destroyed his stock of goods, and he then removed to Rowlesburg in Reno District, where he began manufacturing and dealing in lumber. Two or three years later he moved to Tunnel- ton, and continued in the lumber business until 1886. Mr. Shatter was one of the original promoters and stockholders of the Kingwood Railroad Company. Before the road was completed he was elected its superintendent, having charge of the track laying, and continued as superintendent during the first year of the road's operation. On resigning he removed to Kingwood, and resumed the lumber and mercan- tile business. For seventeen years Mr. Shaffer was manag- ing partner in the Shaffer & Brown Company, one of the largest mercantile firms in Northern West Virginia. His partners were the late Junior Brown, Arnold Bonafield and M. L. Shaffer, and he is the last survivor of these. Mr. Shaffer is now the oldest man in point of service in the Bank of Kingwood. For many years he has been one of its stockholders and vice president, and was also one of the building committee to erect the handsome bank home a few years ago. Like his father, Mr. Shaffer is a "dyed-in-the-wool" democrat, and has been with that party steadily since casting his first vote for president for Seymour and Blair in 1868. He has been on the ticket as a party candidate several times, greatly reducing the republican majority that is normal in Preston County. He was once elected justice of the peace of Kingwood District. He has been a delegate to state conventions, and helped nominate Governor Mac- Corkle and other state officers. He was in the convention which nominated Governor Fleming, and was a partisan of Colonel Martin, named as the dark horse to break the dead- lock in the Second Congressional District Democratic Con- vention. He helped nominate the state democratic leader William L. Wilson, distinguished author of the Wilson bill, and he knew that statesman personally. Mr. Shaffer was reared in the Lutheran Church and has always regarded himself as a Lutheran. Mrs. Shaffer is a Methodist, and in the absence of a Lutheran Church at Kingwood he has given his support to the Methodists and is one of the trustees of the local society. Many years ago Mr. Shaffer became a Knight of Pythias, and has a veteran's medal for a quarter of a century of active mem- bership. The first wife of Mr. Shaffer was Louisa Menefee, of Monongalia County, daughter of John Menefee, who in his time was a man of prominence in the Newburg district. Mrs. Shaffer died in 1880, leaving two children: Morris, a fanner near Tunnelton; and Elizabeth, wife of H. C. Shaffer, of Cumberland, Maryland. The second wife of Mr. Shaffer was Florence Thomas, daughter of former sheriff Elisha Thomas of Preston County, where she was born. She died in 1888, the mother of three children. The oldest of these is Frank T., one of the promoters and a director and salesman in the Kingwood Wholesale Grocery Company, who married Miss Bessie L. Clark, of Miller, Ohio. Harry G. Shaffer, a lawyer at Madison, West Vir- ginia, and a member of the State Senate from the Eighth District, married Brookie Turley. Jessie, the youngest of the three children, is the wife of Dr. John W. Gilmore, of Wheeling, West Virginia. July 30, 1890, Mr. Shaffer married in Ritchie County, West Virginia, Miss E. Augusta McNeill, daughter of Rev. Moore McNeilI, former pastor of the Methodist Epis- copal Church of Kingwood. Mrs. Augusta Shaffer, who was a successful teacher before her marriage, received her certificate of membership in the Kingwood Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in January, 1920. She is entitled to wear four bars, indicating her Revolu- tionary ancestry through four soldiers of the war.