Preston County, West Virginia Biography: William Marshall WOLF ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Submitted by Valerie Crook, , March 2000 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 386-387 WILLIAM MARSHALL WOLF is now living retired at Bruce- ton Mills, past the age of fourscore, having accumulated a record of good honest work as a carpenter and mill- wright and later as a successful farmer. He has been attentive to the duties of good citizenship, and his life is one of those that give honor to the name Wolf in Preston County. He was born in Bruceton Village, on the site of the Home Hotel. October 23, 1840, son of Augustine and Sarah (Mosser) Wolf, his mother being a sister of the venerable Daniel Mosser of Clifton Mills. His grandfather, Samuel Wolf, came from Germany and spent his last years in West Virginia. His sons were Michael, John, Peter and Augustine, and he also had a daughter, Mrs. Nancy Wor- man. Augustine Wolf was born in 1811, and in 1844 moved his family to a farm near Rockville. He lived past the age of eighty-six, and his wife, who was nine years his junior, reached the age of nearly eighty-five. They reared the following children: William Marshall; Laodicea, who married R. F. Jenkins; John Allison, a farmer near Rockville; Phoebe, whose first husband was Levi Cale and she is now Mrs. Harvey Walls, living at Albright, West Virginia; and Lehamer, who died in Fayette County, Penn- sylvania, leaving a family. William Marshall Wolf grew up in the vicinity of Rock- ville, and he attended one of the pioneer schoolhouses of that time and section. He sat on a slab bench supported by pegs, wrote on a writing table which was a board lean- ing against the wall, while the room was heated by a fire- place. The schoolhouse itself was of logs and stood on the site or near the Harmony Grove Church. This building has long since decayed. On reaching his majority Mr. Wolf became a journeyman carpenter and cabinet maker, and his honest workmanship could be testified to by numer- ous examples in Grant and Pleasant districts. He built several of the early homes there, among them the Lockard Bircher residence, the home on the Jesse Forman farm, now the property of Bert Forman, the Pleasant Valley schoolhouse, and he worked on the Centenary, Harmony Grove and Nebo churches. It was his custom to follow his trade throughout the winter and other seasons of the year. until his time and energies were demanded in the harvest fields. He also did much work as a millwright, and put in the roller processes at Rockville, Bruceton and the Dells- low mills, and a waterwheel on the Muddy Creek Mill. An early injury physically disabled him for the duties of a soldier, so that he did not enlist at the time of the Civil war. However, for a short time he was a teamster with General Meade's army in the Shenandoah Valley, going as far as Winchester and Halltown. After leaving his trade Mr. Wolf applied himself to the practical side of farming, though he still kept his set of tools and worked occasionally both on his own farm and for others. His farm was near Hopewell in Grant District, and he kept up his work there until 1918, when he retired and removed to Bruceton Mills. He was one of the promoters and is a stockholder in the electric light plant of the village. He was a farm friend and financial supporter of the movement to secure a new high school for the village. Mr. Wolf has been rather independent in politics, though in the main he has voted the democratic ticket. His first vote was cast against secession, even before he reached his majority, and he was in favor of William G. Brown, Sr., for Congress. He favored the election of Douglas for president in 1860, but did not vote that year. His father supported Breckenridge for president. Mr. Wolf gave his ballot to General McClelland in 1864 and to Governor Seymour of New York four years later, and has seldom missed voting the democratic national ticket, though occa- sionally he has supported another party man for Congress. Mr. Wolf joined the Baptist Church in 1861, and for more than thirty years was church clerk. In December, 1868, he married Mis [sic] Hester A. Jenkins, daughter of Graham and Louisa (King) Jenkins. She died in 1880, the mother of three children: Dora Ann, wife of O. Y. Shaw, of Bruceton; Oliver, who died unmarried in 1918; and Lucian Marshall, of Morgantown, who married Hazel Morris and has a son, Woodrow Wilson. In 1884 Mr. Wolf married Florence Collins, sister of Walter Col- lins of Bruceton. There were no children by this marriage. On December 1, 1920, he married Miss Ola Martin, mem- ber of a prominent family of Preston County, where she was born, daughter of Milton F. and Lydia (Forman) Martin, farmers in the county. Mrs. Wolf is one of five children and was born October 14, 1875. Her two sur- viving brothers are Ashbel, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Dr. E. T. Martin, of Seattle, Washington.