Roane County, West Virginia Biography of HARLEN SIMON CRUMMETT This biography 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. 448 Roane HARLEN SIMON CRUMMETT is state superintendent for the Ohio Fuel Oil Company, with headquarters at Spen- cer. He is a veteran of the oil district of West Virginia and comes of a family that has supplied many expert and technical men to the oil industry. Mr. Crummett was born in Ritchie County October 26, 1880. His grandfather, Jacob Crummett, was born in Pendleton County, West Virginia, in 1822, but spent his active life as a farmer in Ritchie County and was also a lay preacher of the Methodist Church. He died on his farm four miles southeast of Harrisville, at the head of Dog Run, in Ritchie County, in 1907. His wife, Mahala Simmons, was born in Pendleton County in 1822, and is still living with her children, a centenarian. Her son, George F. Crummett, was born in Ritchie County October 24, 1853, and since his marriage has lived on one farm, located seven miles south of Harrisville in that county. Besides farming he has followed the trade of carpenter. He is a republican, an active worker in the Methodist Church and a member of the Odd Fellows. George F. Crummett married Mary Alice Wilson, who was born in Ritchie County June 5, 1856. They became the parents of a large family of children: Mrs. Bernice Westfall, of Ritchie County, whose husband is a teamster; Harlen Si- mon; Jacob, an oil field worker who died in Oklahoma at the age of thirty-six; Valera, wife of Raymond Haugh, an oil and gas well driller in Ritchie County; Clarence Albert, an oil field worker living at Robinson, Illinois; Howard, district foreman for the South Penn Oil Company in Ritchie County; Carrie, at home, widow of Charles Bog- gess, a painter by trade, who died in Ritchie County; Glenn, an oil field worker in Ritchie County; Sadie, wife of Charles Cowan, a worker in the oil fields in Ritchie County. Harlon Simon Crummett spent the first sixteen years of his life on his father's farm in Ritchie County, and while there attended the rural schools. On leaving home he found employment in the oil fields, beginning in the Cairo field of Ritchie County. In 1899 he entered the service of the Southern Oil Company, with which he remained seven years, beginning as a roustabout and then in the capacity of pumper. For two years following that he was foreman for this company, and in 1908 came into the Rock Creek field of Roane County for the South Penn Oil Company, in the capacity of a gang pusher for eleven months. Leav- ing that corporation, he has since been with the Ohio Fuel Oil Company, serving as a roustabout three years in the Hammaek field of Roane County, subsequently was a fore- man until January, 1919, at which date he was given the responsibility of superintendent of all the West Virginia operations of this company. Mr. Crummett has had his home at Spencer since the fall of 1917. He has a force of a hundred men under his supervision. He owns a modern home on Front Street in Spencer. He was thoroughly alive to his patriotic responsibilities during the World war, and took an active part in promoting the success of the various drives in his section. He is a republican and a member of the Baptist Church. In 1902, in Ritchiee County, be married Miss Elizabeth Weinrick, a native of that county. They are the parents of three daugh- ters: Thelma, born May 23, 1903, is the wife of Carl C. Hunt, an oil field worker living at Gay in Jackson County; Freda, born May 11, 1905, is in the junior class of the Spencer High School; Mildred, born February 21, 1907, is also in her third year in high school.