Roane County, West Virginia Biography of REUBEN MILLARD THOMASSON 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. 448-449 Roane REUBEN MILLARD THOMASSON, representing a family that has been identified with Roane County nearly a century, is one of the ablest citizens and business men of Spencer, where for some years he has devoted his talents to building up a very successful general insurance business. His great-great-grandfather was G. W. Thomasson, who came from Scotland to Boston, Massachusetts. His son John Poindexter Thomasson was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, in 1784, and as early as 1829 he acquired his first lands in Curtis District of Roane County, and in the early '40s he established his permanent home in that district. He was one of the very wealthy and influential men of old Virginia and of West Virginia. For one term he sat in Congress, and he was a member of the lobby in the Vir- ginia Legislature promoting the formation of Roane County. He was a democrat in politics. His land holdings made him one of the wealthiest citizens of old Virginia. In 1857 he paid taxes on more than 47,000 acres. In 1865 he owned at least 300,000 acres, distributed over Virginia, West Vir- ginia, Ohio and Kentucky. John P. Thomasson died in Curtis District of Roane County in March, 1867. He grew up in Louisa County, Virginia, where in 1806 he married Nancy Hancock, who was born in that county in 1784 and died in Roane County in 1870. Mordecer James Thomas- son, grandfather of the Spencer business man, was born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1817, and spent his active life as a farmer in Curtis District of Roane County, where he died in January, 1867. He married Susan Rader, a na- tive of Jackson County, who died in Curtis District. Lewis L. Thomasson, their son, was born in Roane County January 20, 1850, and spent all his active life there as a farmer. When he retired in 1917 he moved to Akron, Ohio, where he died April 23, 1919. He was active in the democratic party, served a number of terms as constable, was a pillar in his Baptist Church and was affiliated with the Junior Order United American Mechanics. Lewis L. Thomasson married Emaline Parsons, who was born Sep- tember 13, 1852, in Roane County, and is now living with her son Hoyt at Akron, Ohio. Her children were Ida A., wife of Forest W. Heaton, a machinist at Akron; Lonnie, a farmer near Urbana, Ohio; Harvey A., a building con- tractor at Akron; Clyde Clayton, a street car conductor at Akron; Hoyt, an employe of the Firestone Rubber Com- pany at Akron; and Reuben Millard. Reuben M. Thomasson was born in the Curtis District of Roane County October 10, 1879, and for the first eighteen years lived on his father's farm. It is interesting to note that all his education was acquired in one schoolhouse in Curtis District, a school that he attended three and a half months each year from the age of eight until he was eight- een. When he left home soon afterward Mr. Thomasson be- came a fireman on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad out of Grafton, and six months later left railroading to become an employe in the general store of M. DePue & Sons at Kyger, where he remained two years. The next two years he worked in the compounding department of the Diamond Rubber Company at Akron, and in 1903 began his experi- ence as an insurance man at Spencer. While getting into this business he was employed in a grocery store at Spen- cer from 1903 to 1906, and from 1908 until January, 1913, had charge of the Spencer Drug Store. Since then he has devoted his time exclusively to general insurance business, and the facilities of his organization extend all over his county. In life insurance he represents the Mutual Life In- surance Company of New York, and represents eight of the standard fire insurance companies, his offices being in the Kelley Building on Market Street. Mr. Thomasson served a time as mayor of Spencer in 1913. As democratic candidate for county commissioner he ran 300 votes ahead of his ticket in a strong republican section. He is a democrat, is affiliated with Moriah Lodge No. 38, A. F. and A. M., at Spencer, is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Wood- men of America, and is vice president of the Spencer Rotary Club and a member and stockholder in the Spencer Country Club. During the World war he was chairman of the executive committee of the Roane County Chapter of the Red Cross, and associated actively with the various drives for Liberty Bonds and other causes. On January 23, 1908, at Spencer, he married Miss Bess Harold, daughter of Richard H. and Helen (Davidson) Harold, now deceased. Her father, who died at Spencer in 1921, was in early life a mechanic in the service of the Pullman Company, later a merchant at Charleston, and from 1903 until he retired was a business man of Spencer. Mrs. Thomasson finished her education in the Charleston High School. The three children born to their marriage are: Helen Elaine, born November 16, 1908; Frances, who died in infancy; and Charlotte Ann, born February 26, 1920.