Taylor County, West Virginia Biography of William B. STUCK ************************************************************************** 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 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 84-85 WILLIAM B. STUCK has devoted a large share of his active years to the drug business at Grafton, and is one of the prominent drug men of the state. His business is known as the Grafton Drug & Chemical Company. Dr. Stuck, as he is always known, was born at Palatine, now part of the City of Fairmont, Marion County, March 30, 1860. His grandfather, Stephen Stuck, who married a Miss Hall, was a brother of Matthias Stuck, of Terra Alta, and a record of that branch of the family and its earlier generations is given elsewhere in this publication. Squire H. Stuck, father of Dr. Stuck, was a native of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and settled in Marion County, West Virginia, a few years prior to the Civil war. He was a miner by early training and experience, and at Fairmont he became boss or foreman of the old Rainey and Ore coal mines there. Although he had a family of eight children, he was one of the first to enlist in the Union Army when the Civil war came on, serving in Company G of the Fifteenth West Vir- ginia Cavalry. He was in the war until the end, with the Army of the Potomac. and among other battles was at Gettys- burg, Cedar Creek and Winchester. He was never wounded or captured. After the war he resumed coal mining, but about 1875 moved to Taylor County and spent the rest of his life on a farm near Grafton, where he died in 1905, at the age of eighty-six. He was a republican voter, and was a devout Methodist, helping build the first church of that denomination at Palatine, and for many years was superintendent of the Sunday School. He married Mary Jane Green, a native of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, who died in 1896. A brief record of their children is: Elizabeth, of Fairmont, widow of William Wallace; Lottie, widow of Nathan Hall, lives with a daughter in Ohio; Miss Laura, deceased; Nancy, who married Harry Butler and died at Fairmont; James W., who is identified with gold and silver mining in Sierra County, New Mexico; Eli L., a resident of Fairmont; William B., and Lawrence A., who died at Fairmont, leaving a wife and two children. During the first fifteen years of his life William B. Stuck lived with his parents at the toll gate on the pike at Fairmont, and some of his first recollections were connected with the passing of soldiers back and forth over that road. He came to manhood on the farm in the suburbs of Grafton. He possessed a country school education, and when he left home he went to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and entered the sheet mill of W. D. Woods & Company, who had the reputation of making the best sheet-iron in the country. He learned the trade and worked there four years, until illness compelled him to return home. After recovering, instead of resuming his trade, he became one of the promoters of and partner in the Grafton Drug and Chemical Company. While his first partner left the business and it has changed management four times, Dr. Stuck has been with it practically without interruption. This company is one of the large stockholders in the United Drug Company of Boston. Mr. Stack is a member of the Druggists' Association of West Virginia and the United Druggists Asso- ciation. In Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in 1889, Dr. Stuck mar- ried Miss Katie B. McClurg, daughter of John McClurg, who with his wife was a native of Scotland and on coming to the United States settled around Pittsburgh and McKeesport. Mrs. Stuck was born at McKeesport, one of a family of six daughters and one son, the others still living being the wife of Dr. Cope, John McClurg of California, and a sister who recently died was the wife of I. N. Scott, a prominent stair builder of Pittsburgh. Dr. and Mrs. Stuck have three chil- dren. Mary Agnes is the wife of C. O. Brown, of Blueville, Taylor County, and has a son, Donald. The two younger children are Mary Elizabeth and William B., Jr. The latter graduated from high school in 1922. The daughters also graduated from the Grafton High. Mary Agnes graduated with high honors from Sadler's Business College, Baltimore, while Mary E. graduated from Clarksburg Business College.