Taylor County, West Virginia    Biography of Charles W. STEEL

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@earthlink.net>, March 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 83-84

CHARLES W. STEEL, assistant cashier of the First National
Bank of Grafton, has been a worker in the financial circles of
that city for twenty years and has taken an effective part in
affairs of local citizenship as well.

He was born at Fetterman, Taylor County, May 19, 1880.
His family has been represented in the service of the Baltimore
& Ohio Railroad for a long period of years. His grandfather,
Charles Steel, was an Englishman, who entered the employ of
the Baltimore & Ohio when a young man and continued with
it until his death. He was for many years mason foreman for
the road. He died when about seventy-five years of age, and
is buried at Grafton. His wife, Sarah J. MacDonald, was a
native of Virginia, and of their ten children the following lived
to mature years: George Walter; James E.; William, who
made his home in New York City, was an electrician and
died at Fetterman, West Virginia: Albert Lee, whose home the
greater part of his life was in New York City, was also an
electrician, was one of the first operators of a biograph, an
early phase of the moving picture machine, and he lost his
wife at sea, being washed overboard while traveling between
Portland, Maine, and New York; and Mrs. C. C. Schuster,
who has lived for many years in New York City but is now a
resident of Logan, West Virginia.

James Edward Steel, father of the Grafton banker, was born
at Woodstock, Virginia and was ten or twelve years old when
his parents moved to West Virginia. He learned his father's
trade and early entered the Baltimore & Ohio service, became
company foreman, then transferred to the train service, and
for the past twenty years has been one of the efficient loco-
motive engineers of the company, with headquarters at Graf-
ton. His first wife was Mary E. Nuzum, of the well known
family of that name in Grafton. She died in 1895, Charles W.
Steel being her only child. The second wife of James E. Steel
was Agnes B. Gardner, who was born in Belfast, Ireland, of
Scotch parentage, and lived for a time at Belfast, and came
to the United States from the vicinity of Bedford, England,
where she had been visiting a sister.

Charles W. Steel acquired his early education at Fetterman,
in an old schoolhouse that during Civil war times has been
used as a Government hospital. He also attended a private
business college at Grafton, leaving to begin work at the wage
of three dollars a week as office boy for the Joseph Speidel
Grocery Company at Grafton. Five years later, when he left
that company, he was doing the work of salesman and all-
round man in the office. With this training and record of
efficiency he went into the Grafton Banking & Trust Company
in 1903. Here he was promoted to assistant cashier, and was
with the company fifteen years. In 1918 he became assistant
cashier of the First National Bank.

At all times he has regarded his citizenship as a duty, and
never more so than during the World war period. He was
secretary of the County Council of Defense and treasurer of
all the local war organizations. Mr. Steel is the oldest in
point of continuous service among the members of the Board
of Education. He is a democrat in politics, a member of the
Rotary Club, and since childhood has been a communicant
of St. Matthias Episcopal Church. Since he was twenty-one
years of age he has been a member of Friendship Lodge,
Knights of Pythias, of which he is a past chancellor, and has
represented the lodge in Grand Lodge at Wheeling an Elkins.
In Masonry he is a past master, past high priest and past
eminent commander of the York Rite bodies at Grafton, is
orator of the eighteenth degree of the Scottish Rite, and is a
member of Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling.

At Grafton, in June, 1909, Mr. Steel married Miss Viola
Louise Miller, of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, a daughter of
Henry J. and Elizabeth (Dittme) Miller. Her father is a
native of Holland, who crossed to this country when a child.
He became a pioneer steel mill worker in the mills at McKees-
port. Her mother is a native of McKeesport. All of their
eleven children are still living, Mrs. Steel being the third
youngest child. She was educated in the public schools.
Mr. and Mrs. Steel have one son, Charles W., Jr., born
November 8, 1910.