Taylor County, West Virginia Biography of Timothy S. SCANLON ************************************************************************** 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, , May 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 149-151 TIMOTHY S. SCANLON. As a road builder and contractor Timothy S. Scanlon has had a very interesting and im- portant connection with West Virginia's good roads history. His time and energies have been chiefly bestowed on this line of work for twenty-two years. His home is at Hunting- ton, but recently Grafton has become almost his business headquarters while performing his duties as general super- visor of Taylor County's good roads construction program. He was born at Harrisonburg, Virginia, November 15, 1858, son of Timothy and Norie (Mahony) Scanlon. His parents were both born in County Kerry, Ireland, near the River Shannon. Coming to the United States about 1853, they located in Virginia, where Timothy Scanlon was em- ployed on construction work for the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- road. When he died in 1861, at the first tunnel west of Covington, Virginia, he left a family of nine children, some of whom fortunately were old enough to bear the burdens of supporting the household. The widowed mother soon moved to Greenbrier County, West Virginia, living for a time on a farm there, and after two years accompanied some families to Red House on the Kanawha River, and subsequently further up the river to a point opposite St. Albans, where she remained until 1870. Her children were: Catherine, who married R. C. Gayer; Patrick J., who for some years was a railroad contractor but spent the great part of his life in charge of the P. C. Buffington estate at Huntington, where he died; Ellen, whose first husband was John Gohen, and she died as the wife of John Haloran; Norie, wife of Charles Dyer, living at Montgomery, West Virginia; Margaret, wife of John J. Lee, of Huntington; John, who died in childhood; Edward, who was a locomo- tive engineer out of Hinton when he died at the age of thirty-one; Samuel, who died unmarried at Hinton; and Timothy S. Timothy S. Scanlon has been a resident of West Vir- ginia since 1861. He had no opportunity to attend school until he was eight years old, and for the next five years, during two or three months each year, he was a pupil in a school opposite St. Albans on the Rocky Fork of Poca River. Even then he was doing work that was a prac- tical contribution to the support of the household. His early interest in construction work was derived from em- ployment as driver of a cart and other duties under his brother Patrick while the latter was building a short piece of the Chesapeake & Ohio west of Montgomery, and another bit at Sandstone. As a result of this early in- dustry and his thrift he had saved about $200 before he was fifteen years old. A better education was his chief object and ambition just then, and for ten months he was a diligent student, simply "living with his books," in an excellent school known as the Old Academy on Gos- pel Hill, Staunton, Virginia. Mathematics was his chief subject, and he left school with a good knowledge of algebra and some of the higher branches, a training that was invaluable in later years. After thirteen months as a Chesapeake & Ohio brake- man he was promoted to freight conductor, 3 1/2 years later was made yardmaster at Hinton, and in a little while, before he was quite twenty-one, was raised to the responsibilities of trainmaster, with jurisdiction over eighty miles in each direction from Hinton. He con- tinued these duties there years, and might have become one of the conspicuous railroad officials of the country but for the affliction of rheumatism, which caused him to give up railroading. About that time he established his home in Huntington, in 1883. Mr. Scanlon was a shoe merchant at Huntington for about twenty years, until his growing interests in other directions caused him to dispose of that business. His first connection with road construction was as an employe of Doctor Hale in the manufacture of the brick used in the first brick road ever laid in the United States, on Summers Street in Charleston. Mr. Scanlon states that this road was laid on a base of four or five inches of pit gravel sand and gravel natural mixture, covered with two-inch tarred boards, then a sand cushion of two inches, on which were laid ordinary two-inch brick, the brick being made in oil molds from common river-bottom clay. While perhaps not adapted to the heavy traffic of modern streets, this brick pavement stood the test of time and wear for at least thirty-five years. His next experience in practical road-building was due to his election in 1892 by the people of Huntington, re- gardless of polities, to act as city treasurer in carrying out the provisions of the first bond issue for paving the city. Out of brick made by the city some seven miles of permanent streets were constructed. After the satisfac- tory completion of this work Mr. Scanlon refused a re- nomination for the same office, and he soon engaged in road building and general contracting on his own account. Roads, streets and sewer building have comprised his field, and among many important contracts handled by his organization in subsequent years were paving jobs in Hin- ton and Huntington, hard-surface roads in Wayne County between Ceredo and the Cabell County line; a highway contract at Roncevert; five miles of main sewer in Hunt- ington; ten miles of 16-foot brick road in Cabell County; five miles of concrete road in Lincoln County; and many miles of permanent road in several other states. He was appointed by Governor Cornwell a member of the West Virginia State Road Commission, and was asso- ciated for some fifteen months with A. D. Williams of Morgantown and about nine months with the chairman, Maj. C. P. Fortney. They organized the commission, selected the "Class A" roads in the state, perfected the state standard of specifications since in use, and pro- vided for the automobile license regulation as well as it could be done with funds made available by the Legislature. As noted above, Mr. Scanlon's active association with Taylor County's good-road building program is as gen- eral supervisor over the expenditure of the $100,000 bond issue with the contribution of the Federal Government. In that capacity he supervised in 1921 the building of 6 1/2 miles of hard-surface roads and the grading, drain- ing and bridging of 4% miles in preparation for the hard-surfacing in 1922. Mr. Scanlon has always con- tended for a good sub-base and good drainage as essen- tial to the life of any road structure. In 1922 Taylor County advertised and let contracts for thirty miles of new road, and this, top, is under the supervision of Mr. Scanlon. During his experience as a contractor Mr. Scanlon took some large jobs of road building while the World war was in progress, and completed them in the face of the fluctuations due to rapid inflation and deflation, taking his share of loss in the general slump. In his home city of Huntington, besides his service as city treasurer, he was later elected to the city council and then as one of the city commissioners. He was commissioner of finance and public utilities three years. During this term twenty miles of street paving was laid, three miles of main and twenty miles of lateral sewer built, the South Side Park was laid out and improved, and provision made for the sale of the old fire department and city hall headquarters and the erection of a new city hall and fire station that would be a credit to a city several times the size of Hunting- ton. The same commission proved its adequacy in the emergency created by the flood of 1913, handling the situ- ation at a cost of $18,000, and in the following-winter put such vigor into the administration of the department of health that a smallpox epidemic took a toll of only two lives. In these and other practical measures of ad- ministration the commission expended $1,250,000 annually, but in such a way as to satisfy the people of the real economy of true efficiency. Mr. Scanlon was one of a committee to get up the plan for the construction of the Huntington Chamber of Com- merce, and for eight years he served the chamber with- out pay. He is still an active member of this body, and of the Huntington Rotary Club, has filled the various chairs in the Knights of Columbus, and is past consul and for eight years was state lecturer for the Modern Woodmen of America. He voted for General Hancock, the democratic nominee for president in 1880, and has been a democrat with liberal tendencies through all his mature career. At Huntington, June 15, 1885, Mr. Scanlon married Miss Jennie V. White, who was born and reared on the site of Huntington, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Stewart) White. The Whites were Maryland people while the Stewarts came from Bath County, Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Scanlon had two children, the daughter Drusilla, dying in infancy. Charles M., the son, is in the oil fields of Tampico, Mexico. Over a period of many years Mr. and Mrs. Scanlon have opened their hearts and their hos- pitable home to about twenty orphan children. His inter- est in such children extended beyond those under his own care. For many years he was president of the West Vir- ginia Colored Orphans Home. When a private institution supported by the colored race was about to fail, Mr. Scanlon and a few other white men assumed control and financed it until they could persuade the state to take it over.