Tyler County, West Virginia Biography of Russell Updegraff ADAMS ************************************************************************** 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, , July 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 159-160 RUSSELL UPDEGRAFF ADAMS has had a progressive asso- ciation with various industrial organizations in the Upper Ohio Valley for nearly twenty years. For several years his home has been at Sistersville, where he is secretary and treasurer of the Young Torpedo Company, a corpo- ration manufacturing quantities of the explosives used in the oil and gas districts. Mr. Adams was born at Wheeling, March 4, 1888. His family has been in Wheeling since pioneer times. His grandfather. Jack Adams, who was of Scotch-Irish an- cestry, was born at Wheeling in 1837, and spent all his life there. For many years he was a mail clerk on Ohio and Mississippi river steamboats. He died at Wheeling in 1891. Jack Adams married Emma McNell, who was born at Wheeling in 1845, and is still living on Wheeling Island. Their son, Archie L. Adams, was born in March, 1866, at Wheeling, and has spent his life in that vicinity. He was first employed by a Wheeling druggist, Alexander Young, but in 1891 moved out into the country, seven miles from Wheeling on the New Bethany Pike, near Clin- ton, and for several years conducted a general store there. In 1898 he returned to Wheeling, where for a short time he was employed by the Traction Company, and since then has been in merchandising, and now has charge of the clothing department of Wheeling's great department store of Watkins & Company. His home is at 28 Zane Avenue. A. L. Adams is a democrat and a member of the Presby- terian Church. He married Effie Russell Updegraff, who was born at Wheeling, June 19, 1864. The Updegraffs were a family of Holland Dutch ancestry, descended from Peter Updegraff, who settled in Pennsylvania in Colonial times. The maternal grandfather of R. U. Adams was Israel Updegraff, a native of Pennsylvania, who went to Wheeling when a young man and was in the lumber busi- ness there the rest of his life. He married Letitia Ram- mage, who was born near Wheeling, October 8, 1828, and is still living, at the age of ninety-three, at St. Clairsville, Ohio. Archie L. Adams and wife were the parents of five children. Russell U.; Jack R., who was a first lieutenant in the Air Service during the war and now lives with his parents and is an employe of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road Company; Reed McCullough Baird, a cadet in the Annapolis Naval Academy; Eleanor, who died at the age of five years; and Lawrence, who died when three years old. Russell Updegraff Adams lived until he was ten years of age with his parents in the country near Wheeling, at- tended the rural schools of Ohio County, and completed the eighth grade in the Madison School on Wheeling Is- land. He was in the Wheeling High School through the sophomore year, but in 1901 left school and the following ten years was an employe of the National Tube Company. He was assistant storekeeper when he resigned, and the next two years he was chief clerk for the J. E. Moss Iron Works of Wheeling. Then for a year he was secretary and a stockholder of the Saturn Foundry & Machine Company at Wheeling, after which for six months he returned to the Moss Iron Works as purchasing agent. Mr. Adams came to Sistersville in June, 1917, as as- sistant manager of the McJunkin Machine Company. He was promoted to manager in February, 1918, and had charge of the business until September 1, 1919, when he was made manager of the Young Torpedo Company, a Sistersville corporation, with main offices in the Farmers & Producers National Bank Building. In January, 1922, he was made secretary and treasurer of the company. The company manufactures nitro glycerine, and its product is shipped to all the adjacent oil and gas districts of West Virginia and Ohio. A young business man just getting a foothold in com- mercial and industrial affairs, Mr. Adams has not neglected other interests that have a legitimate claim on a good citizen. He was city accountant of Sistersville from 1917 to 1920 and again appointed to that office in March, 1922, is an active member of the Presbyterian Church and teacher in its Sunday school, and while in Wheeling was deacon of the Second Presbyterian Church. He is a dem- ocrat in politics; a member of Phoenix Lodge No. 73, A. F. and A. M.; Sistersville Chapter No. 27, R. A. M.; Mountain State Commandery No. 14, K. T.; Sistersville Lodge No. 333, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elka; Wheeling Lodge No. 114, Knights of Pythias; and is a member of and the second president to hold the office in the Sistersville Kiwanis Club. He lent his aid to the va- rious drives and campaigns during war times. October 20, 1909, at Wheeling, Mr. Adams married Miss Daisy Dell Hilton, daughter of Jacob and Josephine (Gill) Hilton, residents of Warwood, Wheeling, where her father operates a bank or surface coal mine. Mrs. Adams is a graduate of the Elliott Business College of Wheeling. Four children have been born to their marriage: R. Baird, born December 28, 1910; Ewing, who died at the age of five months; Dorothy, born September 10, 1914; and Effie, born May 29, 1918.