Tyler County, West Virginia Biography of Sam HISSAM ************************************************************************** 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. 34 SAM HISSAM is one of the older residents of the Sistersville community. In early life he was a teacher in Tyler County, then in the railway mail service, until oil development on his farm gave him private interests requiring his supervision. Mr. Hissam is still an oil producer and active farmer, and has shared in the public responsibilities of the county and is now postmaster of Sistersville. The Hissam family is of English ancestry and has been in America since Colonial times. His grandfather, Thomas Hissam, was a native of Westmoreland County, Pennsyl- vania, where he grew up, learned the trade of shoemaker but also followed farming. In Westmoreland County he married a Miss White, who was born on the ocean during a four months voyage while her parents were coming from Ireland. Shortly after his marriage Thomas Hissam moved to Tyler County, West Virginia, and lived out his life here as a farmer and worker at his trade. His son, William Hissam, was born in Tyler County in 1824, and spent all his life as an industrious farmer and was one of the respected members of his community. He died in 1907. He was a democrat and a leader in the Christian Church. His first wife was Elizabeth Weekly, who was bora in Tyler County in 1834 and died in 1906. His second wife was Frances Malson, a native and life-long resident of Tyler County, and they reared a family of five children. Elizabeth Weekly Hissam was the mother of five children: Elijah C., a farmer who died at Coryopolis, Pennsylvania, in 1919, at the age of sixty-three: Samantha, who died at East Liverpool, Ohio, wife of Sam Winning, a cooper by trade, who died at Sisters- ville; Margaret, who died at Cornwallis in Ritchie County, West Virginia, in 1879, wife of Harvey M. Weekly, a farmer still living in Ritchie County; Harvey B., employed in a robber factory in Akron, Ohio; and Sam. Sam Hissam was born on a farm a mile south of Sisters- ville October 5, 1865, and secured his early advantages in the rural schools, attended several summer normal schools at Sistersville and Middlebourne, and at the age of twenty- one was given his first opportunity to teach in a district school in Tyler County. Altogether he taught seven terms of country school, for one term was principal of the Middle- bourne graded school, and another term was teacher of the grammar room at Sistersville. After passing the civil service examination Mr. Hissam in 1895 was appointed a substitute in the railway mail service, in 1896 was given his first regular appointment, and turned over his school to the then county superintendent, Thomas P. Hill, who finished out the term. Mr. Hill is now an attorney at Middlebourne. Mr. Hissam's first assignment was on the run between Wheeling and Garrett, Indiana, but two years later he wag transferred to the Pittsburgh and Kenova Railway post office, and was on this run until he resigned May 21, 1907. For a number of years Mr. Hissam had owned a farm of a hundred and forty acres at Dry Run in Tyler County. This came within the area of oil prospecting, and after oil was developed on the farm Mr. Hissam sold the property in 1907, though retaining his oil royalties. A number of wells were drilled there and one is still producing. In 1907 Mr. Hissam bought another farm of two hundred and fifty acres on Middle Island Creek, six miles south of Sistersville, and he still owns and operates this property. In connection with farming he was for about two years rather extensively engaged in the lumber business, buying tracts of standing timber in Tyler County and having it cut, logged and sawed. He was in this business from 1917 until the fall of 1919. In 1910 Mr. Hissam was elected commissioner of the County Court, and filled that office six years with credit. August 29, 1919, he was appointed postmaster of Sistersville. his name standing first on the list of the classified civil service. In 1905 the Town Council of Sistergville appointed him assessor, an office he filled one year, and at the same time was deputy county assessor. Mr. Hissam is a democrat, is an elder in the Christian Church of Sistersville, a member of Sistersville Lodge No. 333, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Kiwanis Club and the Sistersville Country Club. He owns a modern home on Cemetery Road. During the war he was a participant in every drive, being a member of the committee for the first Liberty Loan drive in Union District, and district chairman of all the other loan campaigns. He was chairman of the Little Buffalo School District for the Y. M. C. A. drive, was captain of a team for the Red Cross campaigns, was a member of the Tyler County Council of Defense, and a Four Minute speaker. He and Mrs. Hissam used their car almost constantly in some of the many phases of patriotic endeavor during this period. March 28, 1889, at Sistersville, Mr. Hissam married Miss Eunice M. Calhoun, daughter of John C. and Jane (dark) Calhoun. Her father, now deceased, was a steamboat engineer for many years. Her mother lives with Mr. and Mrs. Hissam. Mr. and Mrs. Hissam have an interesting family of eight children. The oldest, Paul B., was a soldier boy, and his record is given a paragraph by itself. Grace is the wife of Ira W. Moore, an oil field worker in Tyler County; Bernice is the wife of Garnett H. Hadley, an oil field worker living near Sistersville. Eugenie is the wife of Neil E. Riggs, a glass worker at Sistersville. Ellen is a student in the Sistersville High School, while the younger children are Benjamin L., born March 1, 1908; George R., born June 9, 1911, and Sam, born June 12, 1915. Paul B. Hissam, who was born June 4, 1894, enlisted in January, 1917, before America entered the war with Ger- many. He was first sent to Fort Leavenworth, then to Camp Jackson and Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, then to Camp Upton on Long Island, and in July, 1918, embarked for overseas, going to France by way of England. He was in the Field Signal Corps with the Second Army Corps, and was brigaded with the British on the San Quentin and Cam- brai sectors. He remained there until the armistice was signed, and was returned home in April, 1919, and mustered out with the rank of corporal at Camp Dix, New Jersey. He now lives at Falcon, Kentucky, being assistant foreman for the Petroleum Exploration Company.