Tyler County, West Virginia Biography of Orion Lee LAZEAR ************************************************************************** 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. 109 ORION LEE LAZEAR. Many years ago, when Sistersville was just coming into prominence as an oil center, a group of young men of enterprise, under the name of Lazear Brothers, took hold of a small business as dealers in feed and grain, and while death has removed one member of the firm the old title is still continued, with Orion Lee Lazear as the active manager of a business that now cov- era a wide scope, including flour and feed manufacturing, ice and the handling of other commodities. Orion Lee Lazear was born in Tyler County, West Vir- ginia, January 22, 1878. The Lazears have been in Tyler County for over eighty years. It is a family, as the name indicates, of French stock, and the name was transplanted to America shortly after the Revolution. For a number of years representatives of the name lived in Greene Coun- ty, Pennsylvania. The grandfather of O. L. Lazear was Joseph Lazear, a native of Greene County, where he mar- ried Mary Gray, of the same county. In 1838 they left their farm in Greene County and moved to Tyler County and spent the rest of their lives on a large farm on Mid- dle Island Creek, seven miles east of Sistersville. Among the children of this pioneer couple who reached mature years were dark, Franklin and John W. John W. Lazear was born in Greene County in 1837, and was an infant when the family moved to Tyler County. He was reared and married there, became a successful farmer, served six years as member of the Board of Edu- cation of Union District, and for one term was a mem- ber of the Tyler County Court, serving in this office six years. He was a republican and was a prominent worker in the Protestant Methodist Church. He married Nancy J. Strouss, who was born at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1842, and is still living at Sistersville. Her parents were Wil- liam and Margaret (Oliver) Strouss, and her father for many years was a mate on an Ohio River steamboat. John W. Lazear, who died in 1900, was the father of a family of ten children: Joseph S., who was in the livery busi- ness at Mannington, West Virginia, and still had his home there when he died at Wheeling in 1918, at the age of fifty-two; William M., who was one of the firm of Lazear Brothers at Sistersville, where he died in 1909, at the age of forty-one; Nora, who died in Sistersville in 1909, aged thirty-nine, was the wife of Arza E. Underwood, a flour miller, who died at St. Mary's, West Virginia; Ida, wife of Lewis M. Thomas, a farmer at Kirkersville, Ohio; Jesse F., who was a teaming contractor and lived near Cameron, West Virginia, but died in the hospital at Wheeling in 1899, at the age of twenty-seven; George W., a wholesale dealer in hay and coal at Mount Vernon, Ohio; Orion Lee; James H., a farmer at Kirkersville, Ohio; John B., in the furniture and undertaking business at Mannington; and Ira F., a traveling salesman, with home at Wheeling. Orion Lee Lazear lived on his father's farm until he was nineteen years of age. In the meantime he attended the rural schools and a subscription school at Middlebourne. For 2 1/2 years he worked for his brother William at Man- nington, and then he and his brothers William and George W. bought a small feed and grain business at Sistersville from its former proprietor, S. W. Lawrence. This was the beginning of the firm Lazear Brothers. In 1906 Wil- liam and O. L. bought out their brother George, and at the death of William, in 1909, his widow succeeded to his interests, but Orion L. has continued as active manager, and through successive developments has made Lazear Brothers a firm of the highest financial standing in this section of the state. The firm owns the plant and offices at 406 Diamond Street. In 1901 they bought from Ben- jamin Showalter, a retail ice business, and since then Lazear Brothers have supplied Sistersville with practically all the ice for domestic purposes. In 1917 Mr. Lazear bought from E. Roome the Riverside Mills, an old milling establishment on Water Street, with a capacity of thirty- five barrels of flour per day, and doing a custom business in the grinding of feed and meal. Besides this extensive business Mr. Lazear is secretary and treasurer and a stockholder of the Sistersville Under- taking Company. Lazear Brothers are stockholders in the Oil Review Publishing Company of Sistersville. Mr. Lazear has done his modest part in community af- fairs, serving two years on the City Council, votes as a republican, is a member of the Presbyterian Church, is a past master of Phoenix Lodge No. 73, A. F. and A. M.; member of Sistersville Chapter No. 27, R. A. M.; Moun- tain State Commandery No. 14, K. T.; Nemesis Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Parkersburg; and is a past ex- alted ruler of Sistersville Lodge No. 333, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In 1901, at Mannington, Mr. Lazear married Margaret I. Enoch, daughter of Nathan and Frances (Hopkins) Enoch, now deceased. Her father was an oil field worker. Mrs. Lazear died in January, 1909, at Sistersville, leaving two children: Nancy F., born February 15, 1904, now a student in the Mount de Chantal Academy at Wheeling, and Paul, born December 26, 1908. On April 9, 1913, at Sistersville, Mr. Lazear married Miss Anna R. Morrissey, daughter of Jack and Mary Elizabeth Morrissey, now deceased. Her father was also an oil field worker.