Upshur County, West Virginia Biography of C. FLOYD CALE ************************************************************************** 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 2000 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 502-503 Upshur C. FLOYD CALE, a business man and progressive citizen of Bruceton Mills, represents one of the very oldest families established in this section of West Virginia. The tradition is that Christopher Kahl was one of the Hessian soldiers employed by the British Government to suppress the Colonists' struggle for independence. He deserted from the British army, a fact creditable to his Americanism, and about 1777, while the War of the Revolu- tion was still in progress, he came over the mountains into Western Virginia and settled in Pleasant District, then in Monongalia County of old Virginia. He lived out his life there as a farmer, and his old home is now the property of Orval Walls. His grave is on the old farm near Hudson. Among his sons and daughters John and Jacob Cale, as the family soon learned to spell the name, were soldiers in the War of 1812. These soldiers were uncles of Jacob Cale. the grandfather of Floyd Cale. Jacob Cale was born in Pleas- ant District, spent his life as a farmer there and died about the beginning of the Civil war and is buried in the Cun- ningham Cemetery. He married Sarah Everly. Their chil- dren were: Henry E., who followed in the footsteps of his father as a farmer, once served as deputy sheriff, was a member of the militia during the Civil war and is buried at Sugar Valley; Elizabeth, who became the wife of Ebon Graham, of near Hudson in Preston County; Jesse, who was a teamster in the Civil war, was a farmer in civil life, and is buried at Pisgah in Preston County; William A., who became a youthful soldier of the Union and after the war became an operator in the oil fields of West Virginia, Penn- sylvania and Ohio and is buried at Parkersburg; John G., still a farmer in Pleasant District; Lewis Freeland, men- tioned below; Mollie, who is the wife of William Cunning- ham, a minister of the United Brethren Church now at Clarksburg; Bina, who was married to Frederick Copeman and died near Bruceton; and Miles Thompson, of Terra Alta. Lewis Freeland Cale was born in Pleasant District of Preston County, December 2, 1849, was reared on a farm, acquired a district school education, and after reaching manhood he took up the profession of photographer, and was one of the itinerant members of that profession, doing his work over West Virginia and portions of Pennsylvania and Maryland. He died October 22, 1899. Lewis F. Cale married in Preston County, August 13, 1874, Sabina Ellen Benson, who was born in this county April 16, 1858, and died June 22, 1886. Her children were: Henry Semans who died at the age of six; Charles Floyd; Mary Milicent, who lives with her brother Floyd. Lewis F. Cale's second wife was Amanda Lenhart, a sister of James Lenhart of Kingwood. The two children of that marriage are Norman Elwood, of Pittsburgh, and Alma, wife of Howard Kuhns of Pittsburgh. C. Floyd Cale was born March 10, 1877, in Pleasant Dis- trict, and spent much of his early life with his father travel- ing about the country. He attended various schools in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland; and not in- frequently he was in three or four different schools during the same winter. He gives much credit in his educational training to two of his old teachers for special academic work, D. T. Scott (deceased), and the late S. T. Wiley, noted historian and educator, who was Mr. Cale's personal friend. As a boy he learned the house painting trade, and followed that for seven years in the Uniontown and Morgan- town District. He left there and went to Pittsburgh, and for a year was with the Harbison-WaIker Fire Brick Com- pany, in the position of timekeeper and paymaster. He then sought the mountain region for the benefit of his health, and about that time he taught two terms of school in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. After leaving school work Mr. Cale returned to Pleasant and Grant District, and for five years was field agent for the Hydro-Electric Com- pany. Since then he has followed other business lines, and a considerable portion of each year he is a salesman for musical instruments. He is also a director of the Bruceton Bank. Mr. Cale has never married, and he and his sister have been together for a dozen years and enjoy the com- forts of a good home standing on the heights above Bruce- ton, commanding a broad view of the surrounding country. Mr. Cale is a republican in politics, first voting for Major McKinley. In 1912 he joined the Roosevelt element in the progressive movement, and when that party was dissolved he returned to his old political moorings. He was a clerk in the State Senate under President McDermott of that body, but he has never campaigned for an office. However, he is now president of the School Board at Bruceton, but his presence in that office is accounted for by the fact that some of his friends wrote in his name on the ballot. He is interested in educational matters, and was a stanch supporter of the movement for the location of the high school at Bruceton, which is now in the third year of its existence. Mr. Cale is in full harmony with the essentials of Christianity; and though he is not a church member his sister is a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. Cale is a past chancellor of Bruceton Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and represented the lodge in two sessions of the Grand Lodge, one at Parkers- burg and one at Bluefield. He was one of the charter mem- bers of Bruceton Lodge.