Wetzel County, West Virginia Biography of J. Friend ALLEY ************************************************************************** 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. 53-54 J. FRIEND ALLEY is cashier of the Bank of Pine Grove, was in early life a teacher, and is prominently and widely known in the citizenship of Wetzel County, which he also represented a term in the State Legislature. Mr. Alley was born at Pine Grove March 17, 1891, and at the age of thirty has achieved a substantial position in the affairs of that community. His great-grandfather, Jack Alley was the pioneer of the family in West Virginia. He was a minister of the Baptist Church and settled in Marshall County from Pennsylvania. The grandfather, Thomas H. Alley, was born in Marshall County in 1826, and the greater part of his life was spent near Pine Grove in Wetzel County, where he died in 1908, at the age of eighty-two. He married Mary Steele, a native of Greene County, Pennsylvania, who died at Pine Grove. Isaac B. Alley, father of the Pine Grove banker, is a resident of that community. He was born in Marshall County in 1859, and was a small boy when his parents moved to Pine Grove, where he was reared and mar- ried and where he has been known as a substantial farmer. He is now practically retired. He has served on the Town Council of Pine Grove, is a democrat, a member of the Meth- odist Church and Sylvan Lodge No. 130, Knights of Pythias. He married Louisa Headley, who was born in Wetzel County in 1864 and died at Pine Grove in 1894. The four children of their marriage were: Miss Jessie, at home with her father; Joe, a stationary engineer living at Pine Grove; J. Friend; and Mary Jane, wife of George W. Hawkins, a stationary engineer at Pine Grove. J. Friend Alley was educated in the public schools of Pine Grove, and in 1915 graduated from the Elliott Commercial School of Wheeling. In the meantime, at the age of nineteen, he began teaching, for two years his work was in the rural schools, and for one year he was a teacher in the grade school of Pine Grove. After finishing his commercial college course in the fall of 1915 he entered the Bank of Pine Grove as bookkeeper. In November, 1916, he was elected a mem- ber of the House of Delegates from Wetzel County, and dur- ing the session of 1917 he was a member of the committees on prohibition and temperance, education, county, districts and municipal corporations, private corporations and joint stock companies, and agriculture. In December, 1916, Mr. Alley resigned from the bank and for a short time was bookkeeper tor the South Penn Oil Company, but in 1917 returned to the Bank of Pine Grove as cashier, and has been to a large degree the responsible officer of the bank ever since. The Bank of Pine Grove was established under a state charter in 1902. It was a very prosperous institution, the capital stock being $25,000.00, surplus and profits $6,000.00, and deposits averaging $200,000.00. The personnel of the officers are: H. A. Jolliffe, president; F. F. Morgan, vice president; J. Friend Alley, cashier; while the other directors are Joe Alley, H. H. Roome, L. M. Billingsley, B. L. Morgan, P. J. Garvey, J. L. Simpson, S. J. Dulaney, all of Pine Grove, and J. U. Jolliffe, of Weston. As a bank official Mr. Alley was very active in promoting the filling of the quota of his community for patriotic pur- poses during the war. He spent much of his time in selling Liberty Bonds and helping the Red Cross drives. He is a democrat, a Methodist, and is affiliated with Wetzel Lodge No. 39 A. F. and A. M., Sylvan Lodge No. 130, Knights of Pythias, of which he is past chancellor, and Pine Grove Lodge No. 460, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. June 25, 1919, at Pine Grove, he married Miss Alice Haw- kins, daughter of Ralph R. and Sarah (Daugherty) Hawkins, the latter now deceased, and the former a resident of Pine Grove. He is a retired oil well pumper and now has a pen- sion from the company that employed him many years. Mrs. Alley also finished her education in the Elliott Com- mercial College at Wheeling. They have two children, Norman Gregory, born April 17, 1920, and Jack Roger, born February 1, 1922.