Wetzel County, West Virginia Biography: Alexander Ewing McCUSKEY, M. D. ************************************************************************** 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, , April 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 133 ALEXANDER EWING McCUSKEY, M. D. While his time and talents have been completely exercised in his busy practice as a physician and surgeon for a quarter of a century, Doctor McCuskey, whose home for over twenty years has been at Pine Grove in Wetzel County, has also been a leader in politics and public affairs, is a former state senator, and is deeply interested in the educational advancement of his community. Doctor McCuskey represents an old family of Marshall County, West Virginia, and was born on a farm there fourteen miles southeast of Wheeling, November 17, 1870. He is of Scotch stock, though a number of generations ago the McCuskeys left Scotland and settled in Northern Ire- land and from there came to the United States. Grand- father George McCuskey was a life-long resident of Mar- shall County, a farmer, and married Miss Lindsay, who was also born and died in Marshall County. Alfred Mc- Cuskey, father of Doctor McCuskey, was born at Oak Hill in Marshall County in February, 1831, and devoted his active life to his farming interests. He was reared and married in Marshall County, and lived there until 1914, when he retired and spent his last years in the home of his son at Pine Grove, where he died in December, 1916. He was a democrat, and all the years of his life was a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was also af- filiated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Alfred McCuskey married Mary Williamson Ewing, who was born at Sand Hill in Marshall County in 1834, and died in that county in 1913. The names of their children were as fol- lows: Elizabeth, who died in infancy; George, who died as a child; Joseph, who died at the age of fourteen; Carl William, a steel mill worker living at McMechen in Mar- shall County; Alfred Franklin, who died of diphtheria at the age of eleven; Alexander Ewing; Virginia, wife of Isaac A. Wise, a farmer and a guard in the West Virginia penitentiary at Moundsville; James, who died in infancy; and Jesse Allen, who died when eleven years of age of diabetes. Dr. Alexander Ewing McCuskey grew up on his father's farm and attended the rural schools, a select school at Moundsville, and from the age of eighteen to twenty-two taught in his home county. In the fall of 1893 he en- tered the Ohio Medical University of Columbus, where he graduated M. D., March 17, 1896. Doctor McCuskey has always been a student of his profession, and during 1913 he did post-graduate work in the New York Post Graduate School. After his graduation he practiced a year at Logans- port in Marion County, and then located at Smithfleld in Wetzel County until the spring of 1899, when he removed to Pine Grove, where he has been in practice for over twenty-two years. He owns a modern home and offices on Main Street, and other financial investments include a ranch of 320 acres in Grant County, Arkansas, and a third interest in the home farm in Marshall County. Doctor McCuskey has been a member of the Democratic State Executive Committee since 1916. He was elected to the State Senate in November, 1912, serving in the regular sessions of 1913-15 and in several special sessions. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on medi- cine and sanitation and a member of the committees on education, fish and game, railroads and corporations and others. Doctor McCuskey is a member of the Grant Dis- trict Board of Education of Wetzel County. Fraternally he is affiliated with Cameron Lodge No. 17, A. F. and A. M., in Marshall County; Sistersville Chapter No. 27, R. A. M.; Mountain State Commandery No. 14, K. T.; and Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling. He is a past chancellor of Sylvan Lodge No. 130, Knights of Pythias, at Pine Grove and is a member of the Marshall County, State and American Medical associations. Dur- ing the war Doctor McCuskey was commissioned a cap- tain in the Medical Reserve Corps and was scheduled for active duty on December 1, 1918, but the signing of the armistice caused the order to be annulled. July 9, 1901, at Moundsville, he married Miss Harriet Amanda Johnson, daughter of Anthony M. and Lucretia (Hammond) Johnson, now deceased. Her father was a Union soldier in the Civil war. Mrs. MeCuskey is a grad- uate of the Moundsville High School. Their two children are Mary Lucretia, born January 14, 1905, now a senior in the Pine Grove High School, and Virginia Isabelle, who was born September 1, 1908.