Wetzel County, West Virginia Biography of Ingrim MYERS ************************************************************************** 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. 50-51 INGRIM MYERS. While he owns a large farm and directs its diversified activities, Ingrim Myers, of Pine Grove, has been actively identified with some phase of the oil industry since early youth. He has helped build hundreds of miles of pipe line, both in West Virginia and in the Far West. Mr. Myers is one of the most successful men of Wetzel County, and enjoys particularly high esteem at Pine Grove. He was born near Centerville in Tyler County, West Vir- ginia, October 1, 1872. His grandfather, Enoch Myers, was born in Maryland in 1797, and spent the greater part of his life as a farmer at Moscow Mills, near Cumberland, that state. Though in advanced years he joined the Union Army at the time of the Civil war. When he retired from his farm he removed to Pleasants County, West Virginia, and died near Willow Island in that county in 1879, at the age of eighty-two. His son, William Myers, was born near Cumberland January 7, 1837, was reared there and as a young man moved to Tyler County, West Virginia, where he spent his active life engaged in farming. He lived retired on his farm four miles north of Centerville until his death February 24, 1922. Dur- ing the Civil war he was a captain of the Home Guards in Tyler County, and was called out to repel Morgan's raid, getting as far as West Union in Doddridge County. He was a republican and a very active member of the United Brethren Church. Captain Myers married in Tyler County Nancy G. Thomas, who was born near Centerville in 1839, and died on the home farm December 16, 1911. They became the parents of a large family of children: Henry R., owner of a large body of land on which he does a successful business as a cattle man and sheep raiser five miles east of Centerville; Mary, who died at the age of eighteen; Susan, whose first husband was John Tustin, a farmer, and she is now the wife of Jacob Thomas, a farmer living three and a half miles north of Centerville; Robert, who died when three years of age; Agnes, wife of Albert Nichols, a farmer at Walker Station in Wood County; James Sheridan, a foreman for the Pittsburg & West Virginia Gas Company, living a mile south of Jacksonburg; Emma J., widow of William Stone, who at the time of his death was deputy sheriff at New Martinsville, where she makes her home; Ingrim; William S., a merchant at Big Moses, his home being a mile east of Middlebourne; Neason George, a farm owner, an oil gauger for the Eureka Pipe Company, and now president of the County Court of Wetzel County, his home being at Porters Falls; Miss Fannie, at home; David Winfield, an oil and gas operator near West Union; and John W., who is superintendent of the Gladstone Oil & Refining Company and a resident of Shreveport, Louisiana. Ingrim Myers spent his early life on his father's farm and acquired his education in the rural schools of Tyler County. After he was fifteen he worked two years on the farm, and in 1889, at the age of seventeen, entered the service of the Eureka Pipe Line Company, beginning in the Eureka oil fields of Pleasants County. In 1895 he was transferred as field foreman for this company to the Wetzel County field at Smithfield, and in 1902 the Eureka Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil, transferred him to California, where he superintended the laying of an eight-inch pipe line from Bakersfield to San Francisco, a distance of three hundred miles. After this work was finished he returned East, and for the Standard Oil Company laid a six-inch pipe line from Somerset, Kentucky, to Licking River, a distance of a hun- dred and ten miles. In 1904 he resumed work with the Eureka Pipe Line Company at Pine Grove as field foreman continuing until January 1, 1905. On August 4, 1904, Mr. Myers was nominated for sheriff of Wetzel County on the republican ticket, and on the 6th of November had the distinction of being the first republican ever elected sheriff of the county. He was chosen by a major- ity of sixty-six over the democrat, D. H. Cox, who had formerly been sheriff. Mr. Myers served the constitutional term of four years, from 1905 to 1909, his official residence dur- ing this time being at New Martinsville. After leaving this county office he resumed his residence in Pine Grove, and is looking after his extensive interests as an oil producer, farmer and general business man. His farm comprises five hundred acres at the edge of Pine Grove, and he operates it as a diver- sified proposition, largely devoted to cattle growing. He is an oil producer in the Pine Grove and Porter's Falls fields of Wetzel County, is a stockholder and director in the First National Bank of New Martinsville, and besides his farm owns two hundred acres of coal lands in the county. His home is a modern residence on Main Street in Pine Grove. Besides his official record as sheriff of Wetzel County Mr. Myers was for four terms mayor of Pine Grove, and a number of terms a member of the City Council. He is affiliated with Mannington Lodge No. 31, A. F. and A. M., Fairmont Chap- ter No. 6, R. A. M., Fairmont Commandery No. 6, K. T., Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling, and White Lily Lodge No. 49, Knights of Pythias, at Smithfield. During the war he was registrar of the Draft Board, helping to fill out questionnaires for recruited men, and was also a leader in the various drives in his district. On August 12, 1902, at Pine Grove, he married Miss Kitty Vandyne, daughter of Jonathan D. and Captolia (Carpenter) Vandyne. Her mother lives at Reader, West Virginia. Her father, a farmer, died near Pine Grove in 1913. Mr. and Mrs. Myers had five children: Bessie, who died when two and a halt years old; Mildred, born January 6, 1906; Webster, born July 19, 1908; Ingrim, Jr., born August 1, 1911; and Charles Blaine, born November 8, 1915.