West Virginia Statewide Files WV-Footsteps Mailing List WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 105 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: JOHN PATSEY, Barbour County W [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991108232038.00b80820@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: JOHN PATSEY, Barbour County WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 *************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 300-301 Barbour JOHN PATSEY. Few native Americans, with education and other advantages, accomplish a better aggregate of sub- stantial results in a comparatively brief lifetime of less than fifty years than John Patsey, a native of Italy, who came to this country with the training only of a practical laborer and was a coal miner until he could put himself into a business of his own. For the past twenty years he has become very well and favorably known in Barbour County, where he is proprietor of a good business at Berry- burg and has a number of other property and financial in- terests scattered over this section of the state. He was born in Central Italy, at Introdacqua, Province of Aquila, sixty-four miles east of Rome, March 21, 1874, son of Ponfila and Magdalena (Juliani) DiPasQuale. He was the third of their six sons. His parents spent all their lives in Italy. Five of the sons came to America. Charles, who after a residence of many years here returned to Italy; James, formerly a merchant in New York City, now a resident of Providence, Rhode Island; Ernest, who was killed while working in the mines at Thomas, West Virginia; and Louis, who died of typhoid fever in Cook's Hospital at Fairmont, West Virginia. John Patsey grew up on a little farm, had to get his education with practically no attendance at school, and at the age of eight years was earning seventeen cents a day at farm labor. He continued to work on the farm until he was thirteen, and then took up railroad work. He did some of the hard labor of railroad construction, including tunnel work, and for nineteen months he was employed during the construction of a tunnel in Belgium. One of liis brothers had preceded, him to America, and his example encouraged John Patsey to come to this country. He sailed from Rotterdam for New York on the ship Rotterdam, landed in New York and immediately came on to Thomas, Tucker County, West Virginia, and did his first work in the mines at Coketon in that vicinity. He reached there October 29, 1898. In his early years Mr. Patsey was accus- tomed to the hardest kind of work, and even in the field of merchandising his success has been due to the habit and training of his earlier years. While at Thomas he made his first start in a mercantile way with limited capital, and after about two years he moved to Harding, but continued his store at Thomas until 1902. He also established a busi- ness at Colton, and for a time owned and operated a store at Lants, on the Coal and Coke Railway. He disposed of these interests to concentrate all his capital and energy upon his new business at Berryburg in Barbour County, where he set up as a merchant in 1903. He established himself here as the successor of H. Cohen, and has been the leading merchant of the locality for nearly twenty years. Aside from his business at Berryburg Mr. Patsey is owner of much real estate, including farm land and im- proved property in town, owns some business property at Philippi, associated with William Janes, and is part owner of a business block at Grafton. He was one of the pro- moters and is a director of the Peoples Bank of Philippi, a stockholder in the Citizens National Bank of the same city, a stockholder in the Monongahela Power and Railway Company of Fairmont, and had financial interest in the Wheeling Investment Association. Mr. Patsey began the naturalization process about seven- teen years ago, and since qualifying as a voter has been a republican, casting his first presidential vote for Colonel Roosevelt. He joined the Odd Fellows Lodge at Philippi. At Newark, New Jersey, November 27, 1909, he married Miss Mary Angeline Zingone, who was born at Deliceto, Province of Foggia, Italy, daughter of Mattio Zingone. She came to America in 1907. Mr. Patsey suffered the tragedy of losing his wife, who was burned to death while starting a fire in a stove with gasoline instead of kerosene, on November 10, 1913. She was only thirty-two years of age when she died. She is survived by two children: Reva, born January 25, 1911, and Mary, born May 25, 1913. ______________________________X-Message: #2 Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 23:21:23 -0500 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991108232123.00b81ec0@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: WILLIAM FREDERICK REGER, Barbour County, WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by bl-14.rootsweb.com id UAA16720 *************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 301 Barbour WILLIAM FREDERICK REGER. For twenty years or more William Frederick Reger has been closely associated with the coal mining industry of the Berryburg locality in Bar- bour County. He is one of the oldest men in the service of the Consolidation Coal Company at that point, where he has been store manager for ten years. Mr. Reger was born near Weston, Lewis County, May 1, 1881. The Regers are an old family of West Virginia. His grandfather, Henry Reger, was an early settler in Upshur County, locating there from one of the eastern states. His life was devoted to farming. He left a large number of children at his death. One of them was William Reger, only a child when his father died. William Reger was born in Upshur County, but spent most of his life in Lewis County. He enlisted from Upshur County in the Union Army as a member of the Upshur Battery, and was a can- noneer and corporal of his company. He participated in some of the heavy fighting of his regiment, but sustained no wounds or other injuries beyond disease contracted in the war. After the war he was satisfied to let others con- tinue the memories of the great conflict, and he manifested little interest even in the G. A. R. He was a staunch republican without official aspirations, and was a member of the Methodist Protestant Church. William Reger, who died at Weston in March, 1917, at the age of sixty-eight, married Mary Jones, daughter of Henry and Sallie (Tremble—formerly Turnbull) Jones. She is living at Wes- ton, and became the mother of six sons and three daugh- ters: Thomas L., of Pittsburgh; Avis, wife of C. G. Hinz- man, of Weston; Gertrude, who died at Berlin, West Vir- ginia, wife of J. E. Swisher; Charles H., of Philadelphia; Mattie, wife of A. M. Corathers of Weston; Robert V., of Clarksburg; William Frederick; Samuel Steele, of Burk- burnett, Texas; and Earl, who is the postmaster of Weston. William P. Reger grew up on a farm near Weston, and the routine of the farm constituted his early training and experience. He attended the common schools, and when past his majority he left home and began his career at Berryburg with the Southern Coal and Transportation Com- pany. This company sold out to the Consolidation Coal Company in 1905, and along with the property and good- will Mr. Reger went perhaps as a part of the contracting, since he was the only one of the store force to remain under the new management. He was promoted in 1912 to store manager for the company at Berryburg, and in addition to these responsibilities he is postmaster of the village and has accepted a share in every organized move- ment for the welfare of the community. Two of his own children are teachers, and he has for years been an advocate of better schools at Berryburg, and is one of the local school trustees. He is a member of the Methodist Protestant Church, and fraternally is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, of which he is a past chancellor and past repre- sentative, the Woodmen of the World and the Junior Order United American Mechanics. At Weston, August 1, 1901, Mr. Reger married Miss Lillie Smith, who was born on a farm near that city, daughter of Clinton Smith. Her mother was a daughter of Isaac Rohrbaugh, and Mrs. Reger was one of six daugh- ters and three sons, all still living. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Reger are: Scott N., Albert Paul, Evelyn, Fred- erick and William. Seott and Albert both finished their educations in Broaddus College and are teachers in the public schools of Barbour County. Albert also took work as a student in an automobile school at Cincinnati.