West Virginia Statewide Files WV-Footsteps Mailing List WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 122 Today's Topics: #2 BIO: William Joseph QUINN, Cabell [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991126012625.00f93960@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: William Joseph QUINN, Cabell Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 321-322 Cabell WILLIAM JOSEPH QUINN, president of the General Coal Company at Huntington, has secured standing as one of the progressive and substantial business men of the younger generation in this city. He was born at Girardville, Penn- sylvania, April 7, 1894, and is a son of William Joseph Quinn, Sr., and Lucy (Griffiths) Quinn, both natives of the old Keystone State, where the former was born in 1863 and the latter, in Schuylkill County, in 1866. The father became fire boss for coal mines in the district near Girard- ville, Pennsylvania, and was only thirty-three years of age when he met his death in a mine explosion at Lost Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1896, his widow being still a resident of Girardville. Mr. Quinn was a stanch republican, was affi- liated with the Knights of Columbus, and was a com- municant of the Catholic Church, as is also his widow. Of the children the subject of this review was the fourth in order of birth, and he was two years of age at the time of his father's tragic death; James is a resident of West Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a railroad employe; Thomas is superintendent of the A. D. Cronin Coal Com- pany at Accoville, West Virginia; Anna is the wife of Arthur Brown, of Girardville, Pennsylvania, Mr. Brown being an electrician in the service of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company; Robert S. is superintendent of the U. S. Block Coal Company, with residence at Woodville, West Virginia. William J. Quinn graduated from the high school depart- ment of Girard College in June, 1910, and thereafter he worked in various clerical capacities until 1912, at Girard- ville and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Atlantic City, New Jersey. In 1912 he became a clerk for the Berwind Lumber Company at Berwind, West Virginia, and six months later became shipping clerk for the New River & Poeahontas Consolidated Coal Company, which one year later transferred him to similar service in the City of Charleston. In 1914 he accepted a position as salesman with the Winifrede Coal Company, the mines of which are in Kanawha County, this state, and he was a representative of this corporation at Cincinnati, Ohio, until 1917, when he organized a company to take over the properties and busi- ness of the Ruffner Coal Company of Accoville, Logan County, West Virginia. He was concerned in the operation of the mine of this company until August, 1920, and was vice president and general manager of the company. In 1920 the Ruffner Coal Company sold its mine and business to the A. D. Cronin Coal Company, in which Mr. Quinn retained an interest and was made general manager, a posi- tion of which he is still the incumbent. In 1919 the Ruffner Coal Company acquired the .Franklin Mine in Boone County, and this mine likewise is now owned by the A. D. Cronin Coal Company, the aggregate output capacity of whose mines is 175,000 tons of coal annually. In 1919 Mr. Quinn purchased the U. S. Block Coal Company's mine and business, the mine having a capacity for the production of 50,000 tons of bituminous coal a year, and this property he still owns. In 1919 also he effected the organization of the General Coal Company, for the handling of the output of the mines with which he is iden- tified, and of this sales company he has since continued the president. He is president also of the U. S. Block Coal Company, and his executive offices are at 918-919 Bobson- Prichard Building in the City of Huntington. Mr. Quinn is a stanch supporter of the cause of the republican party, and is affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 313, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In March, 1920, at Covington, Kentucky, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Quinn and Miss Vivian Brown, who was born at Millersburg, that state, and who is a popular factor in the social circles of Huntington. ______________________________X-Message: #3 Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 01:26:58 -0500 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991126012658.00f92940@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: William F. SMITH, Mason Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 322 Mason WILLIAM F. SMITH, vice president and general manager of the Kanawha Dock Company at Point Pleasant, Mason County, and also of the Point Pleasant Dry Dock Company, has been a potent force in the development of these sub- stantial and important industrial corporations. The Ka- nawha Dock Company was organized in 1902, and is in- corporated with a capital of $75,000. The company owns modern docks and sawmills, and has the best of facilities for the building and repairing of all types of vessels ply- ing the rivers of this section of the Union. John W. Hub- bard, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is president of the com- pany; Mr. Smith has been its vice president and general manager since June, 1918; and C. E. Lawhead, formerly connected with the Merchants National Bank of this city, is its secretary and treasurer. The Point Pleasant Dry Dock Company was organized in December, 1909, the gen- eral equipment of its plant having been purchased from the Pittsburgh Coal Company, which had constructed its dry dock at Pittsburgh in 1884. The officers of the Point Pleasant Dry Dock Company are identical with those of the Kanawha Dock Company. The dry-dock company met with a financial loss of fully $200,000 when its property was swept away by the steamer Otto Marmett on the 14th of January, 1918, this steamer having been carried down the river by the floating ice, and from a total of twenty-one pieces the Point Pleasant Dry Dock Company recovered only its dry dock: its floating sawmills, tow boats, gas, steam and timber boats all being destroyed. The dry dock was recovered below Cincinnati, Ohio, and forty-two feet had to be cut off the dock in order to return it to Point Pleasant. The dock is now 56 by 219 feet in dimensions and can accommodate nearly all types of river craft, and is of the most approved modern type, so that its operative fa- cilities insure the best of service. This is the best dry- dock plant between Pittsburgh and New Orleans, and plays an important part in connection with the navigation inter- ests of the Kanawha, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In re- habilitating the plant after the disaster mentioned above a large expenditure of money was entailed, including the pur- chasing of the property of the Kanawha Dock Company. The company now has a river frontage extending two city blocks, and on the land is a sawmill and four dwelling houses for employes. The company also leases from the state 600 feet of frontage on the Kanawha River and 800 feet on the Ohio River. This leased frontage covers the site of the Tu-endie-wie Park, in which is erected the monu- ment commemorating the battle which occurred at Point Pleasant on the 10th of October, 1774. The two companies with which Mr. Smith is thus identified employ an average force of more than 100 men, and the two enterprises are the ones of major importance in connection with the gen- eral prosperity of Point Pleasant, which depends largely upon the river traffic for its business and civic stability. Mr. Hubbard, president of these two corporations, is pres- ident also of the Cincinnati & Louisville Packet Line, be- sides being interested in several other important enterprises in West Virginia and other states, his residence being at Pittsburgh. Mr. Smith was reared in the City of Pittsburgh, and there he had been associated with the operation of docks for eighteen years prior to coming to Point Pleasant. As a young man he had been employed on steamboats in the coal trade plying between Ohio River points and the City of New Orleans. Since establishing himself at Point Pleasant he here built the steamer W. F. Smith, which is now owned by the LaBelle Steel Company of Portsmouth, Ohio. Mr. Smith has been concerned with river navigation activities for fully forty years. He is the owner of his attractive home property at Point Pleasant, and is here a stockholder in the Home Building Company, of which he was the principal organizer, besides which he is one of the original stockholders in the Marietta Manufacturing Company at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. In 1881 was recorded the marriage of Mr. Smith to Miss Susan M. Deem, of Point Pleasant, and in the same year he had charge of bringing the Ashland docks to Point Pleas- ant. He had the management of the docks at this place one year and for the following two years was similarly engaged at Evansville, Indiana. He then returned to Pittsburgh, where he remained until 1909, since which year he has main- tained his home at Point Pleasant, where both his eldest and youngest children were born. William Russell, the eld- est of the children, is associated with his father's business activities. The maiden name of his wife was Belva Blagg. Henry Sidney likewise is connected with the business of his father. Bessie Virginia is the wife of Roy Condee, of San Diego, California. The younger children are Raymond Hartley, Susie, Howard Finley and John Hubbard. ______________________________X-Message: #4 Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 01:31:31 -0500 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991126013131.00f93010@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: ABRAHAM RUSH McQUILKIN, Berkeley Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 322-323 ABRAHAM RUSH McQUILKIN was one of the prominent residents of Berkeley County during the last century. He was a merchant, successful and vigorous in the prosecution of his affairs, and exemplified the highest standards of personal character in his contact with his fellow citizens. He was born on a farm near Bedington in Berkeley County in 1817. His father, Thomas McQuilkin, was prob- ably born in Pennsylvania, and spent his active life on a farm near Bedington and finally lived with a son in Jeffer- son County until his death. He married Sally Rush, and they reared three children: Abraham R.; William T.; and Mary, who married Thomas Van Metre. Abraham Rush McQuilkin commenced his life of useful- ness as clerk in a store at Shepherdstown, learned a business there, and a few years later set up in the mercantile business on his own account at Scrabble in Berkeley County, carrying a stock of general merchandise. This business was continued with uninterrupted success until the outbreak of the war between the states. He was a strong Union man, and during the war he removed his family to Hagerstown, Maryland. After the restoration of peace he returned to Scrabble, and finally came to Martinsburg to give his daughter the advantages of the schools there. In Martins- burg he lived retired until his death at the age of eighty- five. He and his wife were active members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. He married Ellen G. Rush, who was born in Jefferson County, and was very young when her father died. Her mother married a Jefferson County farmer named Marshall, and with them she remained until her own marriage. Mrs. McQuilkin died at the age of seventy-three. They reared two daughters, Sally and Eliza. Sally married G. S. De- Grange, of Frederick, Maryland, and is now deceased. Her children were named Abraham R., Don G., Henry Clay, Heloise, Garrett and Nater. Heloise is now Mrs. Edward Oldham and lives at Worcester, Massachusetts. Henry Clay married Mrs. Stock, of Winchester, and is an orchardist. Miss Eliza McQuilkin remained with her parents and gave them her utmost care and solicitude during their declining years, and she still occupies the old home in Martinsburg. ______________________________X-Message: #5 Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 01:32:05 -0500 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991126013205.00f93010@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: JASPER L. GRAVES, Berkeley Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 323 JASPER L. GRAVES, a native of Berkeley County, is one of the prosperous young business men of Martinsburg. He began acquiring experience in mercantile lines before he left school, and has built up a satisfactory business by steady application and industry. Mr. Graves was born on a farm near Jones Springs in Berkeley County, son of John M. Graves, a native of the same county and grandson of William Graves. William Graves was of early English ancestry, and on leaving Penn- sylvania located in Berkeley County, on a farm on Stuckey Ridge. He married Sarah Stuckey, of a pioneer family of that community. Both were stricken with diphtheria and died a week apart, leaving two small children, the daughter Barbara dying at the age of five years. John M. Graves was only five years old when his parents died, and he was cared for by his uncle, Michael Stuckey, with whom he lived until he was twenty-one. As a young man he did farm work, later bought a small tract of land near Jones Springs, was a tract farmer for several years, and on leaving his farm and moving to Martinsburg, was employed at Bishops Mill and lived at Martinsburg until his death at the age of fifty-two. On December 85, 1878, he married Sarah Catherine Albright, who was born on a farm in Berkeley County, daughter of Lewis Grantham Albright, a native of the same county, and granddaughter of William Albright, who is said to have been of Pennsylvania-Dutch ancestry. Lewis G. Albright learned the trade of shoemaker, when all boots and shoes were made to order, and he followed that trade in connection with farming. He married Sally Shimp, and both lived to a good old age. Mrs. Sarah Catherine Graves is a resident of Martinsburg. She became the mother of the following children: William Lewis, James Franklin, Nellie Gertrude, Jasper L., Ernest Cleveland and Andrew J. The son Andrew died at the age of twenty-two, while attending a training camp at Morgantown during the world war. William L. is a machinist by trade, and is now a foreman in the Southern Pacific Railroad shops at Oak- land, California. He married Grace Arvin, and they have three children, named Lester, Francene and Howard. James Franklin Graves lives at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, is a Pennsylvania Railroad conductor, and by his marriage to Alice Gift has children named Marvin, Virginia, Sarah, Jasper and Learie. Nellie Gertrude is the wife of I. F. Hyle, foreman at the Kelly Island Stone Quarry and has a daughter, Catherine, now a student in the Martinsburg High School. The parents of these children were both active members of the United Brethren Church and reared their family in the same faith. Jasper L. Graves at the age of fourteen began clerking in a grocery store, doing that work after hours and on holi- days. After leaving the city schools he continued clerking until 1911, then he engaged in the grocery business on his own account, and with a very small stock of goods. He now has one of the leading stores of the kind in Martinsburg. He lives with his mother. Mr. Graves is a member of the United Brethren Church and has been prominent in the church in various official capacities, having been a member of the board of trustees, is a teacher in the Sunday school and has served as president of the Christian Endeavor Society. ______________________________X-Message: #6 Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 01:39:06 -0500 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19991126013906.00f93010@trellis.net> Subject: BIO: ARTHUR MERRYMAN GILBERT, Berkeley Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 323-324 ARTHUR MERRYMAN GILBERT is one of the veteran busi- ness men of Martinsburg, where he has been a druggist over forty years and where his judgment has been enlisted in the service of several other substantial institutions. He has been a public-spirited citizen as well, and a brief account of his career and of his family merits a place in this publication. He was born on a farm bordering on Opequan Creek, one mile from Middleway, in Jefferson County, Virginia, now West Virginia. His father, Jacob Gilbert, was born at Middleway in 1801. His grandfather, Henry Gilbert, was born in Scotland, learned the trade of weaver, and on coming to the American colonies settled in Jefferson County, at Middleway. Here he put up his hand loom and did a thriving business greatly needed in a community whose people still depended upon the home art of manufacturing cloth from the wool grown on sheep and the cotton raised in the fields of that locality. He reared three sons, Ber- nard, Henry and Jacob. Jacob Gilbert spent his early life as a farmer. His first wife was Mrs. Walter Burrell, of Jefferson County, owner of two plantations, upon which they continued to live and at her death he succeeded to the ownership of the property, together with many slaves. At the breaking out of the Civil war he freed the slaves and moved to Middle- way, where he owned a large stone house set amidst pleasant surroundings, and remained there until his death at the age of seventy-eight. For his second wife Jacob Gilbert mar- ried Sarah Harvey Merryman, who was born at Tomonium, Baltimore County, Maryland, daughter of Nicholas and Rebecca (Harvey) Merryman. The Merrymans and Harveys were well known old families of Maryland, and Doctor Ridgley, of Baltimore, has compiled a history of the family. Nicholas Merryman was a farmer and breeder of thorough- bred race horses, and was well known on the turf. Mrs. Sarah Gilbert died in 1879, at the age of thirty-seven. She was the mother of five children: William H., who died at Middleway in 1906; Arthur Merryman; Mary Elizabeth, of Middleway; Roberta, who married T. A. Milton, a lawyer of Kansas City, Missouri; and Sarah M., who married Dr. D. P. Fry, of Hedgesville. Arthur Merryman Gilbert attended private schools at Middleway, and soon after completing his education, in 1876, he came to Martinsburg and began an apprenticeship in the drug store of William Dorsey. It was in 1883 that he established himself in the drug business, and for many years had conducted one of the best drug stores in the Eastern Panhandle. In 1893 Mr. Gilbert married Mabel Rodrick, a native of Frederick County, Maryland, daughter of Daniel W. and Mary Priscilla Rodrick. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert have two sons, Arthur M., Jr., and Webster Rodrick. The son Arthur is a graduate of the Martinsburg High School, spent two years in Washington and Lee University, and in 1918 joined the service at Camp Lee at Lexington, Virginia, and re- mained there until the signing of the armistice. He is now a teller in the Old National Bank at Martinsburg. Webster, the younger son, is a sophomore in the Martinsburg High School. Arthur M. Gilbert was a member of the city council at Martinsburg from 1892 to 1894 and was city treasurer in 1913-16. He cast his first presidential vote for Grover Cleveland, and has been active in the interest of the demo- cratic party. He has been a director of the Martinsburg National Bank and its successor, the Old National Bank, for a quarter of a century, is affiliated with Equality Lodge No. 44, A. F. and A. M., and for upwards of thirty years has been a member of Trinity Episcopal Church.