WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest				Volume 99 : Issue 153

Today's Topics:
  #1 BIO: ARBOGAST, Peter Dille, M. D..   [PJSTON@aol.com]
  #2 BIO: THOMAS, William H.- Bluefield   [PJSTON@aol.com]
  #3 BIO: HALL, Grant P. - Kanawha Co.,   [PJSTON@aol.com]
  #4 BIO: KING, Herbert Volney, M.D.-Mo   [PJSTON@aol.com]

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______________________________X-Message: #1
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 07:13:19 EST
From: PJSTON@aol.com
To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com
Message-ID: <0.c8493708.25878e5f@aol.com>
Subject: BIO:  ARBOGAST, Peter Dille, M. D.. -Monongalia Co., WV
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II

pg 192

Peter Dille Arbogast, M. D.  In the passage of time, including the momentous 
events of recent years in the world's history that have wrecked personal 
ambitions and overturned thrones, America has never forgotten or failed to 
pay tribute to that noble and substantial friend of other days, the Marquis 
de Lafayette of France.  In a measure, this interest has clung also to those 
brave cavaliers who accompanied him to the unknown land across the sea and 
unsheathed their swords to aid the struggling American colonies to secure 
independence.  Not all of these brave soldiers returned to France, a number 
of them deciding to remain in the goodly land to which duty had led them, and 
here they founded families that generations afterward still bear their 
honored names, and through emulating their response to the call of need some 
of their descendants have wiped out the old-time debt on their native soil.

The Arbogast family of West Virginia was founded in America by two brothers 
who accompanied the Marquis de Lafayette from France in 1777 and fought in 
the Revolutionary war to assist the American colonies.  The Arbogast brothers 
afterward returned to France, but subsequently returned to the state, and 
both married women of German extraction.  The great-grandfather of Dr. Peter 
D. Arbogast came to what is now Pendleton County, West Virginia, where he 
became the father of seven sons, of unusual physical development, all being 
over six feet in stature.

Adam Arbogast, the grandfather of Doctor Arbogast, a leading medical 
practitioner at Morgantown, was born in Pendleton County, West Virginia, and 
was one of the first three men to settle in what is now Pocahontas County, 
and with his brothers assisted in the defense of Fort Seibert when the 
Indians attacked the settlers, who had taken refuge in that old log fort.

Adam Arbogast, son of Adam and father of Doctor Arbogast, was born in 1792 on 
his father's farm in Pocahontas County, and died there in 1874.  He was a 
prosperous farmer, and in addition to the old homestead owned another 
valuable farm.  He married Sarah McDaniel, who was born in Randolph County, 
Virginia, in 1841, and survived until 1917.  Her parents were born in 
Scotland.

Doctor Arbogast was born on the old family farm in Pocahontas County, West 
Virginia, March 19, 1867.  He attended the free schools and later 
Hillsborough Academy following which he taught school for several years.  In 
1897 he entered the University of Virginia, where he completed a medical 
course and was graduated from that institution with his degree June 12, 1901. 
 He entered into practice at Durbin, Pocahontas County, removing in 1903 to 
Gorman, Maryland but returning in 1904 to Durbin, where he continued until 
1911, when, in search of a wider field he came to Morgantown, where he is now 
very firmly established in the confidence and affection of the people.

Doctor Arbogast married, January 31, 1894, Miss Hodie Jane Burner, who was 
born in Pocahontas County and was a daughter of Charles and Elizabeth (Beard) 
Burner, belonging, like the Doctor, to an old pioneer family of this section. 
 Her great-grandfather, George Burner, and Adam Arbogast and Jacob Yeager, 
all married sisters, and, as the three earliest pioneers, settled for a time 
in Upper Greenbrier Valley, Pocahontas County, and all became people of 
importance.  Mrs. Arbogast passed away on October 14, 1919, leaving five sons 
and one daughter and a wide circle of attached friends.  The eldest son, 
Harry McNeil Arbogast, after spending two years in the University of West 
Virginia, was a member of the United States Army Medical Corps for six months 
during the World war, being connected with the hospital at Fort Lee, 
Virginia.  He married Miss Luella Howell, daughter of Charles G. Howell of 
Morgantown, and they have one son, Richard Dille, who was born on Easter 
Sunday, 1921.

The daughter of Doctor Arbogast, Gertie Gale, is the wife of Lester E. 
Frazier, and they have one daughter, Catherine Jane.  Mr. Frazier is a 
graduated chemist of the University of West Virginia.  He was born and reared 
in Ronceverte, Greenbrier County, but after his marriage moved to Monessen, 
Pennsylvania.

Charles Merle Arbogast, who is an overseas veteran of the World war, was a 
member of the West Virginia National Guard at the outbreak of the World war, 
and as such went first to Fairmont, then to Pittsburgh, then back to Fairmont 
and then to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, where he spent a year in practice on 
the rifle range, following which he accompanied the American Expeditionary 
Forces to France.  There he saw active service until military offensives were 
terminated by the signing of the armistice with the enemy, and he returned to 
the United States in July, 1919.  He is now a member of the West Virginia 
State Police.  The three younger sons of the family are:  Hoyt, who was 
graduated from the Morgantown High School in 1919, and Keith Bailey and Grey, 
who are yet in the grade schools.

Doctor Arbogast has never been particularly active in political life, 
although his convictions are sound and reasonable, but he is recognized as a 
dependable citizen who is justifiably proud of his long line of American 
ancestry.  He is identified with a number of professional organizations and 
fraternally is a Mason and Odd Fellow.  He is a member and liberal supporter 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

______________________________X-Message: #2
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 08:51:38 EST
From: PJSTON@aol.com
To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com
Message-ID: <0.bdae0315.2587a56a@aol.com>
Subject: BIO: THOMAS, William H.- Bluefield, WV
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II

pg 190

William H. Thomas.  While there is probably no city in the state of the size 
that has a larger number of men with distinctive and important achievements 
to their credit in the domain of commerce and industry than Bluefield, there 
is manifest a disposition to recognize and confer by consensus of opinion if 
not formally a degree of special leadership upon Mr. William Henry Thomas, 
whose name in that community really suggests all the best elements of power 
and influence involved in constructive citizenship and commercial enterprise.

Mr. Thomas represents an old family of Roanoke County, Virginia, and he was 
reared and educated and had his early commercial training there.  Though his 
home has been in Bluefield for a number of years, he still feels in touch 
with the vicinity where he was born and reared.  His birth occurred November 
13, 1865, at what was then known as Big Lick, now Roanoke City.  He is a son 
of Charles M. and Jane (Crawford) Thomas, natives of Roanoke County.

Giles Thomas, Sr., came to this country from England about 1745, settling 
near Havre de Grace, Maryland.  His son, Giles Thomas, Jr., who was born in 
1763 and died in 1842, moved to Virginia in 1796, settling in the county of 
Botetourt, now Roanoke.  He was only twelve years of age when the 
Revolutionary war broke out, and in his sixteenth year he joined the Maryland 
Regiment and served until the close.  He was under General Thomas in the 
great campaign of the Carolinas, and witnessed the surrender of Lord 
Cornwallis at Yorktown.  For these services as a soldier he received a land 
grant, which was located west of Cumberland in Washington County, Maryland.

On June 4, 1786, Giles Thomas, Jr., married Ann Wheeler.  He was a cousin of 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, a venerable signer of the 
Declaration of Independence.  They were married at Carrollton.

Charles M. Thomas, a son of Giles Thomas, Jr., was born July 15, 1790, and 
died May 30, 1869.  He was about six years of age when the family settled in 
Botetourt County, Virginia.  He married Elizabeth Barnett, who was born April 
1 1792, and died in November, 1875.  They were the parents of Charles 
Marigold Thomas.

Charles M. Thomas was born in 1825 and died in 1866.  He was a farmer in 
Roanoke County and in 1861 moved his family to Big Lick.  During the war 
between the states he was with a Virginia regiment, and on account of 
physical disability was chiefly employed in the Quartermaster's Department 
and the Home Guard.  Charles M. Thomas was one of ten brothers who were in 
the Confederate army, and this approaches if it does not establish a record 
for participation of one family that or any other war of the nation.  In 1852 
he married Jane Crawford, who was born July 24, 1831, and died in 1914.  She 
was a descendant of James Crawford, Sr., who was of Scotch-Irish birth and 
came from Northern Ireland in 1770.  His wife was a Miss Wallace a descendant 
of Sir John Wallace of Scotland.  Hames Crawford, Jr., their son, was five 
years of age when the family came to this country.  He married Eliza Poague, 
whose family came in 1765 from Scotland and settled in Augusta County, 
Virginia.  This James Crawford, Jr., by his wife, Eliza was the father of 
James Crawford, father of Jane Crawford Thomas.  The mother of Jane Crawford 
was Jane Deyerle.

William H. Thomas, who therefore descends from very substantial American 
stock on both sides, never had any better school advantages than those 
supplied by the common schools of Roanoke County, and at the age of seventeen 
he was earning his living as clerk in a retail general store at Big Lick, and 
the year represented a valuable training to him.  He then went on the road as 
a traveling salesman, and for eight years sold groceries and general 
merchandise throughout the South and Coast states.  In 1889, at the age of 
twenty-four, Mr. Thomas became associated with three other men, one of whom 
was his brother-in-law, B. P.  Huff, in the firm of Huff, Andrews & Thomas, 
wholesale grocers.  The personnel of this firm has remained the same for over 
thirty years, though their greatly extended business is conducted under a 
number of corporate names.  The partnership has been maintained as a firm at 
Roanoke, where they had their first headquarters as wholesale grocers.  Mr. 
Thomas was the man who acquired the business for this early firm as traveling 
salesman, and for several years he covered the states of Virginia and West 
Virginia.  The first important step in expanding the business came in 1895, 
when a branch was located at Bluefield, and this is now the main house of 
Huff, Andrews & Thomas Company.  The business at Bluefield has from the first 
been conducted as a corporation, with Mr. Thomas as president and general 
manager.  In the meantime the partners in 1892 had organized a wholesale dry 
goods and notion business under the title F. B. Thomas & Company, the active 
head of which was F. B. Thomas, a brother of William H. and one of the origina
l partners in the Huff, Andrews & Thomas Company.  F. B. Thomas & Company is 
still doing business.

There are now seven wholesale grocery houses representing the expanded 
interests of the original concern at Roanoke, and Mr. Thomas of Bluefield is 
connected with all of them as a director.  The six houses outside of 
Bluefield are:  Thomas-Andrews Company at Norton, the Bristol Grocery Company 
at Bristol, Abingdon Grocery Company at Abingdon, National Grocery Company at 
Roanoke, these all being in old Virginia;  and Williamson Grocery Company at 
Williamson, and Mullins Grocery Company at Mullins, West Virginia.

Mr. Thomas has organized and has participated in the management of a large 
number of successful business undertakings, including the Roanoke Candy 
Company, of which he is a director, the Bristol Candy Company at Bristol, 
Virginia, the Bluefield Ice and Cold Storage Company, which he with others 
organized in 1904 and of which he is president; the Citizens Underwriters 
Insurance Agency; the Flat Top National Bank of Bluefield, which he and 
others organized in 1903 and of which he is vice president; the Bluefield Gas 
& Power Company, of which he is a director; the Southern Investment and Real 
Estate Company of Roanoke, of which he is a director; the Bailey Lumber 
Company of Bluefield probably the largest lumber company in the state; the 
Montvale and Company and the Big Clear Creek Coal Company in Greenbrier 
County.

When his associates speak of his civic record they usually begin and end with 
unqualified praise of what Mr. Thomas did as member and for many years 
president of the School Board of Bluefield City.  He first went on the board 
as a member in 1902, and altogether served twelve years, most of the time as 
president of the board.  While he was president practically all of the modern 
school buildings in the city now in use were erected, both for the white and 
colored people.  Mr. Thomas has some sound ideas on education, but his 
particular service was due to his great faculty of getting things done, 
whether it comes to the promotion of a strictly business enterprise or the 
financing and construction of a group of school buildings.

On November 17, 1891, Mr. Thomas married at Elizabethon, Tennessee, Miss 
Minnie Folsom, daughter of Maj. H. M. and Elizabeth (Berry) Folsom.  Major 
Folsom, who was a relative of Francis (Folsom) Cleveland, widow of President 
Cleveland, was one of the able lawyers of Tennessee and had a distinguished 
war record, going into the Confederate army at the age of seventeen and being 
promoted to major before he was twenty.  He died in 1909.  Mrs. Thomas is a 
member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and for many years has 
been president of Bluefield Chapter of the United Daughters of the 
Confederacy.  Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have three children:  Paul C., who was born 
in Tennessee in 1892 and finished his education in Washington and Lee 
University, Florence F. and Grace Elizabeth.

Mr. Thomas is of Scotch Irish ancestry, and his people were among the early 
settlers of the Valley of Virginia and also identified with the pioneering of 
Roanoke County.  Some of his ancestors were soldiers in the Revolution and 
one of them was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Thomas assisted in organizing the Bluefield Country Club and is one of 
its Board of Governors.  His favorite sport is hunting and fishing, and he 
particularly enjoys the pursuit of big game in the Maine woods.  He is a 
democrat in politics, is affiliated with the Royal Arch, Knight Templar, and 
Scottish Rite Masons and Mystic Shrine, the Knights of Pythias, the 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Lions, and he and Mrs. Thomas are 
members of the Presbyterian Church.  Mr. Thomas in 1904 was a delegate from 
West Virginia to the World's Sunday School Convention at Jerusalem, and 
during that trip abroad he made an extensive tour all through the Holy Land, 
Egypt and other Mediterranean countries.

______________________________X-Message: #3
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 09:01:54 EST
From: PJSTON@aol.com
To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com
Message-ID: <0.19b74897.2587a7d2@aol.com>
Subject: BIO:  HALL, Grant P. - Kanawha Co., WV
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II

pg 193

Grant P. Hall, mayor of Charleston, has set some new standards of municipal 
administration in the State of West Virginia.  His life has been 
distinguished by faithfulness and well executed duties in several fields, 
education, business and public affairs.

Mayor Hall was born in Roane County, West Virginia, December 21, 1865, son of 
William and Isabel (Guinn) Hall, also natives of this state.  In 1866, the 
year after his birth, his parents moved to Kanawha County and located on a 
farm in Big Sandy District.  There Grant P. Hall grew to mature years.  He 
started life with a country school education, began teaching at the age of 
sixteen, and subsequently, in the intervals of teaching, he attended Marshall 
College at Huntington.  He taught altogether for ten years in Kanawha County, 
and he finished his education in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware.

Mr. Hall was elected county superintendent of schools for Kanawha County in 
1894, serving two years.  In 1896 he was elected clerk of the Circuit Court, 
and filled that office six years.  While in office he studied law, was 
admitted to the bar, and in addition to his private practice he served for a 
time as assistant prosecuting attorney of Kanawha County and as a member of 
the County Court.  Later, giving up his law practice, Mr. Hall was for 
several years actively and successfully engaged in the real estate business 
at Charleston.

He was chosen mayor for the term of four years at the spring election of 
1919.  He entered the office at a critical time.  During the war all except 
the most indispensable public improvements had stopped and the city was far 
behind in its program of pavement, sidewalks, sewerage, street lighting and 
other needed facilities.  The execution of well considered and broad plans 
providing for such improvements has been carried forward with great vigor 
during Mr. Hall's administration.  Millions of dollars have been expended the 
last four years to make Charleston the modern city that it is.  These 
improvements have had to keep pace with the remarkable growth and expansion 
of Charleston territorially during the same period.  Mr. Hall has won the 
heartiest commendation and approval for his efficient, businesslike and 
honest administration.  It is an office to which he gives all his time, and 
he is in every sense the mayor of the city.  One great improvement that is 
likely to be considered a permanent memorial to his administration if the 
City Hall, constructed at a cost of $650,000.

A republican in politics, Mr. Hall for many years has been an influential and 
prominent figure in city, county and state politics.  In the general election 
of 1920 he was campaign manager for Ephraim F. Morgan, and the splendid 
majority rolled up for General Morgan testifies to Mr. Hall's efficiency as a 
political organizer.  During the war with Germany he was a member of nearly 
all the campaign committees and worked heartily for the success of every 
local quota.

He is a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church.  By his marriage to 
Miss Anna Steele Mr. Hall has six children:  Lucile, wife of J. A. Shanklin;  
Frank B., Harry A.,  Grant P., Jr.,  Marion S. and Isabel.

______________________________X-Message: #4
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 10:01:48 EST
From: PJSTON@aol.com
To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com
Message-ID: <0.265aaf24.2587b5dc@aol.com>
Subject: BIO:  KING, Herbert Volney, M.D.-Monongalia Co., WV
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II

pg 192

Herbert Volney King, M.D.  The fearless, questioning attitude of the 
twentieth century is nowhere more strikingly apparent than among the 
exponents of the medical profession.  The tendency of the latter-day 
scientific physician to avoid, beyond all things, hasty jumping to 
conclusions or too ready dependence upon formulae is rapidly destroying 
ancient delusions.  The heights to which a man with reason and courage may 
climb are practically limitless, and such men deserve, and in this age of the 
world usually receive, the hearty co-operation and support of the people of 
intelligence and worth in their communities.  To this class of rational 
thinkers belongs Dr. Herbert Volney King, whose opportunities along 
professional lines, and particularly those dealing with diseases of the eye, 
ear, nose and throat, have been exceptional and whose use of the same has 
made him an important factor in connection with professional circles of 
Morgantown and Monongalia County.

Doctor King is a native of Ohio, having been born at Bellaire just across the 
Ohio River from West Virginia, January 10, 1883, a son of the late William 
and Belle (Powell) King, natives of Belmont County, Ohio.  Doctor King was 
but a boy when both his parents died.  At the age of eleven years he removed 
with his guardian to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he attended the city schools, 
graduating from Humbolt High School of that city in 1901.  Entering then the 
University of Minnesota, he was graduated with the degree of Doctor of 
Medicine as a member of the class of 1905.  Doctor King embarked in general 
practice at St. Paul in the same year, and continued as a practitioner of 
that city until 1917.  He was assistant to Dr. L. A. Schipfer, the noted eye, 
ear, nose and throat specialist of Bismarck, North Dakota, for a time, and 
later was assistant to Dr. Harry J. Heeb, professor of ophthamology at 
Marquette College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He took further post-graduate work 
under Dr. H. P. Mosher, now professor of nose and throat diseases at Harvard 
University.  In the fall of 1920 Doctor King entered practice at Morgantown, 
where he has since been engaged in specializing in the treatment and cure of 
ailments of the eye, ear, nose and throat, and in the short period of time 
that he has been located here has established himself firmly in the 
estimation of the people of the city and its surrounding environs.

Doctor King is a member of the Monongalia County Medical Society, the West 
Virginia State Medical Society and the American Medical Association.  
Fraternally he is affiliated with the Masons, and his religious connection is 
with the Methodist Episcopal Church.  He is a man of genial and confidence 
inspiring personality, a philosopher in his attitude towards the world and a 
rationalist in his sane and practical purpose.

Doctor King married Miss Abbie Abbott, daughter of J. D. and Sophia 
(Peterson) Abbott, of St. Paul, Minnesota, her father of Scotch stock and her 
mother of Swedish ancestry.  Five children have come to Doctor and Mrs. King: 
 Edwin and Ethel, twins, born August 1, 1911; Mary Belle, born November 25, 
1913; Herbert William, born April 11, 1915; and Dorothy, born August 25, 1918.