WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 151 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: WALTER R. GROS, Nicholas/Upsh [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000706212445.00c45cf0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: WALTER R. GROS, Nicholas/Upshur Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 452-453 WALTER R. GROSE is a leader in educational affairs in West Virginia, and for the past ten years has been super- intendent of the Buckhannon City Schools. He is member of a family that has been in West Virginia since pioneer times, and in the various generations they have played a worthy part in the building of homes, the development of the land, and also in the learned professions. Superintendent Grose was born in Nicholas County, West Virginia, October 10, 1871, son of William and Rebecca Ann (Stephenson) Grose. His parents were also born and reared in Nicholas County. His great-grandfather came from Warm Springs, Virginia, to Nicholas County, having acquired a grant of land direct from the government of Virginia an account of his services in the War of 1812. He located on this land shortly after the War of 1812, and lived out his life there. He was buried on his estate. William Grose, grandfather of Superintendent Grose, mar- ried a Miss Koontz, a native of Nicholas County. William Grose, father of Superintendent Grose, grew up in Nicholas County on a farm, attended the old subscrip- tion schools, and did considerable work in his early life as a teacher. Later he became a prominent merchant and farmer, owning a farm near Summersville, and conducted a general store near that village. He was a republican, a stanch Union man in sentiment, and one of the three in his district who voted against secession. He and his wife were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Of their ten children four are living: B. F. Grose, a farmer and stockman on the old homestead in Nicholas County; Rev. Logan S. Grose, who graduated A. B. from Bethany College, and is now pastor of the Zane Street Methodist [obviously, there is a line of text missing from the original] olas County, attended the common schools there and later graduated A. B. from the Wesleyan College of Buckhannon and did post-graduate work in the University of Pitts- burgh. Mr. Grose began teaching at the age of nineteen, and continued to teach in the intervals of his college and university career. Since 1904 his time has been fully taken up with school work. He was superintendent of schools at Richwood from 1906 to 1912, and since 1912 has been head of the city school system at Buckhannon. Mr. Grose is an enthusiastic educator, is an inspiring worker among his fellow teachers and among young people, has been in great demand as an instructor in county teachers' insti- tutes, and is active in the various professional organiza- tions. On October 13, 1892, he married Maria S. Rader. They were schoolmates in Nicholas County. They have two children. Neva Pearle, born November 10, 1893, is a grad- uate of the Richwood High School, received her A. B. degree from Wesleyan College at Buckhannon, and is now teacher of foreign languages in the high school at Hunt- ington, West Virginia. The son, Clarence Herman Grose, was born August 30, 1896, graduated from the Richwood High School and from West Virginia Wesleyan College, with the Bachelor of Science degree, and is now teacher of chemistry in the Huntington High School. At the close of the World war he was in the Artillery Officers Training School at Camp Taylor, Louisville. The Grose family are members of the Methodist Epis- copal Church. Mr. Grose is affiliated with Richwood Lodge No. 102, A. F. and A. M., is a charter member of Rich- wood Chapter No. 37, R A. M., a charter member of Buckhannon Commandery, Knights Templar, and he and Mrs. Grose and their daughter are members of the Eastern Star. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Rotary Club, Buckhannon Chamber of Commerce and the Country Club. Both Superintendent and Mrs. Grose are direct descend- ants of Sergeant Benjamin Lemasters, who was a soldier of the Revolution, enlisting in 1776 and serving for three years. He was with Washington at Valley Forge, and participated in the battles of White Plains, Trenton, Prince- ton, Brandywine, Germantown, Fort Mifflin and Monmouth, and was wounded at Princeton. During the siege of Fort Mifflin he carried dispatches for General Washington. Shortly after the close of the war he moved to Nicholas County, West Virginia, taking possession of his land grant on Bucks Garden Creek. He became a large landholder there, and most of his possessions are still owned by his descendants. He and his wife had ten daughters, and all of them married and reared families. ______________________________ X-Message: #2 Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 21:26:44 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000706212554.00c44650@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: WYATT A. ABBITT, Kanawha Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 452 WYATT A. ABBITT. Through a busy career Wyatt A. Ab- bitt has been a carpenter, and now for many years, a gen- eral contractor and builder, and for nearly twenty years his home and center of his work and interests have been in Charleston. Mr. Abbitt was born in Appomattox County, Virginia, in 1871, son of Charles A. and Elvira (LeGrand) Abbitt, also natives of Virginia and members of old families in that state. Wyatt Abbitt acquired a common school education, learned the carpenter's trade in his home county, and for several years was a journeyman before he took up the contracting business on his own account. In 1900 he re- moved to West Virginia, and for three years was associated with the building and operation of the large industrial works at Kanawha Falls, now the plant of the Electro- Metallurgical Company. Mr. Abbitt in 1903 came to Charleston, which city has since been his home. As a contractor and builder he has taken a leading part in the creation of the modern Charles- ton. His construction work is exemplified in a large number of structures, residential, commercial and industrial, but of late years his business has been chiefly confined to busi- ness buildings. Among those erected by him during the last two or three years may be mentioned the Buick Home. a parochial school, the Soloff Hotel Building on Quarrier Street, the addition to the Telephone Building, the remodel- ing of the Plaza Theater, which he built originally in 1912, the Professional Building, the Simon Cohen Apartment House, and a number of garages and other structures. Mr. Abbitt built the plant of the Virginia Rubber Company at St. Albans. His thorough and first hand knowledge of real estate and buildings in Charleston led to his being selected as a mem- ber of the Appraisal Committee, consisting of five, charged with the duty of appraising the value of the various con- templated sites for the location of West Virginia's state capitol, to take the place of the old capitol destroyed early in 1921. Mr. Abbitt is also president of the Equity Finance and Loan Company of Charleston, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Rubber Company. He is active in the Chamber of Commerce, and represents his line of business in the Rotary Club. Mr. Abbitt married for his first wife Anna Belle Coleman, who is survived by five children, Mrs. Sallie Evans, Mrs. Kathleen Jones, Mrs. Julia Barlow, Elliott and Andrew Abbitt. For his present wife Mr. Abbitt married Mildred (Simpson) Wildman. ______________________________ X-Message: #3 Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 10:19:51 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000709101922.00c2a870@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: CHARLES MILTON BROWN, M. D., Fayette Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 420-421 CHARLES MILTON BROWN, M. D. The services rendered as a talented physician and surgeon have given Doctor Brown a reputation over several counties of the state and also the City of Huntington, where he was located for a time. He is now in charge of the mine practice for Mines Nos. 1 and 2 of the Paragon Colliery Company, Argyle Mine No. 1 of the Cub Fork Coal Company and the Orville Coal Company, his home being at Yolyn in Logan County. Doctor Brown was born at Mount Hope in Fayette County, West Virginia, February 19, 1870. His grand- father, John Brown, was a native of Virginia, and spent his life as a farmer and planter in Montgomery County, that state, where he died in 1856. Charles C. Brown, father of Doctor Brown, was born at Christiansburg, Montgomery County, in 1826, and lived to the age of eighty-four. Dur- ing all these years he never tasted tobacco or whisky, and was never guilty of profanity. He was a man of great strength of will and character, and exercised a beneficent influence throughout his community. He died March 10, 1910. At the age of twenty he came to Beckley, West Vir- ginia, and with Joshua Hannah opened a cabinetmaking and carpenter shop. A few years later he removed to Fay- ette County, and lived at Mount Hope for half a century. He was in the Confederate army four years, and in the battle of Gettysburg acted as field courier, and had three holes shot through his blanket, but was not wounded. His neighbors in Fayette County always appreciated his high degree of skill as a carpenter and cabinet maker. He erected many houses in that vicinity, and for years he was called upon to supply all the coffins over a district miles around. For many years he was an officer in the Christian Church, and voted as a democrat until the prohibition party was organized and thereafter was an active worker in that party. He owned a farm near Mount Hope. His wife, Martha Anna Blake, was born in Fayette County and died in 1914, also at the age of eighty-four. Her father, William Blake, was a pioneer of that county and at one time owned 17,000 acres in the vicinity of Mount Hope. William Blake and wife came from Scotland, and at one time conducted a wayside inn on the old Giles, Fayette and Kanawha Turn- pike. Charles Brown and wife had seven children: William H., a prosperous farmer at Shady Springs in Raleigh County; Mollie, wife of Charles Pack, of Shady Springs; Anna, who died at the age of sixteen, in 1879; Lizzie, wife of A. D. Moseley, a contractor of mining and building; Arrie M., wife of Cabell Moseley, merchant and farmer at Mount Hope; Charles Milton; Rosa F., wife of Alfred P. Bailey, a merchant and coal operator at Mount Hope. Dr. Charles Milton Brown was noted as a youth for his rugged manhood and strong physique, and he did a great deal of arduous labor in the service of railroads, sawmills and in the timber. He attended district school at Mount Hope until he was twenty years of age. During 1894-96 he was a student of medicine in the University of Louis- ville, and was licensed to practice in West Virginia in 1896. He did his first practice at Jumping Branch in Summers County. Later he entered the Maryland Medical College at Baltimore, where he was graduated in medicine in 1902. He did a large amount of hospital work at Baltimore, and has supplemented his early training by extensive experience and post-graduate study. After leaving Baltimore, Doctor Brown was in practice at Mount Hope from 1904 to 1909. He had a large country practice. In 1909 he joined the staff of Kisler's Hospital of Huntington, and for the first year conducted clinics and classes in obstetrics and nursing, and was otherwise associated with the hospital until 1916. He then resumed his professional work at Mount Hope, and in 1920 took over his present responsibilities as mine physician at Yolyn in Logan County. In 1893, at Mount Hope, Doctor Brown married Ida Lee Turner, daughter of William and Mary Turner, of Fayette County. Her father was a native of Scotland, and for many years was a mine foreman. The children born to Doctor and Mrs. Brown were: Anna Maud, now principal of the Mount Hope Junior High School, wife of J. C. Roby, who has charge of the stenograpic work for the New River Coal Company. Iris, at home; Gladys, wife of H. T. Brown, who is in the railway mail service on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, with home at Huntington; Regina, wife of R. L. Tliompson. of Charleston, West Virginia; Hercules A., a school boy; Maxine, who is captain of the basket ball team in the Junior High School at Mount Hope; and Charles W., who died in infancy. Doctor Brown is a member of the Fayette County Medical Society, the State Medical Society and the Southern Medical Association. He is a democrat in politics and a member of the Christian Church. ______________________________ X-Message: #4 Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 10:20:21 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000709101954.00ccf790@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: A. L. AMICK, M. D. , Fayette Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 421 A. L. AMICK, M. D. A busy worker in the medical fraternity at Charleston since 1910, Doctor Amick is par- ticularly well known for his abilities as a surgeon, and served as a surgeon with the rank of lieutenant in the army during the World war. Doctor Amick was born in 1881, within half a mile of the famous Tyree Stone Tavern, near Clifftop, in Fayette County. This old tavern is the center of many important historical associations, and some particular reference is made to it on other pages of this general history. Doctor Amick's grandfather, Henry Amick, was one of the pioneers in that vicinity. The parents of Doctor Amick were J. A. and Betty (Masters) Amick, and his mother is still living. Doctor Amick was reared in the vicinity of the old tavern and its picturesque surroundings, acquired his early educa- tion in the schools of Fayette County, and subsequently entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Balti- more, now the medical school of the University of Mary- land. He was graduated in 1907, and for a year was resi- dent physician in Mercer Hospital at Baltimore, and for two years was resident physician in the Miners Hospital at Welch, West Virginia. Then, in 1910, he located perma- nently at Charleston, and has acquired an extensive general practice, with his time being more and more taken up with surgery. Early in 1918 he joined the Army Medical Corps as lieutenant, and was assigned to duty at Camp Greene, Char- lotte, North Carolina. There he was assigned as surgeon of Recruit Camp No. 5 and Tank Corps Battalions. The work he did there can best be summarized in a paraphrase of a special notice of commendation given by Dr. Clifford C. Wehn, captain of the Medical Corps and president of the Board of Review. Doctor Amick, in the words of Captain Wehn, filled his position most satisfactorily, and through his personal qualifications earned the trust that was re- posed in him; he was skillful, diligent and tireless in the performance of his duty, and on account of his kindness and consideration shown to all with whom he was brought in contact he won not only the full cooperation but the unstinted regard of his entire command. Following his discharge from the army in March, 1919, Doctor Amick resumed his duties at Charleston. He is a member of the State, County and American Medical associa- tions. Reared amid the beautiful and picturesque moun- tains of Fayette County, he imbibed a lasting fondness for outdoor life and the pursuits of the wild. He is a lover of horses and dogs, and is a member of the National Fox Hunters Association and has attended several of the asso- ciation's fox hunts, held usually in Kentucky. He is also a member of the Southern West Virginia Fox Hunters Association, and was master of hounds at the annual hunt held at Lockout in 1921. Doctor Amick is a well known authority on the Walker hound, and knows all the good points of thoroughbred racing stock in horses. ______________________________ X-Message: #5 Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 10:20:56 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000709102025.00c3f100@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: REUBEN PERRY SHINN, Jackson Co. WV Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 422-423 REUBEN PERRY SHINN for many years has been one of the most prominent, and influential figures in the agricul- tural, financial and public affairs of Jackson County. He is still busy directing his extensive fanning operations, is president of the First National Bank of Ripley, and in addition is also a member of the State Senate. Mr. Shinn was born in Mason County, West Virginia, July 20, 1860. His grandfather, Samuel Shinn, was born in what is now West Virginia in 1804, spent the greater part of his life on a farm in Jackson County, and died there in 1884. George W. Shinn, father of the Ripley banker, was born in Mason County in 1834, grew up and married there, and about 1863 removed to Jackson County and owned a fine farm at Grass Lick near Fairplain. His death occurred in 1897 at Webster Springs in Webster County. George W. Shinn was also a man of prominence in the public affairs of his section of the state. He was a pioneer republican, served eighteen years as a member of the County Court of Jackson County, and also represented the county in the House of Delegates when the capital was at Wheeling. He was a Mason and one of the very liberal and active members of the United Brethren Church. George W. Shinn married Elizabeth Stone, who was born in that portion of old Mason County, now Jackson County, in 1825, and died at her homestead in Jackson County in 1911. Of her children the first was Samuel F., who owns and operates a farm of 1,000 acres at Parchment near Eipley; James O. has a farm of 500 acres near Point Pleasants in Mason County; Permelia is the wife of Archie A. Reynolds, a merchant and farmer at Evans in Jackson County; Reuben P. is the fourth among the children. James A. and his younger brother, Nathan Ulysses Grant Shinn, own jointly a big farm of 1,200 acres in Jackson County, and James also has the distinction of being a former sheriff of Jackson County for four years. Reuben Perry Shinn spent his years to the age of twenty- one on his father's farm, and made the best possible use of his advantages in the rural schools. When he left home to go to work on his own responsibility he took no capital and yet, like his brothers, he has achieved remarkable suc- cess as a farmer as well as in other fields of business. Senator Shinn has never been completely divorced from the practical phases of agriculture, and though he has had his residence in Ripley since November, 1912, he keeps in the closest touch with his extensive farming operations. In- dividually he owns 2,300 acres of valuable land on Grass Lick and in other parts of the county. His farming is a diversified proposition, and he -usually keeps from 250 to 300 head of cattle on his lands. He is also associated with a syndicate composed of Stareher Brothers, W. H. O'Brien T. J. Sayre, W. Walker and himself in the ownership of 2,000 acres of farm land in Jackson County. He owns a large amount of real estate in Ripley, including one of the finest homes of the city. Mr. Shinn has been president of the First National Bank of Ripley for the past twelve years. This bank was estab- lished under a state charter June 20, 1893, and was first called the Valley Bank of Ripley, but has been a national bank since August 4, 1915. The officers are R. P. Shinn, president; S. G. Stareher, vice president; and George E. Straley, cashier. The bank is capitalized at $35,000, has surplus and profits of $6,500, and deposits of approximately $400,000. Mr. Shinn is a stockholder in the O. J. Morrison Store Company at Charleston and Clarksburg, and is vice presi- dent of the Jackson County Grocery Company. For many years he has been a leader in the republican party in his section of the state. For eight years he was chairman of the county committee, for two terms was a member of the Fourth Congressional District Committee, and he was one of the state electors on the republican ticket in 1916, voting for Mr. Hughes for President. Mr. Shinn has twice been sheriff of Jackson County. He was first elected in November, 1904, serving the constitutional limit of four years, from 1905 to 1909. After an interval of four years he was again elected, in November, 1912, filling the office from 1913 to 1917. In November, 1920, he was elected a member of the State Senate, representing the district of Mason, Jackson and Roane counties for a term of four years. In the session of 1921 he was chairman of the agricultural committee, and a member of the finance, educational, fish and game and other committees. To the full extent of his influence and means Senator Shinn was a supporter of the Government at the time of the World war, and took a personal interest in the success of the various drives in his county. He is a past grand of Ripley Lodge No. 30, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. At Grass Lick in Jackson County in 1882 he married Miss Artemisia Shamblin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George W. Shamblin, now deceased. Her father owned a large farm at Grass Lick. Mr. and Mrs. Shinn have four chil- dren: Cora, a teacher in the high school at Ripley, is the wife of Charles W. Lively. Belle is the wife of David L. Rogers, who owns a 200-acre farm and also helps operate the Shinn farms at Grass Lick. James B. is also associated with his father in his farming operations at Grass Lick. Walter Warren is a member of the engineering staff of the State Roads Commission.