WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 154 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: MILLARD FILLMORE HAMILTON, M. [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000709102916.00c30de0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: MILLARD FILLMORE HAMILTON, M. D., Marion 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. 440-441 MILLARD FILLMORE HAMILTON, M. D., of Mannington, graduated in medicine and quialified himself for the practice of that profession forty years ago. Except for brief in- tervals his professional work has all been in Mannington. Doctor Hamilton is more than a capable physician and surgeon, is a citizen known for his progressiveness and leadership in many movements, is a former mayor of Man- nington and has also to his credit a record of service in the Legislature. He was born near Mannington February 22, 1860, son of Ulysses and Malissa (Yost) Hamilton. He is a de- scendant of Henry Hamilton, who came to America in Colonial times from the north of Ireland, where his ancestry, a branch of the great Hamilton family of Scotland, had been established in earlier generations. Henry Hamilton first located at Winchester, Virginia, where he married Elizabeth Tryand. Subsequently he removed to the vicinity of Morgantown, West Virginia, and in 1818 he left Monon- galia County and settled on Plum Run in Marion County. His son, Boaz Fleming, was born in Morgantown in 1798, and was ten years of age when the family settled in Marion County, where he became a widely known and in- fluential citizen. He was a stanch democrat. He was de- feated as a candidate for county clerk of courts in 1852, but in 1858 was elected to that office and served three years. October 26, 1828, he married Maria Parish. Their son, James Ulysses Hamilton, was born at Fair- mont January 12, 1839. In 1843 the family established their home at Salt Lick in Marion County, where James U. Hamilton grew up and lived his active life as a prosperous farmer and influential citizen. He died on his farm there in 1915. He married Malissa Yost, daughter of Nicholas Yost, of Fairview and member of the old and prominent family of that name in Marion County. Malissa Hamilton died January 1, 1916, in her seventy-ninth year. Millard Fillmore Hamilton spent his early life on his father's farm, attended common schools, the Fairmont Normal School, and began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of his uncle, Dr. P. D. Yost, of St. Louis, Missouri. Doctor Hamilton in 1883 graduated from the American Eclectic Medical College of St. Louis. He began practice in Mercer County, Missouri, but in 1883 returned to West Virginia, and has been a leading physician and surgeon at Mannington since that date, except for a period of six months during 1885-86 when he was on the Pacific Coast in practice at Fort Ross, California. Doctor Hamil- ton has held the post of district surgeon for the Baltimore & Ohio Railway for thirty-eight years, and for the past twenty-five years had been a member of the United States Board of Examining Surgeons for Pensions, and president of the board during the last five years. He is a member of the Marion County, West Virginia and American Medical Associations, has served as vice president of the West Vir- ginia Eclectic Medical Association, and is a member of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Association of Surgeons. He was one of the organizers and incorporators of the Opera House Company, and helped organize and was presi- dent during its existence of the Mannington Development Company. He was one of the promoters of the Mannington Glass Company, and has always taken a deep civic pride in all matters pertaining to the welfare of Mannington and vicinity. For sixteen years he was president of the Bank of Mannington. He is owner of a number of houses in Man- nington, several farms, and on one of these at Salt Lick he built a beautiful home, where he and his family spend the summer months. In 1921 at their bungalow in the country were entertained the members and their wives of the Marion County Medical Society. This place is one of the notable horticultural projects of the county, Doctor Hamilton having developed an orchard of between 1,800 and 2,000 fruit trees. Doctor Hamilton has been a member of the City Council of Mannington, and in the spring of 1918 was elected mayor. He was in the office during the World war. In that time the streets were filled with thousands of drafted men and their relatives and friends, Mannington being the drafting center for Marion County outside of Fairmont. Under such conditions the city was so well policed that there was not a single accident, tragic or otherwise. In 1918 Doctor Hamilton was elected a member of the West Virginia Legis- lature. In the session of 1921 he introduced a joint resolu- tion, adopted, requesting the Federal Government to select Berkeley Springs in Morgan County as the site for one of the five soldier sanitariums which the Government con- templated building in different parts of the country. This subject is still pending, only one of the sites having been selected to date. Doctor Hamilton was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees of Berkeley Springs by Governor Morgan. In August, 1888, Doctor Hamilton married Miss Bessie L. Basnett, daughter of Festus D. Basnett, of Mannington. Doctor and Mrs. Hamilton have two sons. Dale H., born August 25, 1894, is a graduate of agriculture and horti- culture from West Virginia University and now has charge of his father's fruit farm. During the World war he was in the Government's Spruce Division on the Pacific Coast, where he had charge of eight hundred men in getting out spruce timber for airplane building. Dale H. Hamilton married Carla Lee Yorgersen, of the State of Washington, and they have one daughter, Phyllis Jean, born October 19, 1921. Dewey Dallas, born March 17, 1898, is now a student in the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati. He took two years of preparatory work for his medical course in West Virginia University, and was there during the war, and had volunteered and entered the Officers Training Camp at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, but the armistice was signed before a commission was issued. ______________________________ X-Message: #2 Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 11:30:00 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000709102801.00c346b0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: GUSTAVUS JOSEPHUS SHAFFER, Preston 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. 438-439 GUSTAVUS JOSEPHUS SHAFFER. With the commercial development of Preston County during the past half century perhaps no one citizen has been more deeply interested than Gustavus Josephus Shaffer, always known among his many friends and associates as Gus J. Shaffer. Mr. Shaffer is still active in banking and business at Kingwood, and has long been one of the prominent leaders of the democratic party in this section of the state. His grandfather and the founder of the family in Preston County was Adam Shaffer, a native of Germany, who came to America just before the Revolutionary war, locating in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, and from there removing to Maryland. In Washington County, Maryland, he mar- ried Catherine Wotring. She was one of the heroines of the Revolution. On the day the battle of Brandywine was fought she was busy molding bullets for the Patriot Army, and her mother and older sisters raked and set up buck- wheat while the husband and father was fighting in the cause of independence. The bullet molds Catherine used on this occasion can be seen in Aurora, West Virginia, today. Adam Shaffer immediately after his marriage came in company with his wife's father to the German settlement of Aurora, West Virginia, and established his home near Brookside. Adam and Catherine Shaffer had the follow- ing children: Tewalt, John, Jacob, Daniel, William, Samuel, Abraham and Adam, Jr. Daniel Shaffer, father of Gus J., married Elizabeth Isen- hart, of a family that was identified with the Colonial history of Cumberland, Maryland, where Daniel found his wife. Daniel Shaffer was born in 1805 and lived .out his busy career on a farm in Brookside in Preston County, where he died in 1863. His family consisted of five sons and three daughters: George Francis; Martin Luther; Jesse W.; Gustavus Josephus; Arthur McKinley; Susan, who became the wife of Thomas Humbertson, of Frostburg, Maryland; Mary R., who was the wife of George Lantz, of Aurora; and Priscilla, who married James H. Wilson and died at Aurora. Of these children George Francis entered the Lutheran ministry and was president of the North Carolina College at Concord, North Carolina. At the begin- ning of the Civil war, he was, president of a Female Sem- inary in that state. After the war he did missionary work throughout the South, and died at Spartanburg, South Carolina, full of years and with a life of great usefulness to his credit. Daniel Shaffer, father of these children, was a local minister of the Lutheran Church and a justice of the peace. He issued a great many marriage licenses and also per- formed the marriage ceremonies. While he was not a participant in partisan polities, he was in many ways the recognized civic leader in his community of Aurora. An- other son, Martin L., was sheriff of Preston County when the Civil war came on, and then resigned his office and be- came a sutler in the Federal Army. Gus J. Shaffer was born at Aurora in Preston County January 15, 1847, and he was still a schoolboy when the Civil war wag being fought. He learned the blacksmith's trade, and after reaching his majority engaged in merchan- dising at Fellowsville. A few months later fire destroyed his stock of goods, and he then removed to Rowlesburg in Reno District, where he began manufacturing and dealing in lumber. Two or three years later he moved to Tunnel- ton, and continued in the lumber business until 1886. Mr. Shatter was one of the original promoters and stockholders of the Kingwood Railroad Company. Before the road was completed he was elected its superintendent, having charge of the track laying, and continued as superintendent during the first year of the road's operation. On resigning he removed to Kingwood, and resumed the lumber and mercan- tile business. For seventeen years Mr. Shaffer was manag- ing partner in the Shaffer & Brown Company, one of the largest mercantile firms in Northern West Virginia. His partners were the late Junior Brown, Arnold Bonafield and M. L. Shaffer, and he is the last survivor of these. Mr. Shaffer is now the oldest man in point of service in the Bank of Kingwood. For many years he has been one of its stockholders and vice president, and was also one of the building committee to erect the handsome bank home a few years ago. Like his father, Mr. Shaffer is a "dyed-in-the-wool" democrat, and has been with that party steadily since casting his first vote for president for Seymour and Blair in 1868. He has been on the ticket as a party candidate several times, greatly reducing the republican majority that is normal in Preston County. He was once elected justice of the peace of Kingwood District. He has been a delegate to state conventions, and helped nominate Governor Mac- Corkle and other state officers. He was in the convention which nominated Governor Fleming, and was a partisan of Colonel Martin, named as the dark horse to break the dead- lock in the Second Congressional District Democratic Con- vention. He helped nominate the state democratic leader William L. Wilson, distinguished author of the Wilson bill, and he knew that statesman personally. Mr. Shaffer was reared in the Lutheran Church and has always regarded himself as a Lutheran. Mrs. Shaffer is a Methodist, and in the absence of a Lutheran Church at Kingwood he has given his support to the Methodists and is one of the trustees of the local society. Many years ago Mr. Shaffer became a Knight of Pythias, and has a veteran's medal for a quarter of a century of active mem- bership. The first wife of Mr. Shaffer was Louisa Menefee, of Monongalia County, daughter of John Menefee, who in his time was a man of prominence in the Newburg district. Mrs. Shaffer died in 1880, leaving two children: Morris, a fanner near Tunnelton; and Elizabeth, wife of H. C. Shaffer, of Cumberland, Maryland. The second wife of Mr. Shaffer was Florence Thomas, daughter of former sheriff Elisha Thomas of Preston County, where she was born. She died in 1888, the mother of three children. The oldest of these is Frank T., one of the promoters and a director and salesman in the Kingwood Wholesale Grocery Company, who married Miss Bessie L. Clark, of Miller, Ohio. Harry G. Shaffer, a lawyer at Madison, West Vir- ginia, and a member of the State Senate from the Eighth District, married Brookie Turley. Jessie, the youngest of the three children, is the wife of Dr. John W. Gilmore, of Wheeling, West Virginia. July 30, 1890, Mr. Shaffer married in Ritchie County, West Virginia, Miss E. Augusta McNeill, daughter of Rev. Moore McNeilI, former pastor of the Methodist Epis- copal Church of Kingwood. Mrs. Augusta Shaffer, who was a successful teacher before her marriage, received her certificate of membership in the Kingwood Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in January, 1920. She is entitled to wear four bars, indicating her Revolu- tionary ancestry through four soldiers of the war. ______________________________ X-Message: #3 Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 11:48:00 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000709111002.00c4c100@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: BENJAMIN T. NEAL, JR. Wood 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. 459-460 Wood BENJAMIN T. NEAL, JR. The ancestor of the Neal family was Capt. James Neal, who changed his name from O'Neal during the Revolutionary war because one of his brothers was a colonel in the British Army. Capt. James Neal was born about 1737, and raised a company to join Wash- ington's Army at Valley Forge and subsequently was offered a commission as major in the army of General Greene. After the war he returned to his home in Greene County Pennsylvania. He keenly felt the poverty of the frontier, and is said to have sold a land grant of four thousand acres in Ohio for three hundred dollars. In the spring of 1783, as a deputy surveyor, he surveyed the preemption right and settlement claim of Alexander Parker of Pitts- burgh, the land upon which the city of Parkersburg has since been built. In the fall of 1786 he again left Penn- sylvania, with a party of men bound for the Kentucky country, but he and some of his companions stopped at the mouth of Little Kanawha and decided to make permanent settlement. Here they erected the block house afterward known as Neal's Station, the first structure of the kind in what is now Wood County. In the spring of 1787 Captain Neal returned with his family to Neal's Station. During succeeding years, until the victory of General Wayne in 1795, this settlement was exposed to recurring raids of Indians, during one of which a son of Captain Neal was killed. He was not only the first settler but always first in the affairs of his neighborhood until his death, which occurred at Neal's Station in February, 1822. He was a captain of Frontier Rangers, and held the office of justice of the peace and commissioner for the examination of sur- veyors. His first wife, Hannah Hardin, who died in 1784 was a sister of Col. John Hardin, a distinguished char- acter of the Revolution and founder of the Hardin family of Kentucky. She was the mother of all but one of Capt James Neal's children. His two sons who continued his posterity under the family name were John and James Hardin. Of these John Neal was born in Greene County Penn- sylvania, May 10, 1776, and died October 14, 1823. He was prominent in the affairs of Wood County, was a mem- ber of the County Court from May 12, 1800, until his death, served as high sheriff from 1807 to 1809, and in 1809 was elected a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, serving two terms. In 1796 he married Ephlis Hook, who was born about 1780 and died June 27, 1852. She was the mother of thirteen children, fourth among whom was Cincinnatus James Neal. Cincinnatus James Neal, representing the third genera- tion of the family in Wood County, was born January 1 1803, and died August 25, 1869. On February 24, 1836, he married Mary Ann Collins. Their children were: Vir- ginia M., Benjamin Tomlinson, Mary L., John Collins Narcissa P., Guy A., Libbie B., Eliza K. and Deric P. Cincinnatus Neal during a number of years was a mer- chant in Parkersburg, and subsequently at Cleveland, Ohio. His son, Benjamin Tomlinson Neal, Sr., was born at Park- ersburg in February, 1838, and in 1867 was appointed the first agent at Parkersburg for the Adams Express Com- pany. With this corporation he remained a faithful and responsible employe and official for more than forty years. In 1884 he was transferred to Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until he retired in 1910, but he died at Parkers- burg. His wife, Sallie Burns Shrewsbury, was born June 24, 1840, and died December 18, 1881. She was the mother of four children: Fannie S., wife of Frank P. Moats; Benjamin Tomlinson, Jr.; Edward Burns, court official; and Wellington V. Benjamin T. Neal, Jr., who therefore represents the fifth generation of the family in Wood County, was born December 2, 1873. He acquired a public school educa- tion, and since the age of sixteen has been connected with the banking business at Parkersburg. For fifteen years he was an employe of the Second National Bank, but since 1903 has been with the Union Trust & Deposit Company, of which he is treasurer. He is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The church of the family is the Episcopal and nearly all those descended from Cin- cinnatus Neal have been republicans in polities. Benjamin T. Neal, Jr., married Mabelle Armstrong, daughter of William and Emily (Shannon) Armstrong. Their two children are Clifford B. and Emily A., and Clif- ford is now the only descendant in the fourth generation of the family of Cincinnatus Neal.