WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 166 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: ANDREW J. MULLINS, Wyoming Co [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000710210847.00c50aa0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: ANDREW J. MULLINS, Wyoming 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. 495 Wyoming ANDREW J. MULLINS. The first settlers of a new county or city, independent of any intrinsic qualities which they possess, are objects of peculiar interest in succeeding generations. Men delight to read their names and treas- ure in memory the slightest incident connected with their persons and their settlement. Each consecutive step in the settlement of the country, as adventurers pushed out from the populous centers into the rapidly receding wilderness has brought to notice enterprising men who have connected their names indissolubly with rising states and embryo cities. In this connection mention is made of Andrew J. Mullins, the "father" of the town of Mullens, which was named in his honor, but which missed giving him that honor when those who drew up the charter of the city misspelled his name. Mr. Mullins was born February 21, 1857 in Tazewell County, Virginia, and is a son of William and Rachael (Cannady) Mullins. William Mullins was born on Shelby Creek in Pike County, and was engaged in agricultural pur- suits until the outbreak of the war between the states, at which time he enlisted in the Thirty-ninth Regiment, Ken- tucky Volunteer Infantry, in the Union Army, and met a soldier's death during the last year of the war. His widow survived him for nearly thirty years, dying in 1894, at Keystone, McDowell County, this state. All of their four sons and four daughters are still living, four in West Vir- ginia: William Harrison, living on Twelve Pole Creek in Wayne County, who was named for his grandfather; Win- nie, the widow of John T. Belcher, of Keystone; Lucinda, is the widow of Philip Lambert, of Iaeger, McDowell County; and Andrew J., of this notice. Andrew J. Mullins went to school in McDowell and Logan counties, just across Tug River from his Kentucky home and hunting bears was not only a pastime with him but a business for a number of years. From Ken- tucky he moved to McDowell County, in the present neigh- borhood of Roderfield, and in 1890, to Keystone, where he served as deputy sheriff for three years or until moving to his present home. Keystone at that time had the reputa- tion of being a very "tough" locality. Mr. Mullins as- sisted to clear the brush in the woods for a preliminary survey for the Norfolk & Western Railroad, and while thus engaged became convinced that coal was to be found at the present site of Mullens. Accordingly he moved to this locality in February, 1896, settling in the woods, where he had two log pens built out of small logs and these covered with split boards, puncheon floors being installed. This was his home for eight years, or until the arrival of a sawmill made it possible for him to build a plank house. Later he built his present home, one of the finest in the neighborhood. The nearest place on the railroad at the time of his arrival was Keystone, on the Norfolk & Western, thirty miles from Mullens, but he was sure that the railroad would be built through. He opened the first store at Mill- ions, located on the present site of the new Santon Build ing, and for three years conducted a general merchandise establishment, buying produce, etc., and hauling his goods over rough mountain roads from Keystone. Mr. Mullins was in business during the years 1904, 1905 and 1906. He was justice of the peace when the railroad was being built, and in this connection it may be said that he has seen all of the railroad track laid in this locality. After the lapse of several years he was again justice of the peace, and also served as Mullen's first mayor. He was then sent for four years to the State Legislature, and served with much ability, being, among others, on the committees of agriculture, prohibition and emigration, and on his return was again elected mayor. He has assisted in the organiza- tion of three banks, and is vice president and a director of the Bank of Wyoming, of Mullens and a director of the Wyoming County Bank of Pineville. He was also connected with the Citizens Bank of Pineville, which was wrecked by a dishonest official. Of recent years Mr. Mullins has been engaged in building houses on his land and selling them to newcomers. He has likewise been interested in coal devel- opment from the time when, with Peter Minor, he saw the first coal mine opened at Elkhorn. In politics he is a stanch republican, and his religious connection is with the Primitive Baptist Church, of which he has been a member for forty years, and for the past ten years an ordained minister. He has recently built a church, which he has donated to the Mullens congregation. Mr. Mullins has al- ways been greatly fond of hunting, and has killed wild turkeys within sight of the present City of Mullens. Dur- ing his younger days he was exceptionally strong and active, and numerous stories are told of his prowess as a hunter and woodsman. On one occasion, while on a hunting trip, he killed one bear and wounded another, and when the latter attacked him he was forced to fight and kill it with a club. On another day, discovering a bear in a hole in a cliff, he took a hasty shot but succeeded only in shooting Hie animal's nose off, after which he was forced to engaged in a desperate contest with bruin, whom he finally dispatched with a knife. At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Mullins was united in marriage with Miss Harriet Trent, of McDowell County, daughter of Fred Trent, and of the children born to this union seven are still living: V. B., who is engaged in agricultural operations near Pineville, Wyoming County; W. F., who is engaged in extensive contracting and build- ing transactions at and near Mullens; Susie, the wife of Floyd Workman, a Cabin Creek farmer in Wyoming County; H. F., who is engaged in mercantile pursuits at Mullens; Mary, the wife of John W. Phillips, on a farm near Pine- ville; Nora, the wife of H. E. Lilly, who owns a restaurant at Mullens; and Eliza, the wife of D. S. Nichols, store man- ager for the Trace Fork Coal Company. ______________________________ X-Message: #2 Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 21:11:43 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000710210114.00b90100@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: JAMES W. THORNHILL, Barbour 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. 492-493 Barbour JAMES W. THORNHILL is owner and active proprietor of the J. W. Thornhill planing-mill at Belington, an industry not excelled in mechanical efficiency and manage- ment in this section of West Virginia. The various processes of lumber manufacture from the trees in the forest to the finished product are intimate by almost life-long experience to Mr. Thornhill, and he is the type of business man who thoroughly loves the material with which he works. His father was Frank Thornhill, who was born in old Virginia, was a Southerner in sentiment and sympathy on the issues of the Civil war, and at one time was made prisoner and put in Camp Chase, Ohio. He spent his active life as a farmer, and died at Belington in Barbour County in 1873, at the age of fifty-two. He was a strong demo- crat, and both he and his wife were loyal and active mem- bers of the Presbyterian Church. His wife was Elizabeth Jane Willis, who came from Rappahannock County, Vir- ginia, daughter of Francis Willis. She was born January 7, 1829, and died at Sutton, West Virginia, March 10, 1897, aged sixty-eight. Frank Thornhill was born September 22, 1821, and died November 19, 1873. They began life without special education, were good workers, had high ideals, and reared a family of useful children. The chil- dren were: Mary, who married the late Albert Rohrbough, of Belington; Martha Ann, who died at Philippi, wife of S. H. Morrall; Elizabeth Jane, wife of Monroe Phillips, of Belington; and James William. James William Thornhill was born July 31, 1866, in Barker District, Barbour County. When he was a child his parents moved to Belington, where he had the privilege of attending a few brief terms of the common schools. He worked in the fields on the home farm, and as a youth of eighteen found employment in handling lumber in a lumber yard at wages of 10 cents an hour. From com- mon labor he was promoted to inspector, at $35 a month, and for seventeen years he was in the service of the widely known lumber and timber firm of Pardee and Curtin at Sutton, West Virginia. Mr. Thornhill left this firm in 1907 and returned to Belington and took the contract for filling the lumber prod- ucts of the Belington Planing Mill Company. When this firm became financially involved he bought the plant, in 1912. The plant was then of very small dimensions, em- ploying perhaps ten men. Mr. Thornhill at once injected new energy and new possibilities into the business. The plant at the beginning of 1922 has three times the machin- ery it had when Mr. Thornhill took charge, and its drying kilns have a capacity of 100,000 feet. The planing mill specializes in the manufacture of interior trim and finish from West Virginia wood, including poplar, chestnut, oak and basswood. Much of the output finds market as far away as Cleveland, Ohio and New York City. The bass- wood nearly all goes East, while the oak is marketed in the West, showing that Western people have a higher appreciation and demand for superior wood finish than Eastern people. The business is both wholesale and retail. The principal retail business is done at Zanesville, Ohio, under the name of the F. L. Israel Lumber Company. The plant at Belington is capable of furnishing all the lumber products and finishing required in the building of an entire house. Fourteen acres of ground situated along the Weaver Branch of the Western Maryland Railroad furnishes space for the plant and yard. Mr. Thornhill plans for 1922 a new mill, with a capacity a third larger than the present one, and with greatly im- proved facilities, including four new heavy finishing ma- chines and with power available for its operation. A year after Mr. Thornhill became owner of the old plant an enemy set fire to the lumber yard and everything but the mill was destroyed. The loss entailed was greater than the resources that remained, but with the insurance and the credit he had established he restocked his plant and pushed the business even harder than before. Grad- ually his energy found fruit in the extending stacks of lum- ber and the great quantities of finished material in their warehouses and shipped out by the car loads. The buzz and hum of the planers and saws has been sweet music to the loyal men who make up the force of from thirty to forty-five who handle the extensive business of the plant. One of the important departments is that in which the tools are made and dressed and adjusted to do lumber trimming and finishing. In charge of this department is Mr. Mikes, tool maker and dresser, foreman of the mechanical department and an expert in the art of condi- tioning tools. The planing department is almost dustless, since the machines are all equipped with blower pipes, which suck all dirt and shavings into the boiler-room, where this by-product is utilized at great saving for fuel. A water plant equal to a fire emergency is installed, and an electric system of wiring carries light to any part of the plant and yard. In the new plant the equipments will be such as to supersede the cruder processes of handling prod- uct now in use, and these facilities will represent the climax of achievement in ten years under the practical eye of Mr. Thornhill, the owner and manager. The Belington community regards Mr. Thornhill as one of its permanent citizens, and he in turn has made use of his growing prosperity for the benefit of the little city. In 1917 he finished his own home, a spacious and generous residence, the planning and arrangement being the result of the joint co-operation of himself and Mrs. Thorn- hill. All the finish and much of the other material enter- ing into this home came from his planing mill. Mr. Thornhill was reared in a democratic family and has voted that ticket beginning with Grover Cleveland. He has always been loyal to the Presbyterian Church of his mother, and for a number of years he was an elder in the church of Sutton, while he lived there. Outside of these interests his life has been in his business and in his home, and he has not been attracted into fraternal organizations. On April 11, 1889, Mr. Thornhill married Miss Cora E. Dnnham, daughter of John C. Dunham and grand- daughter of Rev. R. F. Dunham, a Baptist minister. She was a niece of R. J. Dunham, of Phillipi. Mrs. Thornhill, who died May 17, 1908, was the mother of three children. The oldest, Mary Leoline, born January 13, 1890, is the wife of W. E. Coffman of Keyser, West Virginia, and her three children are William Eugene, Robert Thornhill and Mary Frances. The only son of Mr. Thornhill by this union is W. Frank Thornhill, who was born September 10, 1892, and is now superintendent of the Thornhill Planing Mill at Belington. He married Flora Griffin, daughter of Rev. Mr. Griffin, and they have two children, Josephine Ann and Catherine Lee. Evelyn Ruth Thornhill, the youngest of the three children, was born December 31, 1898, and is the wife of H. Sherwood Shinn, of Belington, who is now finishing his education in West Virginia University at Morgantown. November 29, 1911, Mr. Thornhill married Miss Grace Margaret Boyd. She was born in Harrison County, August 21, 1891, daughter of Robert Calvin and Jocasta (Good- win) Boyd, being the fourth among their five children. The others are: Bessie May, wife of J. R. McHenry, of Centralia, West Virginia, Benjamin Thomas, of Weston; Robert Coy, of Denver, Colorado; and George Dewey, of Buckhannon. Mrs. Thornhill had a public school educa- tion and was married at the age of twenty at Oakland, Maryland. Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill have two children, Margaret Lee, born May 11, 1913, and James William, Jr., born May 29, 1916. During the World war the Thornhill home played its part in the burden of financing the war and its auxiliary efforts, taking large amounts of bonds and contributing to the Red Cross, and doing some of the practical work, such as knitting for the soldiers at the front. ______________________________ X-Message: #3 Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 22:05:53 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000710210130.00bb8180@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: THOMAS S. RICHARDSON, 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. 493 Kanawha THOMAS S. RICHARDSON, joint agent for the freight of- fices of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Kanawha & Michigan and the Kanawha & West Virginia railroads at Charleston, is an old-timer in the transportation business, and has been in railroad work at Charleston for over twenty years. He is one of the city's best liked men, and his personal popu- larity has brought a great deal of business to the companies he represents. He began railroad work at Charleston in 1900 as night bill clerk under O. E. Payne, then agent for the Kanawha & Michigan. Two years later he was promoted to bill clerk, then to cashier, then to chief clerk and in 1910 was made agent. He is now in general charge of a large office and warehouse force, comprising thirty-five office clerks and a similar number in the warehouses. This force handles on the average forty cars of outbound freight daily, besides thirty-five inbound merchandise cars and a similar number distributed among the local industries. In 1900 twenty men were sufficient to handle all the business of the office, and there were about forty in 1910, when Mr. Richardson became agent. In May, 1918, all the warehouse and office buildings were destroyed by fire, and the new ones were constructed with all the modern facilities for perfect dispatch of busi- ness, so that few cities anywhere have superior buildings of the kind. Mr. Richardson was born in Scotland, April 17, 1868, and is a man who has been the architect of his own destiny. When he was about twelve years of age he was taken to the mountain region of Pennsylvania, and he earned his living in the mines for several years. About the time he became of age he entered the office of a coal and iron company at Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he remained two years. Then coming to West Virginia, he was in the New River coal field as outside foreman in the opening of mines and in the operation of coke ovens, and left there to come to Charleston to get better educational advantages. He left a job worth $150 a month to start at railroading at $45. Mr. Richardson is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. He married at Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, Miss Jean Scott. Of their four children only one is now living, Thomas A. Richardson, who is assistant chief clerk in his father's office. One son, Arthur, was a time-keeper with the Kan- awha & Michigan, and died at Phoenix, Arizona, at the age of twenty-six. Another son was drowned in the Kanawha River when only five years of age. ______________________________ X-Message: #4 Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 22:17:24 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000710210140.00b845c0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: COYLE & RICHARDSON, Barbour 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. 493-494 Barbour COYLE & RICHARDSON. A good example of "the survival of the fittest" is the honored establishment of Coyle & Richardson, the oldest department store in the southern part of the state and a business whose growth has been typical of its home city of Charleston, a town of wide reputation for good taste in dress, to the demands of whose exclusive set this concern has largely catered. Starting in a modest, way in 1884, in a small building on the river front, a high standard of business ethics was laid down as a sure foundation for sound, enduring growth, and during the successive changes brought about by increas- ing need of space the firm has been a pioneer in the develop- ment of Charleston's retail business section as well as in the leadership of movements for shorter hours and the im- provement of working conditions. From a one-story, twenty foot frontage, the store has grown to a six-story and base- ment fire-proof building 50 by 115 feet, the larger part of which it occupies, doing a business of well over half a million dollars a year. The concern has under contempla- tion for 1923 a new building that will double its present facilities. George F. Coyle was born in Berkeley County, West Vir- ginia, and J. Lynn Richardson, in Frederick County, Mary- land. They became associated through clerkships in Staun- ton, Virginia, later forming a partnership in a small store in Winchester, Virginia, which they sold in 1880, renewing their firm name in Charleston four years later. The business was incorporated in 1913 with a capital stock of $80,000, which was increased in 1921 to $225,000. Mr. Richardson died May 11, 1915. He was for many years a vestryman in St. John's Episcopal Church, a republican in politics, and one of the original stockholders in the Kanawha Na- tional Bank, as was Mr. Coyle. He was a polished gentle- man of the old business school that characterized the com- mercial world of the '80s, yet kept ever abreast of the progress of the times. Mr. Coyle, the present head of the business, is an elder in the First Presbyterian Church, an officer in the Rotary Club of Charleston, and takes a prominent part in the charitable and civic affairs of the community. He married in 1884, and has two children, a married daughter and a son, George Lacy Coyle, who is actively associated with his father in the management of the business.