WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 178 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: EDWIN FRANCIS HIL, Kanawha Co [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000717221716.00c7e850@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: EDWIN FRANCIS HIL, 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. 544 Kanawha EDWIN FRANCIS HILL recently received a change of title and a new line of duties with the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of West Virginia, his present title being division information manager at Charleston. He is a veteran of the telephone industry and business in America, and while his duties now involve chiefly the public relation- ship of the telephone industry and its personnel, his ex- perience ranges over nearly every phase of work from the construction and equipment of lines to the management of large and important divisions of the Bell Telephone System of America. Mr. Hill, who was born in Orange County, Virginia, Janu- ary 15, 1882, represents a family of many honorable dis- tinctions in Virginia Colonial and State history. His first English ancestor settled in Virginia early in the seventeenth century. The family produced a number of notable states- men and military leaders, including Col. Henry Hill of the Revolutionary war and Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill of the Civil war. Mr. Hill bears the name of his grandfather, Edwin Francis Hill, who married June 4, 1840, Lucy Scott Booton. Their son Rowland Flint Hill was born at the Hill ancestral home, Indian Trace, near Locust Dale, Madison County, Virginia, January 5, 1852. On January 5, 1881, at Mt. Zion Church in Oak Park, Madison County, Virginia, he married Etha Garnett, daughter of Jeremiah Cave and Sarah Elizabeth (Willis) Garnett, who were married at Burling- ton, Boone County, Kentucky, May 5, 1853. Jeremiah C. Garnett was a member of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry, Lo- max' Brigade, and was wounded at the battle of New- market in 1862. Albert G. Willis, an uncle of Etha Gar- nett, was a member of Moseby's raiders and was cap- tured and executed by the Union Army at Gaines' Cross Roads, Virginia, October 13, 1864, in retaliation for the death of a Union soldier supposed to have been killed by Moseby's men. Edwin Francis Hill began work with the Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company at Portsmouth, Virginia, February 10, 1900. His first service was digging holes for the company's lines in that city. That was the beginning of a service which subsequently took him all over the South and involved the erection of telephone plants is Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama, and the performance of nearly every kind of plant service. By virtue of more than twenty-one years of continuous service in the telephone industry Mr. Hill is a member of the Telephone Pioneers of America. In December, 1900, following his early experience at Portsmouth, he was sent to Danville, Virginia, where he worked on the changing of the old system to the common battery system. In April, 1901, he went to Jacksonville, Florida, and was in service with the Bell system there dur- ing the fire of May 3, 1901. June 1st of that year he returned to Danville for a short time, and then worked at Winston-Salem and other points in North Carolina. January 1, 1902, he was transferred to Atlanta, Georgia, and remained in the plant construction service of the Southern Bell Telephone Company in that city and terri- tory until September 1, 1905. Then, after a little more than five years' experience in the telephone business, he was made district foreman of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, with headquarters at Atlanta. The district then comprised the states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana. He first came to Charleston, West Virginia, in November, 1906, again in the employ of the Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company, superintending the placing of the underground system, changing the old magneto system of the city to the common battery system. The cut-over on this undertaking was made in December, 1906. At that time, it is interesting to note, Charleston had 1,168 telephones; it now has over 11,000. Leaving Charleston June 22, 1906, Mr. Hill went to Nor- folk, Virginia, remaining there until December, 1907, and after another month or two at Lynchburg, Virginia, returned to Atlanta, where he continued on duty until the latter part of August, 1908. September 1, 1908, he was transferred to Norfolk as district plant chief in charge of the Norfolk District, comprising Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, Hampton and Suffolk, reporting to the Richmond superin- tendent of plant. June 30, 1912, Mr. Hill was transferred to Charleston as division plant superintendent of the Chesapeake & Poto- mac Telephone Company, a part of the Bell system. His jurisdiction embraced the entire State of West Virginia. Recently a new position was created, primarily involving the relations of the telephone business with the public, and the title of the official supervising this branch of the service is division information manager. Mr. Hill assumed this title and its duties on November 1, 1921, his jurisdiction comprising also the State of West Vrginia. Among other mementoes of his long and interesting service Mr.. Hill has two letters directed to him in Septem- ber, 1921, one from Brigadier General H. H. Bandholtz, and the other from Maj. General Charles T. Menoher, chief of the air service, both expressing the heartiest apprecia- tion and commending Mr. Hill for personally conducting a constant day and night telephone search for information that might lead to the location and discovery of the wrecked aeroplane and its crew in Nicholas County. Mr. Hill has received the Theodore N. Vail Medal for "Noteworthy Public Service" in connection with locating the airplane in September, 1921. Mr. Hill is a charter member of Charleston Lodge No. 153 A. F. and A. M., a member of Charleston Chapter, Knights of Rose Croix No. 3, and Odel Squier Long Lodge of Perfection No. 3. Mr. Hill married Miss Marie Virginia Nicholson, of Fort Worth, Texas, at Portsmouth, Norfolk County, Virginia, December 7, 1910. ______________________________ X-Message: #2 Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 22:18:24 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000717221754.00c8f920@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: DAVID AUSTIN JAYNE, 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. 545 Kanawha DAVID AUSTIN JAYNE was born March 4, 1878, in Eaton Township, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, son of David and Hannah (Kisbaugh) Jayne. He attended county school. spent the early part of his life on the farm, and graduated from the commercial department of Keystone Academy. Factoryville, Pennsylvania, in June 1898, and from the East Stroudsburg State Normal School in June, 1901. He taught country school and commercial schools at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Elyria, Ohio, and Charleston, West Virginia. Mr. Jayne began the practice of public accounting in 1905, and was commissioned as a certified public accountant by the State of West Virginia in 1911. He is a member of the American Institute of Accountants, American Society of Certified Public Accountants and Association of Certified Public Accountants of West Virginia. He married Anna Evelyn Carey, of Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, in 1905, who died soon after their marriage. In 1907 he married Cecelia MacCutcheon, of Erie, Pennsyl- vania. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, Shriner and Elk. Mr. Jane [sic] was appointed on the State Board for the Ex- amination of Public Accountants by Gov. H. D. Hatfield, and re-appointed in 1922 by Gov. Ephriam F. Morgan. ______________________________ X-Message: #3 Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 22:19:03 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000717221842.00ca4550@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: JOSEPH HARVEY LONG, Cabell 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. 546-547 Cabell JOSEPH HARVEY LONG, who has recently retired from the office of postmaster of the City of Huntington, has long been numbered among the representative members of the newspaper fraternity in West Virginia, and since 1895 has been editor and publisher of the Huntington Advertiser, which he has made one of the strong and influential papers of the state. Mr. Long was born in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, May 21, 1863, and is a son of Edward C. and Sarah (Roe- buck) Long. The house in which he was born figured also as the birthplace of his father and his paternal grandfather, and the ancient building was erected over flowing springs and in such a way as to constitute a sort of block house or fort to afford protection against the Indians, the while the springs supplied water which could not be cut off in case of siege by hostile Indians. Edward C. Long became a traveling salesman for a manufacturing and wholesaling house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to which city he removed with his family in 1873. There the future newspaper man, Joseph H. Long, was reared to adult age and received the advantages of the public schools. As a boy Mr. Long came into possession of a small printing outfit, which he utilized in the printing of visiting cards. This amateur enterprise doubtless had direct influence in leading to his continuous alliance with the '' art preservative of all arts.'' He gradu- ally expanded his juvenile printing enterprise to include a measure of commercial work, and he continued to increase his working knowledge of the mystic details of the printing trade and business. In April, 1879, Mr. Long went to Lagrange, Ohio, a town later known as Brilliant, and there invested all his capital in the Novelty Glass Company. Financial disaster robbed him of all he had invested, and he then resumed his alliance with the printing business by taking employment as a compositor in the office of the Ohio Press at Steubenville. Within a short time thereafter he became a general utility man on the Wheeling Leader, which was then a Sunday paper, at Wheeling, West Virginia. He thus continued until about the year 1882. In the meanwhile Dana Hubbard, a brother of W. P. Hubbard, who at that time was publisher of the Wheeling Leader, had become editor of the Erie Dispatch at Erie, Pennsylvania, and Mr. Long joined the staff of this Pennsylvania paper. In the autumn of 1884 he found employment with the Oswego Palladium, at Oswego, New York, but in September of the following year he returned to Pittsburgh and took a position in the office of the Wheeling Register, and later be- came interested in the Wheeling News. In the autumn of 1893 Mr. Long came from that West Virginia city to Hunt- ington, and here purchased the plant and business of the Herald, then in a dilapidated and run-down condition. He soon developed this into a well regulated and prosperous newspaper property, and made it so influential as a republi- can paper that within a year, mainly through its medium, the republican party elected all officers in Cabell County with the exception of county clerk. In 1895 Mr. Long sold the Herald property and purchased the. Huntington Advertiser, of which he has since continued the editor and publisher and which he has made a power in politics throughout the state. In May, 1916, Mr. Long was commissioned post- master of Huntington, and after giving an effective admin- istration of five years and one month he resigned, and has since given his exclusive attention to his newspaper busi- ness. The history of the Huntington Advertiser and the record of the local career of Mr. Long are so closely linked and interwoven as to be practically inseparable, and both the man and the paper have wielded large influence in local affairs. The Advertiser had its inception at Buffalo, West Virginia, and about the year 1870 its owner, Dr. O. G. Chase, removed the plant and business to Guyandotte, Cabell County. When the present fine industrial city of Hunting- ton was born, Dr. Chase removed his plant to the new town, and after a time he was succeeded in the ownership by Major E. A. Bennett. In September, 1885, C. L. Thompson, of Hinton, and W. O. Wiatt purchased the property and con- tinued the publication of the Advertiser as a weekly paper. On September 2, 1889, the Daily Advertiser was founded and published in conjunction with the weekly of the same name. At this time Mr. Wiatt retired from the firm, and the publications were continued by Mr. Thompson, who later was succeeded by Thomas E. Hodges, a former prin- cipal of Marshall College, and George F. Donnella, a local attorney, each of whom had previously acquired an interest in the property. J. Hoffman Edwards, of Weston, became the next owner, he having been succeeded by George Sum- mers and the latter by Major G. Downtain and his son, William S. Up to this time the two papers had maintained a somewhat precarious existence, but a new vigor was instilled when J. H. Long purchased the properties, July 20, 1895, he having since continued the directing spirit of the now splendid newspaper enterprise. Of those formerly identified with the Advertiser, Dr. Chase Major Bennett, Messrs. Thompson, Hodges and Donnella, and Major Downtain are all deceased; Mr. Wiatt is treasurer of Hagen, Ratcliff & Company, wholesale grocers at Huntington; Mr. Edwards amassed a fortune in oil production and now resides at Weston, this state; Mr. Summers is a widely known news- paper correspondent, with headquarters at Washington, District of Columbia. Under the effective control and management of Mr. Long, the Huntington Advertiser has become one of the valuable newspaper properties in West Virginia. Its mechanical equipment includes a sixteen-page Duplex press, with color attachment; nine linotype machines, of which five have multiple magazines; one monotype and one Ludlow type- setting machine. It is virtually a non-distributing plant and is wholly independent of the type trust. Equipped throughout with new steel furniture, the establishment is one of the most modern and complete newspaper and print- ing plants in the state, and the plan of Mr. Long is to install, in the near future, the plant in a model new build- ing to be erected for the purpose at the corner of Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue. Mr. Long is a leader in the councils and campaign activi- ties of the democratic party in West Virginia, and in the Masonic fraternity he has completed the circle of each the York and Scottish Rites, in the latter of which he has re- ceived the thirty-second degree. In 1884 Mr. Long was united in marriage to Miss Cora H. Thompson, of Steubenville, Ohio, and they have three sons, Luther T., Paul Walker and Edward H., all of whom are associated with the Huntington Advertiser. Paul W. and Edward H. were in the nation's service in the World war period. Luther T., being over thirty years old and married, was not called. Paul W., a graduate of Cornell University, completed a course in the air service of the United States Navy at Seattle, Washington, and was later stationed at San Diego, California. Edward H. was a student in Cornell University at the time when the United States became involved in the war, and was in the Student Army Training Corps at Washington and Lee, Lexington, Virginia, when the armistice was signed. ______________________________ X-Message: #4 Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 22:19:33 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000717221920.00c7c2e0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: SAMUEL EDWARD BRADLEY, Boone 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. 548-549 Boone SAMUEL EDWARD BRADLEY, president of the Madison National Bank, a former president of the Royal Block Coal Company, county road engineer of Boone County, is one of the most important men of his section, and one who has traveled far on the road which leads to prosperity and civic honors. He comes of a long line of honorable ances- try, dating back in this country to four brothers by the name of Bradley who were passsengers in one of the little sailing vessels which almost immediately followed the historic "Mayflower." One of these brothers remained in New England; another traveled further West; one eventually made his way into the wilderness which subsequently be- came Kentucky; and Joshua Bradley took up his residence in Virginia, and it is from the last named that Samuel Ed- ward Bradley is directly descended. All of these Bradley brothers and their descendants took a very active part in the history of the American Colonies, the Bevolutionary war, and the subsequent events down to the present day, and they are to be found all over the country, in all the professions and honorable trades and business enterprises. The birth of Samuel Edward Bradley occurred January 9, 1862, and he is a son of John D. and Martha J. (Pauley) Bradley, both of whom were born in West Virginia. John D. Bradley was a fanner and blacksmith during his earlier years, and during the war between the two sections of the country he espoused the Union cause and served it as a brave soldier. He lived to be nearly ninety years of age, dying at Charleston, West Virginia, May 13, 1922. Growing up in his native county of Raleigh, Samuel Ed- ward Bradley attended its common schools, and pursued his studies by himself to prepare for a normal training, it being his youthful ambition to become a teacher. After he had secured his certificate he taught in Baleigh, Boone and Kanawha counties from 1881 to 1892, and during this time studied surveying, for he is one of those men who can never rest content with what he has accomplished, but is always trying to further fit himself for other and more important duties. In 1884 he was elected county surveyor of Boone County, and in order to better discharge the obliga- tions of this office took up the study of railroad construc- tion and general engineering with the Scranton Corres- pondence School, from which he secured his diploma in both. A further recognition of his abilities was shown when he was appointed deputy sheriff of Boone County, and he served as such for four years, during which time he proved his utter fearlessness and resourcefulness. In 1897 Mr. Bradley was elected clerk of the Circuit Court of his district, and served as such until 1903, since which time he has devoted considerable attention to his pro- fession and land. surveying. In 1919 he was elected county road engineer, and still holds that office. He still gives a general supervision to the construction and right of way matters for the county in its road work. In 1915 Mr. Bradley branched out in his activities, going at that time into the coal business as an operator, and opened up the mine of the Royal Block Coal Company on the Altman Branch, of which concern he was president. He was one of the original organizers of the Madison National Bank in 1902, has continued on its directorate since its inception, and became its president in 1916. On April 13, 1885, Mr. Bradley married Nannie J. Hunter, a daughter of Robert and Janett (Thompson) Hunter, natives of West Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley have two children, Hattie and Ernest. Ernest Bradley is a veteran of the World war, and after his return home be- came Assistant Division engineer on the State Road Com- mission of West Virginia. He enlisted in the aviation branch of the service, but was transferred to the engineer- ing corps, in which he held the rank of lieutenant. He married Ada Davis, of Huntington, West Virginia. Mr. Bradley and his family belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is a Scottish-rite, Chapter, Knight-Templar and Shriner Mason, and he belongs to the Masonic Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. He also main- tains membership with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a Past Grand Patriarch of the West Vir- ginia Grand Encampment. He is a certified member of the American Association of Engineers. His rise has not been spectacular, but it has been steady, and whatever he has undertaken to do he has accomplished with painstaking fidelity. Today if he voices his approval of an enterprise or movement his associates know that it is because he has taken it under consideration and carefully studied it from all viewpoints before rendering his decision, and they are usually guided by his opinion, for they realize that they can rely upon his good judgment and innate fairness.