WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 190 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: RALPH M. COWL, Hancock Co. WV [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000723134430.00cc5dc0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: RALPH M. COWL, Hancock 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. 580 Hancock RALPH M. COWL is proprietor of one of the largest fruit farms in Hancock County, an orchard developed by his father, the late Rev. John Cowl. This place is at Cowl Station, at the mouth of Tomlinson's Run, three miles north of New Cumberland. Rev. John Cowl was born in Cornwall, England, in 1818, and at the age of three was brought to the United States, his father, John Cowl, locating at Maryland and some years later coming to Wheeling, where he followed his trade as a shoemaker. John, the son, was first bound out to learn the trade of making sandpaper. The second time he was bound out to a blacksmith, and had a six years apprenticeship. He educated himself, and having early committed himself to the ministry he diligently studied Latin and Greek and other subjects in the intervals of his hard working days, and at the age of twenty-eight entered the ministry of the Methodist Protestant Church. He filled pastorates at Wheel- ing and other places in the Pittsburgh Conference, and about 1856 preached at Nessly Chapel, his home being at Fairview. He continued to carry the burdens of serving a circuit of several churches until past sixty, and even after retiring was frequently called to preach funerals. About 1866 he bought land at the mouth of Tomlinson's Run, and kept up his plantings on the 150 acres until about half of it was in bearing fruit. On this farm he spent his remain- ing years and died in 1898. Rev. John Cowl was a man of tremendous vigor and enthusiasm, gave himself heart and soul to every undertaking, and was a thoroughly positive character. He was a republican in politics. Rev. John Cowl married Elizabeth Hunter, of Washington County, Pennsylvania, and she died at the age of eighty- four. They had seven children: William R., who became a minister after serving as a soldier in the Civil war; John, who went to Oklahoma and acquired a large farm; Water- man, who was in the grain and coal business in Iowa when he died; Sumner, who became a minister of the Methodist Protestant Church and died during the first year of his pastorate; Ralph M.; Sadie, living in California, widow of J. O. Miller; and Mary, wife of George Brenneman. Ralph M. Cowl was born in Allegheny County, Pennsyl- vania, October 7, 1860, but since he was six years of age has lived at the old homestead in Hancock County. He married Kate Stewart, daughter of Samuel Stewart. They have three sons. John S. was in service in France from September, 1918, to July, 1919, with the S. O. S. Depart- ment, and after returning home spent one year in the Carnegie Steel Company's plant at Clairton, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Washington and Jefferson College in 1918. Ralph H., the second son, was a member of the Students' Army Training Corps during the war while at the university at Morgantown. Stewart, the youngest son, is in his first year at Washington and Jefferson College. ______________________________ X-Message: #2 Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:27:58 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000723142758.00cba350@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: JOSHUA S. ZIMMERMAN , Hampshire 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. 524-525 Hampshire JOSHUA S. ZIMMERMAN has been a prominent member of the bar at Romney for over a quarter of a century. His practice has involved a great deal of business organization work, and he has been interested personally and as an at- torney in the commercial orchard development in this sec- tion of the state. Mr. Zimmerman was born near LaPlata, at his mother's old home in Charles County, Maryland, January 16, 1874. The Zimmerman family lived near Baltimore, and their estate in that vicinity was the scene of activity of five generations of the family. Rev. George H. Zimmerman, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Baltimore County, on the ancestral estate, about three miles from the City of Baltimore, in 1838. He was a graduate of Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and entered the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. During the Civil war he was chaplain in one of the Virginia regiments in General Ros- ser's command in the Army of Northern Virginia. After the war he resumed his church work as pastor, and was also presiding elder of Moorefield, Roanoke and Baltimore districts. While in charge of the Baltimore District he died in 1898. Rev. Mr. Zimmerman married Henrietta A. Rowe, of Glymont, Charles County, Maryland, daughter of William H. and Ann (Cox) Rowe. She died in 1888, at the age of forty-six. There were three sons: Joshua S., of Romney; Edgar R., of Ruxton, Maryland, member of the firm T. T. Tongue and Company, Baltimore agents of the Baltimore Casualty Company; and George H., min- ing engineer of Whitesburg, Kentucky. As a minister's son Joshua S. Zimmerman lived in a number of towns in Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. However, most of his youth was spent in Woodstock and Salem, Virginia, and he was a student in Roanoke College at Salem in 1885-86, and in 1888 entered Randolph-Macon College, where he graduated A. B. in 1892. For a time he was a tutor on a Mississippi plantation at Shelby, and in 1893 became a clerk in the Census Department of the Government at Washington, during the second Cleveland administration. He was a clerk there three years, and in the meantime studied law, attending the night law school of Columbia, now the George Washington University, graduat- ing LL.B. in 1896. Qualified by education and experience for his profession, Mr. Zimmerman located at Romney, opening his office in July, 1896. His first case before the Circuit Court was West Virginia vs Smith, charged with "breaking and en- tering with intent to commit larceny," which case he lost. Since then he has had a general practice in Hampshire and adjoining counties and in both the Federal and State Courts. Seven years after he began practice he was ap- pointed prosecuting attorney to fill the unexpired term of W. B. Cornwell, resigned, and was twice thereafter regu- larly elected to the office, serving altogther nine years and three months. Mr. Zimmerman is a member of the dominant political party of Hampshire County, has been a leader in the party, served as chairman of the county committee, member of the Second District Congressional Committee, and has attended judicial, senatorial and state conventions. He was elected to the House of Delegates in November, 1920, and was made floor leader of his party. Governor Comwell appointed him a member of the road commission to draft a new West Vir- ginia State Road Law in connection with the fifty million dollar bond issue authorized at the 1920 election, as an amendment to the State Constitution. Mr. Zimmerman also supported the strict prohibition enforcement legislation introduced and passed while he was in the House. Concerning his connection with the commercial orchard industry in this locality, he promoted several companies, is an officer in them and legal adviser, and is individual owner of 150 acres of apple orchard. He is attorney for the Capon Valley Bank at Wardensville, and handled the legal matters in connection with the incorpora- tion of this bank. During the World war Mr. Zimmerman was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the county and was attorney for the County Food Administration. He personally registered under the last draft. On October 10, 1900, near Eomney, Mr. Zimmerman married Miss Kitty Campbell Vance, daughter of John T. and Mary Elizabeth (Inskeep) Vance. The Inskeep and Vance families were pioneers in the South Branch Valley and have been associated by marriage with the Heiskells, Gilkesons and other well-known families of this region. Mrs. Zimmerman was born on the old Vance estate near Romney, second among four children. Her brother William A., lives at Clarksburg, her second brother, Henry Machir, is a farmer near Romney, and Frank Vance died in early manhood. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman are Mary Elizabeth, a student in the Mary Baldwin Seminary at Staunton, Virginia; George Henry, Vance and Kitty Campbell at home. Mr. Zimmerman is a member of the West Virginia Bar Association, is affiliated with the college fraternities, Phi Delta Theta and Phi Delta Phi, and is an active layman in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, being steward of the Romney congregation and for a score of years has been superintendent of its Sunday school. He represented the church in district and annual conferences. Mrs. Zimmerman and several of the children are Presbyterians. ______________________________ X-Message: #3 Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:27:58 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000723142758.00cbbd70@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: SAMUEL GROVER SMITH, 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. 579 Kanawha SAMUEL GROVER SMITH. As a young civil and construc- tion engineer Samuel Grover Smith came to West Virginia nearly twenty years ago. He helped build and manage some of the important industrial railroads in the southern part of the state, but in recent years has turned his time and attention chiefly to the business of coal production, being twice president and treasurer of the Indian Run Coal Com- pany, treasurer of the Indian Run Collieries Company, and a director in several other companies. Mr. Smith, who is well known in social as well as in busi- ness circles at Charleston, was born at Philadelphia, August 9, 1884. Most of his youth was spent at Selinsgrove, Penn- sylvania, where he attended public schools, and for two years he was a student in a college at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. At the age of eighteen he entered the engineering depart- ment of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and in 1904, at the age of twenty, came to Charleston in the employ of the Coal & Coke Railway while they had under construction more than a hundred miles of new road. From 1906 to 1916 he was officially connected with the developing of the mining properties of the Blue Creek Coal & Land Company and the building and operating of the Kanawha and West Virginia Railroad, and in 1916 he handled the negotiations by which the Kanawha and West Virginia Railroad was sold to the New York Central. For the following three years he was general manager of the Blue Creek Coal and Land Company, and since August, 1919, has been vice president and treasurer of the Indian Run Coal Company of Charleston, West Virginia, one of the largest coal wholesale concerns in Southern West Vir- ginia. He is interested in several other producing com- panies. Mr. Smith is a member of the First Presbyterian Church, and was vice chairman of the recent Billy Sunday revival campaign in Charleston. He is a Knight Templar, thirty- second degree Mason, and Shriner, a member of the Rotary Club and a director of the Charleston Y. M. C. A. In 1907 Mr. Smith married Miss Mabel Hickel, of Charleston. They have a sun, Grover Smith, Jr., born in 1910. ______________________________ X-Message: #4 Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:27:58 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000723142758.00cbc200@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: WILLIAM T. WILLIAMSON, Harrison 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. 578-579 Harrison WILLIAM T. WILLIAMSON. The subject of the telephone, its early history and the remarkable extent of the service, facilities and great capitalization involved in the modern telephone industry in the state, receives special attention on other pages of this history. The division manager for the Bell Telephone System in West Virginia, where the company is known as the Chesapeake & Potomac Tele- phone Company of West Virginia, is William T. William- son, who has spent practically all his adult life in the business of transportation or communication, and for twenty- one years has been connected with the telephone company, during which time his headquarters have been at Charleston. He was born at Marietta, Ohio, in 1871, son of Rev. Thomas W. and Lydia (Sayre) Williamson, his mother a native of West Virginia. Both parents are deceased. Thomas W. Williamson spent a life of service and real distinction in the ministry of the Methodist Church. He served churches in the West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio conferences. About 1875, when William T. Williamson, was four years of. age, his parents moved from Marietta to Volcano, West Virginia, where he first attended school. Later they moved to Huntington, where he finished the high school course, following which he was a student in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware. For some twelve or thirteen years Mr. Williamson was in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, in various capacities, and at different points in this state, being agent at White Sulphur Springs, agent at Montgomery, claim agent, with headquarters at Hunt- ington, and passenger and ticket agent at Charleston. He resigned the latter office in 1901 to become manager of the Charleston Exchange of the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, which company later sold its property in West Virginia to the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company. Since then his abilities have brought him successsive promotions with the Telephone company. He wag super- intendent of the commercial, traffic and plant departments, and is now division manager of the company, his division embracing the entire State of West Virginia. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the company. Mr. Williamson has not only done effective work in improving and building up the facilities of the company in the state, but is widely known for his generous attitude toward the public and his ability to encourage cooperation be- tween the people and the company, resulting in the general betterment of the service. Mr. Williamson is a member of the Board of Trustees of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, superintendent of the Sunday School, and is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, being a past potentate of Beni-Kedem Temple and has several times represented the temple in the imperial Council. He married Miss Elizabeth S. Slack, a native of Charleston, and daughter of John Slack. They have one daughter, Mrs. Harriet W. Barrett. ______________________________ X-Message: #5 Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:52:41 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000723134504.00cd9380@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: CHINAWARE MANUFACTURE IN WEST VIRGINIA 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. 584-585 Hancock CHINAWARE MANUFACTURE IN WEST VIRGINIA. At New- ell, the northernmost point in the Northern Panhandle, are located the main plant and executive offices of the Homer Laughlin China Company, the largest pottery plant in the world. In point of time the industry at Newell is a younger development of the old pottery center of the United States, at East Liverpool, Ohio. The Homer Laughlin China Company was started in 1871 by Homer Laughlin and his brother, Shakespeare Laughlin, at East Liverpool. It was one of the first, if not the first, pottery erected in this country for the making of whiteware. There were only two kilns at the beginning. In 1876 the Laughlin Pottery received the highest award at the Centennial Exposition. After 1878 Homer Langhlin carried on the business alone until 1897, when the pres- ent corporation was formed. At that time the business consisted of only four kilns. The company during the next six years increased the number to thirty-two kilns, all located at Liverpool. In 1905 the company purchased a 500-acre tract just across the river from East Liverpool, and laid out the present town of Newell. A suspension bridge was built over the Ohio and a trolley line to con- nect the new with the old pottery center. At Newell the Homer Laughlin China Company built the largest single pottery unit in the world, consisting of thirty kilns under one roof. It is a six-story building, 660 by 450 feet This plant, together with the other units at East Liverpool, brought the total number of kilns up to sixty-two, but as a result of the heavy demand put upon the business through foreign competition during the World war the number of kilns was increased to seventy-eight, and the production rose to two and one half times as great as the next largest pottery in the world. In 1921 the business of this com- pany was nearly eight million dollars, and figured approxi- mately as one tenth of the total pottery production in the world. The directing and managing head of this great industry is W. E. Wells, the genius of pottery manufacture and the biggest man in the pottery trade of the world. He is sec- retary and treasurer of the company, but has in reality been everything from office boy to president. Moreover, he represents an old family of the West Vir- ginia Panhandle. He was born in Brooke County, Decem- ber 29, 1863. It was in 1776 that Richard Wells received a grant of 640 acres lying along the state line east of Steu- benville, part of which is still in the family. He rode on horseback from Baltimore, when his son James was a child. Nathaniel, son of James, established and operated the ferry and owned land up and down the river for three miles. The four and one half miles of railroad from the Pennsylvania line to the river bridge at Steubenville was built by him in company with Jesse Edginton in 1849. This was done to get around the state law prohibiting outside capital from making such improvement. Later the law was modified so as to permit the sale of this short line to the Pennsylvania Railroad. This four and one half mile stretch crossing the Panhandle gave what is still retained as the name of one of the largest divisions of the Pennsylvania system, the Pan- handle Division. Nathaniel Wells was a very prominent man not only in business, but in public affairs, was a mem- ber of the Virginia Legislature of 1849-50 and attended the first Wheeling Convention. He had been a slave holder in earlier life, but he set his slaves free and was an ardent supporter of the new state. He died in 1884, at the age of seventy-five. Nathaniel Wells married Mary Atkinson, daughter of William Atkinson, and granddaughter of John Atkinson, who settled in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1772. William Atkinson was born in Brooke County in 1791, served aa a soldier in the War of 1812, and died in 1873, on part of the farm settled in 1790. Lewis Wells, father of W. E. Wells, was an infant when his mother died, and he was reared by his maternal grand- father, William Atkinson. He married Rose McCord, of Utica, New York. In 1884 he removed to Steubenville, and lived there until his death in 1915, at the age of seventy- five. W. E. Wells attended the public schools, was for several years bookkeeper in a bank and in a wholesale drug house at Stenbenville. In 1889 he entered the office of the Laugh- lin Company and soon after was put in temporary charge of the entire plant, then comparatively small. He was manager of the East Liverpool plant when the corporation was formed in 1897, and he has been the responsible execu- tive head during the great development and expansion of the business since that time. Mr. Wells has served as chairman of the Republican State Convention, and was a member of the commission for the settlement of the West Virginia-Virginia debt, and some of his suggestions effected a saving to the state of many thousand dollars. He married Elizabeth Mahan, daughter of the late William B. Mahan, of Follansbee. They had three sons, Joseph M., W. E., Jr., and Arthur Atkinson, and also five grandchildren. Among business men and men of affairs generally Mr. Wells is widely known not only as a great business execu- tive, but as a very fluent speaker and with a wonderful command of language fitted to the expressions of his ideas. His masterpiece is entitled "My Garden," which has been widely quoted and published. The ideas for this gem of literature were derived from the pursuit of his favorite recreation and hobby, working in his garden at his home. His residence stands on an eminence overlooking the town of Newell and commands a view of the Ohio Valley for many miles.