WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 196 Today's Topics: #1 BIO: N. L. HARDMAN, Lewis Co. WV [Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000724195159.00c182e0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: N. L. HARDMAN, Lewis 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. 522 Lewis N. L. HARDMAN, a prosperous farmer whose home is on Skin Creek, fourteen miles southwest of Weston, is a mem- ber of one of the old and prominent families of Lewis County. Part of his present farm contains the old Hardman home- stead, where he was born November 24, 1863. His parents were Marcellus L. and Mahala (Hyre) Hardman. Marcellus Hardman was born August 28, 1829, son of H. D. and Mary (West) Hardman. H. D. Hardman was born on Hacker's Creek in 1803, was a farmer and also a teacher, and in- structed a number of pupils in the rudiments of surveying. He was a democrat and an active member of the Methodist Protestant Church. His three children were named Mar- cellus, Matilda and Bettie. Marcellus Hardman grew up on a farm, and had a common school education, and was one of the good and faithful men of his day. He and his wife had five children: Levi, born July 16, 1855, a farmer in Upshur County; Catherine, born February 21, 1859, now deceased; N. L.; William M. and John D., both deceased. N. L. Hardman spent his early life on the farm, and his neighbors have known him as a man of great diligence and unusual foresight and careful as a manager. A number of years ago he bought the old homestead of 350 acres, and has since increased his holdings to 600 acres. Mr. Hardman married Julia A. Linger, who was reared in the same community as her husband. They have six chil- dren: O. L. Hardman, born August 8, 1891, who had a common school education and was trained as a soldier for the World war at Fort Riley, Kansas; O. M. Hardman, born September 3, 1892, who enlisted in the Signal Corps, spent eleven months in France with the Twenty-eighth Division, was on front line duty three months, and received his hon- orable discharge May 14, 1919; Ludah, born March 5, 1896, who was educated in the common schools; Bryan, born November 7, 1900; Brannon, born February 28, 1902; and Benson B., born April 27, 1908. The family are members of the Methodist Protestant Church. Mr. Hardman is affiliated with Vandalia Lodge No. 321, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and has served as lodge treasurer. He is a democrat in polities. His wife, Julia A. Linger, is a daughter of Nicholas D. and Margaret Matilda (Bradshaw) Linger. Her father was born February 20, 1821, on Stone Coal Creek in Lewis County. The grandfather of Nicholas was a follower of Marquis de Lafayette and came to America during the Revolutionary war to assist the Colonies in their struggle for independence. He remained here after the war, married and settled down and has a numerous posterity. The children of Nicholas Linger and wife were: Nicholas W., deceased; William, deceased, who married Eliza Sexton; John W., who married Dtora Bartlett; Leonidas A., de- ceased, who married Rebecca Bartlett; Aaron N., who married Lucy Sexton; Mary J., deceased; Charles E., de- ceased, who married Mary J. Strader; Martha, wife of Joseph H. Flint, now deceased; Julia A., Mrs. Hardman; Edward B., who married Julia Clark; and David P., who married Cozbi Teter. ______________________________ X-Message: #2 Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 19:51:59 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000724195159.00c28b70@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: JAMES HORNOR DAVIS, 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. 601-602 Harrison JAMES HORNOR DAVIS. A civil engineer by profession, for a number of years an extensive program of business interests has claimed the time and attention of James Hornor Davis, whose home is in Clarksburg and who rep- resents an old family of Harrison County. This branch of the Davis family originated in Wales, and settled in the State of Maryland prior to the Revolu- tionary war. Caleb Davis, a grandson of the first Ameri- can settler, was born in Maryland, March 15, 1769, and died probably in Virginia, April 25, 1834. His wife, Mary, was born November 10, 1774, and died September 2, 1827. They had two sons and five daughters. Only three of the daughters' names are known, Rebecca, Ann and Minerva. The sons were John, born at Woodstock, Virginia, July 11, 1797; and Rezin. Rezin Davis, born probably at Woodstock, Virginia, on February 13, 1804, died at Clarksburg in March, 1884. He married at Clarksburg, June 5, 1828, Miss Ann Pollard Britton, daughter of Forbes and Elizabeth (Pindall) Brit- ton. She was born November 10, 1807, and died at Clarks- burg May 19, 1877. Their children, all natives of Clarks- burg, were: Caleb Forbes, born April 27, 1829, married Carrie Cox; Mary Elizabeth, born September 11, 1830, married William L. Hursey, son of John and Margaret (Laughlin) Hursey; James Pindall, born January 5, 1832, married Lovira Owens, daughter of Washington Owens; Margaret Wilson, born December 13, 1833, married Elmore B. Hursey, son of John and Margaret (Laughlin) Hursey; John Alexander, born May 18, 1836, married Alcinda Jas- per, daughter of William Woodson Jasper; Rezin Pollard, born January 4, 1840, married Bettie A. Gambrill, of Elli- cott Mills, Maryland, and died July 20, 1876; Thomas, born April 24, 1842, died July 3, 1845; Edward, whose record is given in a following paragraph; Catherine, born August 3, 1847, died unmarried January 27, 1901. Dr. Edward Davis, next to the youngest in the above fam- ily, was born July 3, 1844, and died at Clarksburg March 27, 1872. Though only twenty-eight when he died, he had earned success in his profession as a physician. On Oc- tober 25, 1866, at Clarksburg, he married Almira Louise Hornor, who was born at Lumberport, West Virginia, July 21, 1844, daughter of James Yard Hornor. A complete record of the Hornor family is given in a separate article. After the death of Doctor Davis his widow married Judge Gideon M. Camden, a distinguished citizen of the state, and after his death she became the wife of Judge George Wes- ley Atkinson, who at the time of their marriage was serv- ing as governor of West Virginia. This aged couple are now residing at Charleston. Dr. Edward Davis was the father of two sons: Edward Bezin, born at Clarksburg, West Virginia, February 11, 1868, married Garnet Hornor, daughter of Charles A. and Mary (Rhoades) Hornor, and James Hornor Davis. James Hornor Davis was born on a farm near Bristol, formerly Cherry Camp, November 13, 1870, and was brought to Clarksburg by his mother shortly after the death of his father. He attended the public schools, gradu- ating from high school in May, 1888, and then spent two years in West Virginia University at Morgantown, where he trained himself for civil engineering. He still regards that as his active profession, though after ten years of practice other affairs began to take up much of his time. For a time after leaving university he was associated with his brother Edward in the hardware business. Mr. Davis was one of the organizers of the West Virginia, Ohio and West- ern Bailroad, afterward changed to the West Virginia Short Line Bailroad. This road was built from Clarks- burg to New Martinsville, West Virginia, and Mr. Davis was engineer on location. During 1903-04 he was deputy clerk of the County Court of Harrison County under Charles F. Holden and resigned to engage in the real es- tate and insurance business at Clarksburg. Mr. Davis was appointed postmaster of Clarksburg, serving from 1917 to 1921, under the second administration of President Wood- row Wilson. He has served as a member of the city, county and state democratic executive committees, and is an ardent democrat. He is an active member of the First Presbyte- rian Church at Clarksburg, is a Knight Templar and thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and is a citizen who has assumed the deepest interest in the civic and business af- fairs of Clarksburg. Mr. Davis is a director of the Union National Bank, the largest in Clarksburg, is president of and a large stock- holder in The Exponent Company, publishers of the Clarks- burg Exponent, and has a number of other business inter- ests in and around Clarksburg. While in West Virginia University he was appointed a Cadet by Peregrin Hays, and had military training throughout his university career. Later he was made second lieutenant of Company K of the First Regiment of the West Virginia National Guard upon its organization about 1893, and some two years later was made captain of the same company. At Clarksburg, October 19, 1892, Mr. Davis married Edna Holmes, who was born in Fayette County, Pennsyl- vania, March 3, 1870, daughter of Matthew Gay and Eliza- beth Dawson (McCleary) Holmes. Her father was born in Preston County, West Virginia, November 20, 1838, and died at Clarksburg in March, 1907. In August, 1859, at the age of twenty-one, he went to Shanghai, China, and for nine years was in business there. In 1870 President Grant appointed him United States consul at Cheefoo, China. He resigned in 1872 and on returning to West Virginia es- tablished his home at Clarksburg, where for many years he was in the shoe business. In 1887 he served as a mem- ber of the House of Delegates, and in 1888 was elected sheriff of Harrison County. His widow, now living with her daughter, Mrs. Davis, is the daughter of William and Katherine McCleary, her father a resident of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Of the four children of M. G. Holmes and wife one died in infancy, a daughter, Minnie, died in early youth, the youngest is Mrs. Edna Davis, and her brother, W. Howard Holmes, lives at Oakland, Cali- fornia. In their home in Clarksburg six children were born to the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Davis: Elizabeth, born Au- gust 27, 1893, died the same day. Ewing McCleary, born September 22, 1894, died June 27, 1897. Catherine Louise, twin sister of Ewing, was married October 4, 1916, to Ed- ward Hart, son of John B. and Isabelle (Willis) Hart, and they now live at Charleston, West Virginia. Virginia Hor- nor, born September 26, 1896, was married September 17, 1919, to the late deceased Henry Walker Ruhl, son of John L. and Julia (Walker) Euhl. James Edward and John Holmes Davis, the surviving sons, both unmarried and now finishing their educations in Princeton University, were born respectively June 4, 1901, and December 26, 1902. ______________________________ X-Message: #3 Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 19:51:59 -0400 From: Valerie & Tommy Crook To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000724195159.00c39da0@mail.earthlink.net> Subject: BIO: HUGH B. SHINN, 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. 603-604 Harrison HUGH B. SHINN, a representative of the historic Shinn family of Harrison County, was one of the founders and has been occupied with the management for twenty years of the Valley Grocery Company of Belington. This is one of the prosperous wholesale concerns that add an imposing volume to the commercial trade centered at this little city. The Valley Grocery Company was founded by L. P. Shinn, G. W. Shipman and Hugh B. Shinn. The company was chartered with an actual capital of $61,000, and with an authorized capital of $100,000. The first officers were G. W. Shipman, president; H. B. Shinn, secretary and treasurer, and L. P. Shinn, vice president. It was in the fall 1902 that the house opened for business, with two trav- eling salesmen representing the firm in the field. The business has grown steadily, and now serves a large and important section of West Virginia. There are three trav- eling salesmen on the staff. The company has steadily kept in touch within its original field, handling groceries and feed. Hugh B. Shinn is a member of the State Wholesale Grocers Association. There is something said on other pages of this publica- tion concerning the historic Shinn family. The Shinns of West Virginia are descended from a remote Scotch ancestor who came to this country and settled in Pennsylvania be- fore the Revolution. The grandfather of Hugh B. Shinn was Jeremiah Shinn, a substantial farmer in the Shinnston community of Harrison County, where he spent his life and where he is buried. He married Mahala Sturms, and they had two sons and five daughters: Luther P. and Byron Shinn; Mrs. Rose Tetrick; Caroline, wife of George F. An- dall; Jane, who married Harry F. Randall; Florence, who became Mrs. Bruce W. Boggess; and Allie, who married D. L. Morrow. There were no politicians, ministers or other professional men in this old family, and hardly with an exception the men have been occupied either with farm- ing or some line of commercial endeavor. Luther P. Shinn, father of Hugh, was born in Harrison County in 1850, acquired a country school education, and has been a business man all his active career. He took up merchandising at the age of twenty-five, and is still in business at Buckhannon. The only office he ever held was as a member of the City Council at Buckhannon. For many years he has been an official in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Luther P. Shinn married Virginia Boggess, daugh- ter of John W. Boggess, of Lumberport, Harrison County, an ex-soldier of the Union Army. She died in 1882, leav- ing two sons, Hugh B. and Guy. Guy was associated with the wholesale business at Belington until he died in 1906, unmarried. Hugh B. Shinn was born in Harrison County in Decem- ber, 1874, but was reared at Buckhannon, Upshur County. He attended the public schools and had a brief course in Wesleyan College. His early life was spent in the atmos- phere of his father's retail store, and at the age of eighteen he became an active helper in the business. He is still associated with his father's store at Buekhannon, although his main time and attention are given to the wholesale house at Belington. The management of this business, in which he has been a factor for twenty years, constitutes a man's job, and Mr. Shinn has permitted himself no special share in politics or other affairs. He was brought up a repub- lican, and cast his first national ballot for McKinley in 1896. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Knights of Pythias. In Upshur County in September, 1897, Mr. Shinn mar- ried Miss May. Brown, who was born in Delaware County, Ohio, daughter of F. W. Brown, but since childhood she has lived in West Virginia and she finished her education at Wesleyan College. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Shinn are: Sherwood, a member of the class of 1923 in the elec- trical engineering course at West Virginia University; Fran- cois, of the class of 1925 in the Baltimore Dental College; Virginia, of the class of 1925 at Wesleyan College; Kenneth is a student in the Belington High School; and Frederick. in grammar school. ______________________________ X-Message: #4 Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 19:48:43 -0500 From: Tina Hursh To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.20000725004843.0067e0a4@clubnet.isl.net> Subject: Bios: Law, James Edward - Harrison county Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc. Chicago and New York, Volume 111 Pg. 365 James Edward Law. The educated, reputable lawyer is invariably ranked with the worth-while citizens of a community, and this is true at Clarksburg, West Virginia, as in other cities. An able representative of this profession here is James Edward Law, formerly prosecuting attorney, who belongs by birth and parentage to Harrison County. James E. Law was born near Salem, Harrison County, West Virginia, April 27, 1872, a son of Jesse Daugherty and Nancy (Hooper) Law, and a grandson of William Law and Nicholas Hooper, the paternal grandfather being a native of Ireland, of Scotch-Irish lineage, and the latter of Harrison County. Jesse Daugherty Law served as a soldier in the Union Army during the war between the states, and afterward followed the peaceful life of a farmer and stockman. His death occurred when sixty-eight years of age, his widow surviving to be seventy-two years of age. They reared a family of two daughters and five sons. Mr. and Mrs. Law were highly esteemed in their neighborhood and were faithful members of the Methodist Protestant Church. James E. Law had educational privileges in the public schools, then became a student in Salem College and later matriculated in the West Virginia University, where he took both a classical and law course and was graduated in 1899 and admitted to the bar in the same year. He located immediately at Clarksburg, where he opened a law office and was elected prosecuting attorney of Harrison County, serving as such from 1901, to 1904, inclusive. In 1918 he formed a law partne[r]ship with Anthony F. McCue, under the firm name of Law and McCue. He helped to organize the Farmers Bank at Clarksburg in 1904, and has since been one of its directors. He has been equally useful in other public capacities, and served as county superintendent of schools from 1895 to 1899, with the greatest efficiency. He had taught school in his younger years, and thus had a personal understanding of the educational problems facing teachers and boards of education. In 1901 Mr. Law was united in marriage with Miss Edna Hustead, who was born and reared in Harrison County. They have two children, a son and daughter, James Edward and Carolyn Waldo. Mr. Law and his family belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church. Like all broad-minded, intelligent men, Mr. Law takes a deep interest in public affairs and to some extent in the local political field. As was his father, he is a sturdy supporter of the principles of the republican party. Fraternally he is an Odd Fellow, and on many occasions, as a foremost citizen, is called on to serve, officially or otherwise, on boards and committees concerned with the public welfare.