Pop Troy's Anthology

William Sherman Brady

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William Sherman Brady b. 1816  d. 1889   (Death certificate states that he was 73 when he died, so the birth year is based upon that. Upshur County Records)

his last named son is the progenitor of the Bradys with whom we are especially concerned. He met and married Frances Jane Lemons in 1842. He and his sister Ruth were licensed at the same time, at Philippi, Barbour Co., in 1842, and were married in a double wedding ceremony. Frances Jane was the daughter of James and Elizabeth Jackson Lemon, from Bath Co., Virginia. (Marriage bond, Bath Co,, "James Lemmons and Betsey (sic) Jackson." (Betsey was a first cousin to the famous "Stonewall" Jackson, Confederate General in the Civil War.)

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The relationship to "Stonewall" Jackson is probably an invalid assumption. Later researchers have been unable to verify any links between the families. I searched the "Jackson Family Tree" very carefully. RmB

William S. and Frances Jane first settled on Dumpling Run, on land they bought from a Mr. Henderson.* They sold this small acreage and bought about 300 acres on Grand Camp of French Creek. Upshur County history gives the date of 1837. He "was a farmer and had fifteen children." (Ibid.)

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* The deed for the 300 acres is dated September 19, 1868. He paid for the land in full in two years from the date of the deed.

(Two of the children probably died in infancy. ETB) 

Frances Jane (Lemons-Lemmon) Brady died Oct. 26, 1882. Her tombstone reads "Aged 57 years. 10 mos. 25 ds." This means she was born in December of 1824. Her Spouse, Wm. S. Brady, died July 22, 1889. He was born at Brady Gate, Randolph County, W.) Va. in 1816 (C. H. Records, Buckhannon). The information was supplied by his son, Wm. T. S. Brady. Both Frances J. and Wm. S. are buried in an abandoned cemetery at the site of old Laurel Fork Methodist Church, about a mile below the present Laurel Fork U. M. Church, and not far from the Adrian-Evergreen Road. Wm. S. had only a fieldstone at his grave, but Frances had a large thin marble one broken, and repaired by T. R. Brady). A new headstone for both is now in place (1980).

How wonderful it would be if we had only possessed a little foresight in our earlier years! I knew my grandmother, Mary Row Brady so well, having made my home with her during and after my senior year in high school. How I wish I had asked her more about her earlier life and experiences. As it is, I do not know how or where she met and married my grandfather, Granville Bland Brady, fifth in the list of children above. But meet they did though their homes were over 40 miles apart, with roads almost impassable at times.

One tradition is that the Andrew Jackson Row family, being deeply interested in religion, made a pilgrimage to Indian Camp Rock, a few miles from the Brady home. This rock was a great overhanging cliff of the Homewood sandstone, which made up most of the high cliffs and semi-caverns of Randolph, Barbour and Upshur Counties. The rock was named so because of the remains of many campfires and the smoke-darkened stone roof, presumably left by the primitive tribes living under it. The overhanging stone shelter was capable of sheltering a hundred or so people, and was used for revival-type "camp meetings" by United Brethren and Methodist people of the area. A grove of great oak trees surrounded the rock, and the worshippers would come in their covered wagons and camp in the grove, often for weeks at a time.

The A. J. Row family were of the Church of the Brethren (Dunker) faith, but denominational lines were often crossed at such large community services as the Indian Camp Revivals.

My grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Row (pronounced like the original German spelling "Rau"). Her father was of German descent, the son of Benjamin and Sarah "Sally" Rinehart Row. The Row family came to Barbour County by way of the Valley of Virginia. Benny and Sallie were married on March 4th, 1830. (Marriage Register, Shenandoah Co., 1772-1853, p. 343.) They bought a farm and mill at Newport, now in Page County, Va., from Benjamin Strickler.

Discouraged by a flood which destroyed the mill, they sold their holdings to Reuben Foltz, and traveled some 140 miles west to a site on the Tygarts Valley River, near what is now Junior, W. Va. The Foltz family still own the land and mill site. We met a descendant of Reuben Foltz, 82 years old who lived on part of the farm in 1977. The deed from Row to Foltz is dated 2-18-1843, For c. 250 acres, price $2000. (Deed book E, p. 291, Page Co. C. H., Luray, Va.)

Benjamin Row built a new mill on the Tygarts Valley river. It was a type known as "Undershot", meaning that the water ran in a flume under the mill wheel, instead of a trough from a high dam over the wheel. Rocks making a part of the flume could still be seen the river at the east end of the bridge at Junior when I was a young man.

When they were first married Granville and Mary Brady moved to Buckhannon, W. Va. so that the young husband could work at his chosen trade, stonemasonry. He helped to build at least one of the cut stone buildings at the State Hospital for the Insane at Weston, W. Va., 16 miles west of their home. A loose board in a scaffold caused him to fall from the third floor level to the second, where he landed across a joist, breaking several ribs. While living in Upshur Co., at least three of their nine children were born, including my father, Walter Parley Brady, on Feb. 1, 1880. Granville and Mary were married on Dec. 25, 1874.. Walter was their third child.

Returning to the area of Mary's home, they purchased land adjoining her Father's farm on the south, an area which now includes the entire upper part of the town of Junior, then called "Rowtown." The mill, store and post office were operated by Mary's father. A large vein of coal was discovered outcropping along the river just below the mill, and in the early 1880s a railroad was built from Elkins down the river to connect with the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. branch coming up the river from Grafton, W. Va. to Belington.

Senator Henry G. Davis, the railroad magnate, then renamed the town for his son, Henry G. Davis, Junior. He arbitrarily did this to many towns in the area, naming them for his family members and business associates, and for himself. (Note the names of Elkins, Davis, Gormania, Dobbin, Henry, Gassaway, etc.)

Since "Grandpa" Row and my Grandfather Brady owned all of the area of the town and mine site, they wisely refused to sell any of the surface land except for the coal tipple site itself They sold instead to relatives and to people of the area who wanted to work at the mines. This is why the town escaped the blighted and regimented look of the typical mining town.

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The Brady Trilogy  I  Reclaimed Memories - (1991)  I  Pop Troy's Anthology - ( 1992)  I  Kinfolk - (1994)