More "Row, Perry, Williams, Shomo, Brady" History

UPSHUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
July 9, 2000
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 453-454
Upshur

ARTHUR K. PERRY, president of the Merchants and Miners Bank of Junior and for a number of years active in the civic and business affairs of that community, in the line of public service performed his best work as a specialist with both the State and Federal Departments of Agriculture as an inspector for the protection of forests and orchards.

Mr. Perry was born in Meade District of Upshur County, West Virginia, October 24, 1869. His grandfather, Elias Perry, came from Erie County, New York, and established his home on French Creek in Upshur County, where he spent the rest of his life as a farmer and where he was laid to rest in the community cemetery.

His children were:
Hubbard,
John,
Edwin,
Elias,
Wilbur,
Fannie, who married John Love,
and Mrs. Marshall Gould.

Hubbard Perry, father of the banker, was a native of Upshur County, and was one of the early volunteers for the service of the Union in the Civil war. He was in Company E, of the Fourth Regiment of Virginia Cavalry, and while in the service nearly all the war period and in many arduous campaigns he was never wounded or captured. He was a private soldier, and among other battles he was with Sheridan at Cedar Creek. After the war he returned to the farm and pursued the routine of country life until his death in 1877, at the age of forty-nine. When he went to the polls he cast his vote as a republican, and he was a worshipper in the Presbyterian Church.

Hubbard Perry married Harriet Phillips, daughter of Edwin and Sophronia (Young) Phillips. The Youngs were an old Massachusetts family that settled in Lewis County, Virginia, in that portion now Upshur County. The ancestry of this branch of the family rnns back to an Englishman who was a man of letters and "wrote for the King," probably meaning that he was secretary to King George the first.

Among his children was Henry Young, who lived in England during the latter years of George the second, while Holland and England were at war with France. While in a boat along the coast he was seized and pressed into the English Navy, and for seven years performed his duties with the Royal Navy and finally landed at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. An educated man, a teacher, he prepared three times to return to England, but something prevented his going each time, so that providence seemed to have designed to make him an American.

He married Lydia Boss. Their oldest son, Robert Young, was born at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and had two brothers, William and Freeman, and four sisters, Anna, Cynthia, Elizabeth and Margaret.

Robert Young married Lydia Gould. Their children were:
Paschal,
Ann,
Anson,
Gilbert,
Festus,
Loyal,
Louisa,
Sophronia
Freeman.

The daughter Sophronia was born November 17, 1812, and on April 22, 1830, was married to Edwin Phillips in Upshur County, where they lived out their lives.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Phillips were:
Harriet, who became the wife of Hubbard Perry;
Abizer;
Josephine, who married Adolphus Brooks;
Beecher,
Marion,
Aletha,
Wallace,
Linn,
May, who became the wife of William O. Phillips.

The children of Hubbard Perry and wife are:

Emma, wife of George Talbott and a resident of Elkins;
Lucy, who married Jonathan Hathaway, of Buckhannon;
Marion, who died in infancy;
Orr, of Elkins;
Edwin E., of Macedonia, Ohio;
Delia, a resident of Pittsburg;
Arthur Kirke, the banker;
Grace, who died as Mrs. John Finley.

Arthur K. Perry lived in the community where he was born until he was eighteen. He made good use of his advantages in the local schools at that time.  After a course in the U. B. Academy at Buekhannon, where he took a business training, he engaged in a private business career until he attended lecture courses in the West Virginia University at Morgantown for special work in agriculture and horticulture. After finishing the course he was appointed state orchard inspector, and performed the duties of that position for one year in Berkeley County. For another year he did inspection work in the forests of the state against the chestnut-blight. He was then called to the federal Department of Agriculture as an inspector specially detailed to look out for the white pine blister rust. He was in this work from 1916 to 1920, inclusive, and through the forest areas of West Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina and New York. This is one of the most destructive pests ravaging the American forests, and the origin of the rust was placed to Germany, being imported to America on young trees.  It affects the five-leafed species of pine.

Mr. Perry after leaving the service of the Federal Government was with the Gage Coal & Coke Company at Junior until the mines of that company closed. He was made superintendent of the State Game Farm in 1922. This farm is in process of development at French Creek, and has been put aside as a preserve for the propagation of game birds, particularly the Chinese ring-neck pheasant. The farm comprises seventy-five acres, and is the property of the chief state game warden, Mr. Brooks, who has set it aside to the state for experimental purposes.  Mr. Perry's duties there are in the summer season. He personally owns a tract of land adjacent to the Game Farm, and this and other lands will eventually comprise a State Game Refuge under the care of the commonwealth, where no hunting or fishing will be permitted.

As a citizen Mr. Perry has served as recorder and also as mayor of Junior. He was one of the leaders in organizing a bank for the community, and in 1917 the Merchants and Miners Bank was launched, with him as one of the first vice presidents and directors. Since January, 1922, he has been president of the bank. Mr. Perry is a Master Mason, a Presbyterian, and has been a steadfast republican, casting his first vote for Benjamin Harrison in 1892, and his voting in National elections has been regular except in 1912, when he voted for Roosevelt.

At Junior, October 10, 1900, Mr. Perry married Miss Frances Row, daughter of Andrew J. Row, and granddaughter of Benjamin Row.
 

The other children of Benjamin Row were:

Mary, wife of Emuel Viquesney;
Julia, who married Andrew Williams;
Polly, who became the wife of Samuel Latham.

    (Refer to "Row Family in America" in KINFOLK section)

Andrew J. Row was born in Page County, Virginia, but spent the greater part of his life in West Virginia, where he was a farmer, miller and merchant. He died in 1905, at the age of seventy-one.

His first wife was Delilah J. Williams, and their children were:
Alva;
Benjamin;
Mary, who married Granville Brady;
Virginia, who became Mrs. Columbus Thorn;
Celia, who married Clarence Wilson;
Rosa, who is Mrs. Washington Arbogast, of Junior;
Margaret, who died as the wife of Adam Thornhill.

Mary K. Fitzgerald, second wife of Andrew J. Row, died in 1915, at the age of seventy-seven. Her children were:
Lillie Bell, wife of S. S. Bolton and now deceased;
Frances Amanda, wife of A. K. Perry;
Icie, wife of Frank Shomo, of Junior.

Mrs. Perry was born October 10, 1876.

Source: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~usbios/West_Virginia/Bios/Barbour/williewilliams.txt

Surnames: Williams, Shomo, Row

BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
******************************************************************
Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
November 10, 1999
******************************************************************

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 309-310
Barbour

WILLIE J. WILLIAMS. With the coal mining that constitutes the principal industrial activity of the Junior locality in Barbour County. Willie J. Williams has been identified nearly all the years since he attained his majority, first as a practical miner and later as an operator. He is president of the Mildred Coal Company there.

Mr. Williams was born in Valley District of Barbour County, October 21, 1877. His father, Andrew Jackson Williams, was born in Bath County, Virginia, and as a young man accompanied his parents to West Virginia, the family locating near Laurel Hill Mountain, where his father spent the rest of his life as a farmer.

Besides Andrew J., the other children were:

 

Robert S.,

George and

Benjamin,

 

all of whom went to the Western States;

 

Mary, who married Milton Curtis and lives at Rich Mountain in Randolph County;

Sarah, who became the wife of Mark Carter and died at Coalton, West Virginia;

Celia, who married Bud Wright and both died near Belington; and

Mrs. Noah Sluss, who lives in California,
 

Andrew J. Williams had only a limited education during his boyhood, and his working energies were bestowed almost entirely upon the farm. He was a Union man during the Civil war, and some of his brothers were in the Union Army. He died at his old home in Valley District in 1898, at the age of sixty-three.

His wife was Julia Row, daughter of Benjamin Row, and she died, the mother of the following children:

Mary, wife of S. B. Elbon, of Junior;

Sarah, who married John Shomo;

Henrietta, who became Mrs. Peter F. Ware;

Lillie, who married Charles Shomo;

Grant, twin brother of Lillie, now deceased;

Julia and Celia, twins, both deceased,

(Celia, having been the wife of Warren Corley and

Julia, wife of I. D. Shomo; )

James M., who died at Junior; Lorenzo, also deceased;

Dora, wife of Samuel Ball, of Kingsville, West Virginia; and

Willie Jackson.

Willie J. Williams spent his early life on the home farm in Valley District, and his education came from the old German school in that locality. As a school boy he became acquainted with systematic labor on the farm, and on reaching his majority began his career in the mines. His first employment was as a coal digger on the property of the Miller Coal & Coke Company, which subsequently was sold to the Gage Coal and Coke Company and finally to the West Virginia Coal and Coke Company. He was in the employ of all these organizations.

The Williams Coal Company was organized in 1917 by Willie J. and Grant L. Williams, Mittie Wiseman and Loma Lipscomb. These owners had in partnership some coal lands, and developed operations near those of the Gage Coal and Coke Company. During the World war the mine was operated first as a wagon mine and later under an arrangement with the Gage Coal and Coke Company. Willie J. Williams was manager. In 1920 the Mildred Coal Company opened its mine, and since November, 1921, Mr. Williams has been manager of the property and president of the company. This is one of the few coal mines in active production during the winter of 1921-22.

Mr. Williams has been a regular republican since casting his first vote for McKinley in 1900. He is a member and has served as steward of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

At Junior, February 3, 1899, Mr. Williams married Mrs. Lillie Williams, widow of his deceased brother Grant, and daughter of Jacob Spotswood Thacker of Philippi. By her first marriage she had three children:

Grant L.,

Mrs. Mittie Wiseman and

Mrs. Loma Lipscomb.

Mr. and Mrs. Williams have the following children:

Pax, a miner of Junior;

J. Hop,

J. Spotswood and

Phletus.

Grant L. Williams, son of Mrs. Williams by her first marriage, wag a soldier in the World war, and was on the firing line ready to go over the top when the hour of the armistice arrived. After returning home he took up mining, and is now mine foreman of the Mildred Mine.