Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography of Wheeler H. BACHMAN

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Submitted by Vivian Brinker <VIVIANB@RAVEN.CCC.CC.KS.US>, March 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 II.
pg. 183


WHEELER H. BACHMAN for a number of years has been a power in the
commercial and financial affairs of Wheeling, was formerly in the 
dry goods jobbing business, and is now member of the investment
firm of Speidel & Bachman, Incorporated, of which he is president.

Mr. Bachman, whose citizenship has been distinguished by the
broadest cooperation in enterprises for welfare and charity, was
born at Wheeling, March 22, 1870.  His father, William Phillip
Bachman, was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1838, and was a boy of 
ten years when he accompanied some relatives to the Unites States.
He reached Wheeling, the city destined to be his permanent home,
about 1853, and in after years he achieved a position as a 
successful merchant, with associations with other business and
banking affairs.  He was a staunch republican.  He died at
Wheeling in 1918.  William P. Bachman married Lucy Wheeler, who
was born in Dudley Port, England, in 1845.  Her father, Simmons
Wheeler, was born in Dudley Port, was a shipyard owner there, 
and was killed when thrown from a horse.  He married Martha 
Simmons, a native of Dudley Port, who came to the United States 
when her daughter Lucy was fifteen years of age.  Thereafter
she made her home at Wheeling, where she died.  Lucy Wheeler 
Bachman, who died at Wheeling in 1919, was for nearly half a 
century an active member of St. Matthew's Protestant Episcopal
Church.  She was the mother of two children, Jessie Martha and
Wheeler H.  The former is the wife of George Grant Ralston, a
resident of Martin's Ferry, Ohio.

Wheeler H. Bachman was educated in the public schools of Wheeling,
attended Frazier's Business College until 1888, following which
he spent seven years with a retail dry goods store, familiarizing
himself with the detail of the business and at the same time 
making a close study of the jobbing phase of dry goods 
merchandising.  In 1895 he embarked his experience and capital in a 
wholesale dry goods business, and was active in that line nearly 
twenty years, until 1914.  As a jobber he had an extensive general 
trade through West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and in special 
lines he did a large volume of business over the United States,
especially with jobbing houses in New York City and Chicago.  Mr.
Bachman became a member of the firm Speidel & Bachman, Incorporated,
in 1914.  This firm acts as underwriters and investment brokers,
and the names of the partners are the highest guarantee of their
financial integrity and reliability.  The offices of this firm are
in the Wheeling Bank & Trust Company Building.  Mr. Bachman is 
president, Joseph Speidel Jr., vice president, and Jesse Speidel,
secretary and treasurer.

Mr. Bachman is a member of the executive committee and a director of 
the Wheeling Bank & Trust Company; is secretary of the Carr China 
Company of Grafton, West Virginia; a director of the United Dairy
Company of Wheeling; a director of the Camden Coal & Land Company of
West Virginia; and a director and assistant treasurer of the Arizona
Mossback Mine Company of Oatman, Arizona.  He is also a director of
the Equitable Mortgage Company of Cleveland, director of the Fidelity
Investment Association of Wheeling, vice president of the Union Mines
of Wheeling, formerly secretary and treasurer of the Wheeling Stock
Exchange of Wheeling for a period of three years and a member of the
Advisory Board of the Lutz & Schraunn Company of Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania.

In 1908, at Wheeling, Mr. Bachman married Miss Edith Carr, daughter
of Thomas and Alice (Stockwell) Carr, residents of Grafton, where
her father is president and general manager of the Carr China Company.
The Carrs were an old family of New York City, while the Stockwells 
run back into the Colonial history of Vermont.  Mrs. Bachman was 
educated in public and private schools at Wheeling.  They have one son,
Wheeler Carr, born September 4, 1911.

For a number of years Mr. and Mrs. Bachman have been closely 
associated with mutual interests and sympathies in many phases of 
broad and constructive charity and public spirit.  They have helped 
support all the charitable organizations of the city without respect 
to creed.  Mrs. Bachman is a member of the Board of the Aged and 
Friendless Women's Home, and is a member of one of the "Hospital 
Twigs," organizations for the purpose of raising funds for the 
hospitals.  She is a prominent member of the Presbyterian Church, 
while Mr. Bachman is one of the active supporters of St. Matthew's 
Protestant Episcopal Church and is president of its Men's Bible Class 
and a vestryman of St. Matthew's Church.  He is a republican, is 
affiliated with Wheeling Lodge No. 28, B. P. O. E., is a member of the 
Wheeling County Club, the Fort Henry County Club and the Ancient Order 
of United Workmen.  His home is a fine old residence at Cambridge 
Springs, Pennsylvania.  During the World war Mr. Bachman was active in 
the placing of Government securities, and was a working member of all
the committees in the Red Cross, Liberty Loan and other drives.