Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography of William John BRADDOCK

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Submitted by Kerry Armour <cmac4330@chesapeake.net>, 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. 155 & 156

WILLIAM JOHN BRADDOCK is secretary, treasurer and general manager of the 
Wheeling Bronze Casting Company, a well ordered concern that contributes 
its quota to the industrial and commercial precedence of the West Virginia
metropolis. He is one of the representative young business men of his native
city his birth having occurred in Wheeling on the 17th of April, 1882. Mr.
Braddock is a son of John and Ellen (McGrail) Braddock, the former of whom 
was born at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1859, and the latter was born in 
Wheeling, West Virginia, in that same year, she being still a resident of
her native city, where her husband died in the year 1891. John Braddock was
reared and educated in the old Keystone State, where the family was founded
in an early day, and he was a young man when he came to West Virginia and 
engaged in the work of his trade, that of iron-moulder, at Wheeling. Here 
he passed the remainder of his life, an upright and loyal citizen who commanded 
unqualified popular esteem. He was a democrat in politics and was a communicant 
of the Catholic Church as is also his widow. Of the two children, William J., 
of this review, is the elder, and Mary is the wife of Haven Robb, of Wheeling.

The early education of William J. Braddock was obtained in the parochial 
schools of St. Mary's Church, in the Eighth Ward of Wheeling, and at the 
age of fourteen years he entered upon an apprenticeship to the moulder's 
trade at the Riverside Mills, Benwood, Marshall County, an establishment 
now owned and operated by the National Tube Company. Here he continued to 
be employed eight years, and in the meanwhile he became an expert artisan 
at his trade.

In 1904 Mr. Braddock established a modest brass foundry of his own at 205 
Twenty-ninth Street, Wheeling, and after continuing the enterprise in an 
individual way until 1917 he incorporated the business under the present 
title of the Wheeling Bronze Casting Company. The business has become one
of substantial order, and in the autumn of 1921 it was removed from its 
original location to the fine new plant erected for its use at the corner 
of Thirty-sixth and McCulloch streets. Here is occupied a modern industrial
building that was erected by the company and that is 200 by 100 feet in 
dimensions. The company gives special attention to the rolling of bronze 
rods for non-corrosive use, and its products are shipped into most diverse 
sections of the Union. The executive officers of this progressive corporation 
are as follows: President, J. W. Mulard, of Martins Ferry, Ohio; secretary 
and treasurer, William J. Braddock.

Mr. Braddock takes lively interest in all that concerns the welfare of his 
native city, is independent in politics, is affiliated with the local lodge
of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he and his wife are 
communicants of the Catholic Church.

In the World war period the plant of the Wheeling Bronze Casting Company was 
given over largely to the manufacturing of special parts for use in the equipping
of submarine chasers, in the service of the International Ship Building Company 
and for the United States Emergency Fleet Corporation, and Mr. Braddock himself 
gave loyal support to the various patriotic activities centered in his home city 
and state.

On April 6, 1904, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Braddock and Miss Virginia 
Baumann, daughter of John and Lizzetta (Stensel) Baumann, of Wheeling, where the
father is a retired dairyman. Mr. and Mrs. Braddock have three children: Lizzetta,
who was born in 1905, and who is now a student in Mount de Chantal Academy at 
Wheeling; John, who was born in 1907, and who is, in 1921, attending the Columbia 
Commercial College at Wheeling; and William, who was born in 1915. The family 
home is the attractive and modern residence property owned by Mr. Braddock at 
212 Pierce Street.