Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography of Lee Roy CRAGO

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Submitted by <BMaurer396@aol.com>, 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. 273

    LEE ROY CRAGO, is rounding out a quarter of a century of continuous 
service with the Wheeling Works of the La Belle Iron Works, one of the oldest 
and most noted institutions in the iron and steel industry of the Wheeling 
District, with which a number of prominent Wheeling men have been identified 
and in which some of the greatest steel and iron men of the country have been 
trained.
Several interesting distinctions are associated with the name Crago in the 
Wheeling District.  While Lee Roy has given his active career to the La Belle 
Iron Works, one of his brothers is present city manager of Wheeling, and his 
father was one of the ablest educators the northern Panhandle of West 
Virginia ever had.
This educator was the late Felix Hughes Crago, who was born July 7, 1836, 
near Carmichaels in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and grew up on a farm just 
outside that village.  He graduated from Greene Academy at Carmichaels and 
also was a student in Waynesburg College.  Soon after getting his degree at 
Waynesburg College he entered the Union army, and served nearly four years.  
He was promoted to second lieutenant, then to first lieutenant, and at the 
close of the war had charge of his company.  His command was Company D of the 
Twenty-second Pennsylvania Ringold Cavalry.
Following the war he was in business at Carmichaels for a time, but soon 
began teaching at Beallsville, Pennsylvania.  For nearly half a century his 
work and his enthusiasm were absorbed in educational affairs.  It was 
Professor Crago who opened the West Liberty Normal School at West Liberty, 
West Virginia, in the capacity of its first principal, in 1871.  Three years 
later he removed to Moundsville, West Virginia, as superintendent of schools 
there.  After eight or nine years he went to Wheeling, was principal of the 
Webster School in that city two or three years, and for thirty-one years was 
principal of the Eighth Ward School, and the many hundreds of successive 
students in that school cherishes special gratitude for the influence he 
exerted upon their young lives.  For one year he was superintendent of 
schools at Buckhannon, but with this exception his life for over thirty years 
was devoted to educational interests in Wheeling.  He had perhaps the unique 
record of having taught institute in every county in the state during the 
summer months.  Felix H. Crago died July 29, 1917, at the age of eighty-one.
He married Mary Elizabeth Carman, who was born at East Richmond in Belmont 
County, Ohio, June 24, 1847, daughter of William C. and Eliza (Cooper) 
Carman.  She was well educated in the common schools of Belmont County and in 
Franklin College of that state, and then entered the West Liberty Normal 
School of West Virginia, where she graduated in 1873, while Mr. Crago was 
still principal.  She afterward taught in the public schools of Moundsville.
Felix H. Crago was of Scotch-Irish descent and Mary E. Carman was of a 
mingled English and Scotch ancestry.  The great-grandfather and the mother of 
Felix H. Crago were born in this country; while the great-grandfather and 
grandmother of Mary E. Carman were native Americans, and all subsequent 
ancestors are of American nativity, so that the present generation is quite 
thoroughly American.  Mr. Lee Roy Crago has the following brothers living:  
Jesse H., connected with the sales department of the Follansbee Brothers 
Company of Pittsburg; Charles G., a printer, now foreman of the Great Falls 
Tribune at Great Falls, Montana; and Homer C., who is the present city 
manager of Wheeling.  The one sister living is Eva Laura Crago, a teacher in 
the Wheeling High School.
Lee Roy Crago was born at Moundsville, West Virginia, September 17, 1878, but 
has lived nearly all his life in Wheeling and was educated here in the public 
schools, graduated from high school in 1897.  Soon after leaving school he 
became connected with the La Belle Iron Works as storekeeper.  He was 
successively advanced to timekeeper, paymaster, and for several years has 
been chief clerk of the Wheeling plant.  The La Belle Iron Work are an 
industry now seventy years old.  The Wheeling plant for several years has 
been devoted chiefly to the making of nails and all kinds of plate, such as 
steel skelp, shovel plate, tack plate, automobile stock and similar products.
Mr. Crago is a member of the Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church of Wheeling.  
August 5, 1907 at Wheeling, he married Miss Birdie D. Fisher, of that city.  
They have five children:  Felix Hughes, Birdie Lee, Dorothy Evelyn, Lee Roy, 
Jr., and Paul Carman Crago.