Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography of George B. HERVEY

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Submitted by Suzie Crump <suzie@goodnet.com> , April 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,
pgs. 258-259


GEORGE B. HERVEY is superintendent of the Wheeling plant of the La Belle
Iron Works, one of the largest industrial organizations in the Ohio Valley
and one for many years a substantial element in Wheeling’s prosperity as a
manufacturing center.


Mr. Hervey has been connected with the La Belle Company for a number of
years.  He represents a family whose earlier generations were chiefly
distinguished by professional connections, his father having been one of the
noted educators of West Virginia, while his grandfather was a distinguished
minister of the Presbyterian Church.


The founder of the family in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia was the
great-grandfather, who came to Brook County about 1800.  He was of
Scotch-Irish descent.  He reared his family in West Virginia, consisting of
ten children and several of his sons became ministers of the Presbyterian
Church.  One of these was Rev. David Hervey, who was born in 1795, and for
many years was devoted to his work as a Presbyterian Minister.  He died at
Wellsburg in Brook County in 1877.


John C. Hervey, father of George B. Hervey was born in Brook County in 1822,
was reared there, graduated from a college at West Alexandria and devoted
his life to teaching and school administration. He taught in Brock (sic)
County, this state, Greene County, Pennsylvania, and in 1867 removed to
Wheeling, where for twelve years he was superintendent of city schools,
holding that office at the time of his death, in 1881.  He was a thorough
classical scholar, a cultured gentleman, and left a deep impress upon the
educational history of his time.  He was a republican, served for many years
as an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and was also a Mason.  John C.
Hervey married Letitia Alexander, who was born in Greene County,
Pennsylvania, in 1825, and died at Wheeling in 1918, at the advanced age of
ninety-three.  She was the mother of six children: Dorothy, who died at
Wheeling at the age of fifty-two, was the wife of Andrew H. Patterson, a
farmer and real estate broker who died in Cuba; John A., who became an oil
operator and died at Findlay, Ohio, at the age of fifty-three; Lee, whose
home is at 19 Virginia Street in Wheeling; Ella, wife of John R. Clark, a
retired farmer living at Woodlawn, near Wheeling; Jennie M., who died at
Wheeling in 1918, unmarried, at the age of fifty-four; and George B.


George B. Hervey, who was born in Ohio County, West Virginia, July 24, 1867,
began his education in the Wheeling public schools while they were still
under his father’s supervision.  He graduated from Frazier’s Business
College at Wheeling in 1888, and for the following five years was connected
with R. G. Dun & Company, mercantile agency.  Following that for one year he
was paymaster for the Wheeling Steel & Iron Company, then a year as bill
clerk with the Aetna Standard Iron & Steel Company, and for two years was in
the mercantile business.


His service with the la Belle Iron Works began in March, 1899, as
weighmaster.  He successively filled the office of paymaster, assistant
superintendent and in 1907 was promoted to superintendent of the Wheeling
plant, situated at the east end of Thirty-first Street.  Mr. Hervey has
under his immediate supervision 340 employes.  The Wheeling plant is
equipped with 140 cut nail machines, one skelp mill and one tack plate mill.


Mr. Hervey was a thorough patriot and leader in war activities, encouraging
men in the plant to do their best for the cause, aiding those who joined the
colors, and brought a high degree of working efficiency to the plant as a
unit in the Government’s industrial activities.  During a part of the war
this plant was devoted to the manufacture of plate for depth bombs and
plates for heel nails for army shoes.  Mr. Hervey is a republican, a member
of the Episcopal Church and affiliated with Wheeling Lodge No. 28, B. P. O.
E. He owns a modern home at 5507 North Front Street.  Mr. Hervey married at
Wheeling in 1892 Miss Gertrude Woodward Hughes, daughter of Jacob and
Caroline (Woodward) Hughes, now deceased.  Her father was in the real estate
business at Wheeling.  Mrs. Hervey was a granddaughter of Mr. Woodward
founder of the La Belle Iron Works in 1852.  Mr. Hervey lost his first wife
by death in January, 1899.  She was the mother of two children,  Helen, the
younger, dying at the age of three years.  Margaret Woodward, the only
surviving child, lives in the Howard Apartments in Pleasant Valley.  June
14, 1904, at Bellaire, Ohio, Mr. Hervey married Miss Emma S. Miller,
daughter of Morris V. and Emma Miller.  Her mother is still living at
Bellaire.  Her father was a locomotive engineer with the Pennsylvania
Railroad.  Mrs. Hervey is a graduate of the Bellaire High School and was a
teacher in that city until her marriage.  She is a direct descendant of
Robert Morris, the distinguished financier whose aid to the Continental
cause during the Revolution is a subject taken up in every American history.
To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Hervey were born five children:  Helen
Elizabeth, on April 7, 1905; Virginia Miller, in 1909; Robert Morris, on
July 10, 1913; George Burdette, twin brother of Robert; and Anne Lee, born
December 27, 1915.