Ohio County, West Virginia   Biography: Joel E. MOSS

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Transcribed and submitted by Amber Dalakas <am1@stratos.net>, March 1999

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume II, pg. 21

JOEL E. MOSS has become one of the most influential industrial
leaders in Wheeling within a comparatively few years.  He has
developed one of the principal industries of the city, the J.E.
Moss Iron Works, of which he is president.  While this is his main
business, he is interested in a number of financial and industrial
organizations, and at all times has kept in close touch with the
civic welfare.  

Mr. Moss was born in New York City January 19, 1887.  His father,
Julius Moss, was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1852, and was reared
in his native country, where he learned the trade of ornamental
iron worker.  About 1875 he came to the United States, and for a
number of years followed his trade in New York City, where
eventually he became superintendent of the Prince & Kinkel Iron
Works.  In 1895 he removed to Wheeling, and organized and started
the Architectural Iron & Wire Works, a business he conducted by
himself until 1900, after which for two years his brother-in-law,
E.A. Reich, was his partner.  Two years later Julius Moss retired,
and he died at St. Louis in 1904.  He was a democrat in his
political affiliations, was a member of the Eoff Street Temple and
was affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and Ancient Order of
United Workmen.  He married Celia Reich, who was born in Austria in
1860, and died at Wheeling in 1912, she having come to the United
States with her mother when a girl.  Julius and Celia Moss had
seven children.  The oldest, Julius, is an advertising manager in
the theatrical business at Chicago; Jerome A. is a general
contractor at Chicago; Joel E. is the third; Edward A. is a steel
contractor at Cleveland; Miss Rosa is engaged in social service
work at Cleveland; Jeannette is the wife of Samuel Orenstein, in
the bakery business at Steubenville, Ohio; Miss Sarah Leah is a
teacher in the kindergarten department of the Cleveland public
schools.

Joel E. Moss was eight years of age when the family moved to
Wheeling.  He first attended school in New York City, and was a
pupil in the Wheeling High School until 1901.  By home study
through the International Correspondence School of Scranton he
perfected his technical knowledge of structural engineering.  While
thus studying he was doing practical work as an employee of the
Architectural Iron and Wire Works until July, 1910, and he then
engaged in business for himself as a contractor and quickly had an
extensive business involving contracts all over the state.  After
a year he started a small shop on Eighteenth Street as an auxiliary
to his contracting business, this shop employing only ten men at
the beginning.  Within a year the quarters were outgrown, and in
1913 he secured a piece of ground on Twenty-eighth Street and built
a modern plant, while the following year he bought the plant of the
Architectural Iron & Wire Works.  This is the industry now known as
the J.E. Moss Iron Works, and by subsequent extensions the plant
now covers six acres of ground and employs 500 men.  The annual
business is in excess of $2,500,000.  This plant is equipped for
the manufacture of structural and ornamental steel products of all
kinds and these products are shipped all over the country.  The
plant and officers are at Twenty-eighth and Chapline streets.


While this is a business constituting heavy cares and
responsibilities for Mr. Moss, he is also a director in the Quarter
Savings & Trust Company of Wheeling, the Wheeling Axle Company, the
North Wheeling Glass Bottle Company, and is president of the Compo
Tile Fire Proofing Company.  He is a director in the Industrial
Relations Association of Wheeling, a member of the Chamber of
Commerce, and his counsel is sought in all matters affecting the
industrial welfare.  He is a republican, a member of the Eoff
Street Temple, is a past president of the Independent Order of
B'Nai B'Rith, and is affiliated with nelson Lodge No. 30, A.F. and
A.M., West Virginia Consistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite, Osiris
Temple of the Mystic Shrine and Wheeling Lodge No. 28, B.P.O.E. 
During the war he had a place on many of the committees for the
sale of Liberty Loan Bonds, raising the funds for Red Cross and
other purposes.  Mr. Moss owns considerable improved real estate in
Wheeling, including his modern home on Hilltop, overlooking the
Pike District, where he has a modern country home.  On September
14, 1914, at Ashtabula, Ohio, he married Miss Sarah Thomas,
daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Thomas, residents of Wheeling,
where her father is foreman of the La Belle Mill of the American
Sheet & Tin Plate Company.  Mr. and Mrs. Moss have four children:
Joel Kenneth, born October 13, 1915; Jerome Leo, born February 15,
1918; Cecil Reich, born August 23, 1919; and Jay Eea, born on Mr.
Moss' birthday, January 19, 1922.