Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography: J. Walker PETERSON

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@trellis.net>, March 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 14


B. WALKER PETERSON, president of the Dollar Savings &
Trust Company of Wheeling, represents a family that has
been prominent in the City of Wheeling almost a century.

His grandfather. Dr. Daniel Peterson, was of old New
England Colonial stock and served as surgeon's mate in
Colonel Stark's Regiment of the Continental Army in the
Revolution.

The father of the Wheeling banker was William F. Peter-
son, Sr., who was born at Boscawen, New Hampshire, in
1798, and moved to Wheeling in 1824. He was a merchant
and was also one of the first life insurance agents west of
the Allegheny Mountains. He did a large business as a
dealer in land. He was a whig politically, and at the begin-
ning of the Civil war became a republican. He was a
member of the Congregational Church and the Masonic fra-
ternity. William F. Peterson, Sr., died suddenly at Logans-
port, Indiana, in 1866. He married Sarah Gibson, who was
born at Concord, New Hampshire, in 1815, and died at
Wheeling in 1885. She was connected with the Emerson
family of New England, whose most conspicuous member was
Ralph Waldo Emerson. William F. Peterson and wife had
seven children, but only two enjoyed sufficient length of
life to win for themselves positions in the world. Besides
B. Walker Peterson the other was W. F. Peterson, Jr., and
these brothers were closely associated in their business
activities as the firm of W. F. and B. W. Peterson for many
years. W. F. Peterson, Jr., died at Wheeling at the age
of sixty-eight.

B. Walker Peterson was born at Wheeling, October 26,
1852. He attended private schools in his native city, grad-
uated from Bethany College in Brook County in 1870, with
the A. B. degree, and was a member of the Theta Delta
Chi college fraternity. Mr. Peterson was trained for the
engineering profession, graduating in 1873 from the Rens
-selaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York, with the
degree Civil Engineer. In the same year Bethany College
conferred upon him the degree Master of Arts. For fifteen
years he engaged in his profession as a civil engineer, and
for seven years of that time held the post of city surveyor
of Wheeling. He also became interested in the manufac-
turing industry at Wheeling, and in 1897 succeeded P. B.
Dobbins as cashier of the Dollar Savings Bank, as noted
in the history of that institution elsewhere. For fifteen
years Mr. Peterson has been president of the Dollar Sav-
ings & Trust Company. He is also president of the War-
wood Tool Company, and president of the Ohio Valley Gen-
eral Hospital at Wheeling. He is an old-line republican, a
vestryman in the Episcopal Church, a member of the Twi-
light Club of Wheeling, and is affiliated with Bates Lodge
No. 33, A. F. & A. M., and with the Scottish Rite Consist-
ory.

In October, 1885, at Cadiz, Ohio, Mr. Peterson married
Miss Nannie Moffett, daughter of Fulton and Mary
(Dewey) Moffett, both now deceased. They have two chil-
dren. W. Fairfield Peterson, born March 5, 1890, is a grad-
uate mechanical engineer from Sibly College of Cornell Uni-
versity and is now engineer for the Baltimore Dry Docks
& Ship Building Company at Baltimore. He married
Marjorie Miller, of Milwaukee. The daughter of Mr. Peter-
son is Nancy Dewey, born February 8, 1892, and the wife
of Joseph DuBois Holloway. Mr. and Mrs. Holloway reside
at Pittsburgh, and he is vice president and eastern pur
chasing agent of the Superior Tube Company.
STATUE or ETHAN ALLEN, PUBLIC LIBRARY, WHEELING
Mr. Peterson bought and had placed in the Wheeling
Public Library a beautiful replica of a statue of Ethan
Allen, the original of which was executed by the sculptor
L. F. Meade. This statue in the Public Library is of Car-
arra marble. On the front of the pedestal is the following
inscription: "Ethan Allen, who in demanding and receiv-
ing the surrender of Ticonderoga in the name of the Great
Jehovah and the Continental Congress sounded the keynote
of the spirit of the Colonies and their subsequent union.
So mote it be. Amen." On another side is the following
dedication: "This ideal of one of the heroes of the war
for independence is given to the Wheeling Public Library
in memory of Dr. Daniel Peterson, Surgeon's Mate, Colonel
Stark's Regiment, Colonial Forces, and his son, W. F.
Peterson, Sr., who came to this community in 1824."