“The Reverend Dr. John W. Reger (1815-1893) was born near Volga, West Virginia. At the age of twenty-two he was licensed to preach by the Methodist Episcopal Church at a quarterly meeting held near French Creek. He was sent as junior preacher to the Randolph Circuit which covered a territory of three hundred miles from the Mingo Flats on the headwaters of the Tygart River to Allegany County, Maryland. He served for forty-seven years in the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Conferences. In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 7th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry and served until after the battle of Gettysburg. He was forced to resign because of illness, but he served as chaplain at the Grafton Hospital until the close of the War between the States. He gave ardent support to the location of the seminary at Buckhannon where he lived during his retirement. The laborers who erected the original seminary building said that he spent the greater part of his time on the grounds during the construction examining every brick and stone that went into the structure. A few days before his death he informed a friend that he considered his contribution to the location and building of the West Virginia Conference Seminary the crowning act of his life.”
Plummer, K.M. (1965) A history of West Virginia Wesleyan College 1890-1965. [electronic] Retrieved from Internet Archive. Buckhannon, WV: West Virginia Wesleyan College.
PLM 9/1/2019