Tag: Trustees

Martin, The Honorable Benjamin F.

“The Honorable Benjamin F. Martin (1828-1895) was born at Farmington, West Virginia. He graduated from Allegheny College in 1854, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1856. He settled in Pruntytown, West Virginia, but moved to Grafton when that town was made the county seat. He entered politics and was elected to the United States Congress in 1876 on the Democratic ticket. He was an active layman in the Methodist Episcopal Church.”

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

Barnes, Mr. John Adams

“Mr. John A. Barnes (1854-1936) was a native of Lewis County, West Virginia. Mr. Barnes was a merchant in Weston. He helped organize the Citizens Bank of Weston and was an official of the bank until 1934. He was one of the organizers of the Building and Loan Association and a member of the Board of Directors from 1887-1936. An active layman in the First Methodist Church of Weston, he was a member of the Official Board and of the Board of Trustees; choir director, 1875-1916; a Sunday school teacher, 1925-36; and Boy Scoutmaster, 1912-14. During World War I he was director of the Weston Red Cross. Mr. Barnes was one of fifty men to buy the first plot of acreage at Jackson’s Mill for the original 4-H Camp. He served as secretary of the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan.”

Plummer, K.M. (1965) A history of West Virginia Wesleyan College 1890-1965.  [electronic] Retrieved from Internet Archive. Buckhannon, WV: West Virginia Wesleyan College.

PLM9/1/2019

Bardall, John Cambridge

“John C. Bardall (1839-1925) was born at sea while his parents were emigrating to America from Germany. At the age of nineteen he began to learn the trade of whip manufacturer at Wellsburg, Pennsylvania. He worked for several whip manufacturers successively until 1873 when he helped establish the firm of Weaver and Bardall at the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. In 1877 the firm located at Moundsville, West Virginia. The firm also operated a tannery in Pittsburgh for its supply of leather. Mr. Bardall had interests in the natural gas, coal and fire clay lands around Moundsville and Wheeling. He served for over a decade as superintendent of the Sunday School of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Moundsville. He was a lay delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New York City in 1888, and a reserve delegate to the Ecumenical Council of all Protestant churches which met in New York in 1890. He was a member of the building committee of the Simpson Methodist Church, Moundsville, in 1907, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the church until about 1915. He also helped to establish the Calvary andGlendale Methodist Churches.”

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

Jordan, Rev. L.H.

“Information regarding one of the original trustees is scanty. The Reverend Mr. L.H. Jordan was a member of the West Virginia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church until around the turn of the century when his name was no longer listed in the annual conference journal. The recollection of several persons in Buckhannon is that he served a term as district superintendent of the Buckhannon District. During his travels on the district he gathered many seeling oak trees which he planted on the seminary campus.”

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

Stewart, Rev. Loren L.

“The Reverend Mr. Loren L. Stewart (1845-93) came to West Virginia from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He was admitted on trial to the West Virginia AnnualConference in 1870 and served as a pastor and as presiding elder for two terms.”

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

Rohrbough, Rev. A.B.

“The Reverend Mr. A.B. Rohrbouth (1836-1901) was born near Buckhannon, West Virginia. He was admitted on trial to the West Virginia Annual Conference in 1857. During 1862-63 he lived in Illinois where he taught school. For the next ten years he was a resident of Buckhannon and engaged in newspaper work, teaching and temerance work. During two of these years he was superintendent of the public schools. He returned to the Southern Illinois Conference for another ten-year period during which he served as a pastor. In 1884 he returned to West Virginia as a pastor, and for a period of two years he again engaged in newspaper and temperance work at Buckhannon. In 1900 he was appointed editor of the Methodist Episcopal Times.”

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

Reger, Rev. Dr. John W.

“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

Orwen, Rev. E.H.

“The Reverend Mr. E.H. Orwen (1835-92) was a native of Delhi, New York. After a brief career as a teacher, he entered the ministry and from 1852 served churches in New York and West Virginia. On two occasions during his ministry he was forced by ill health to take the supernumerary relation. He engaged in editorial work during one of these periods. At the time of the founding of the seminary he was engaged in assisting his son in establishing a newspaper at Aberdeen, Maryland. He was secretary of the Board of Trustees until his death. He was also a trustee of Ohio Wesleyan University.”

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

Lyda, Rev. Andrew Jackson

  • Born: January 14, 1821 in Hancock, Maryland
  • Died: March 3, 1999 in Mason County, WV

[Travelers on the Long Road, Volume 1, pages 443-444]

Rev. Andrew Jackson Lyda was born January 14, 1821 in Hancock, Maryland. He was the son of James and Mary Ann Lyda who, with their family, moved to Zanesville, Ohio about 1831. Here he was converted and joined the M.E. Church about 1836. He entered college at Augusta, KY in 1838, where he graduated with honors in 1842. Here he married mary Ann Ward, the daughter of a minister on August 1, 1844. She died in May 1848 near Point Pleasant, Virginia and was buried at Gallipolis, Ohio.

Rev. Lyda joined the Ohio Conference in 1843. His first charge was Georgetown, Ohio. Here he stayed one year, receiving $100 for his year’s work. He was one of the charger members of the West Virginia Conference, being on the Virginia side of the Ohio River when the Conference was organized. He was pastor at Charleston, VA the year preceding the organization of this conference, and was appointed to the same charge for the following year. It was during this pastorate here that the great cholera scourge swept the Kanawha Valley. During this time of great tragedy and danger that Dr. Lyda first so eminently distinguished himself as the Christian that he was. In 1849 he went as pastor to Clarksburg, where he remained two years. Here, on May 12, 1851, he was married a second time to Miss Phoebe E. Davidson, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Davidson of Clarksburg. They had two daughters who, with their mother, survived him.

After serving as pastor of several charges in tis conference, Bishop Ames appointed him Presiding Elder of the parkersburg District in 1856. In 1862 he was appointed chaplain of the Third Virginia volunteers, U.S. Army, where he remained until April 29, 1864. He received his degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1873.

Forty-eight years of his active life were spent in the effective ministry, forty-four of which were spent in the West Virginia conference. He was superannuated at his own request in September 1898. He was one of the mightiest factors in planting, cultivating and maintaing Methodism in West Virginia.

Dr. Lyda died march 3, 1899 in Mason City, W.Va.”

Plummer, K.M. (1965) A history of West Virginia Wesleyan College 1890-1965. 

The Reverend Dr. Andrew Jackson Lyda (1821-1999) was a native of Hancock, Maryland. Before the seminary was established he was the first chairman of the Board of Trustees. Upon location of the seminary he resigned as chairman to become the financial agent for the school. Mr. Lyda was a charter member of the West Virginia Annual Conference and spent forty-four of his forty-eight years in the effective ministry in West Virginia. He was chaplain of the Third Virginia Volunteers, the United States Army, from 1862-64.

PLM 9/1/2019; updated 3/3/2024

Looking Back and Forward (Repeat)

Time is a strange thing. On October 28, 1955 the Founders Day speaker was J. Roy Price, Chairman of the Long Range Planning Committee.

In that speech, he looked back at his experience as a student – he also scrutinized the college in 1955 from the perspective of one in the present who was planning for the future. The future he was planning is now sixty-three years in our past.

1923

J. Roy Price (known as Roy) entered  West Virginia Wesleyan as a student in the Academy in 1917 (which would be equivalent to a Jr. in High School today) and graduated in 1919. This was the year that the Academy program phased out and all work became college level.

In 1923 he graduated with his B.S. degree.

As you can see from the caption below his photo, he was definitely a person who appreciated the Liberal Arts approach of the school: Young Men’s Christian Association, Debate, Chemistry, Theater, Murmurmontis staff. Quite the variety of interests.

He would have been one of Nicholas Hyma’s earliest students, as he taught from 1919-57.

They can be seen catching up in this 1944 picture from an alumni dinner in New York.

Career in Chemistry

J. Roy Price went on to have a very successful career in the chemical industry working with Union Carbide. He was part of the team doing original research on vinyl plastics and did research on such things as rosin, shallac, asphalt, celluloid, can linings, and insulation for electric wires (which was used as a substitute for rubber when the U.S. entered WWII).

During WWII he served as Union Carbide’s liaison to Defense Agencies, and in 1958 was appointed by President Eisenhower as head of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization.

College Connections

Receiving an  Honorary Doctor of Science from WVWC in 1949,  J. Roy Price served on the Board of Trustees from 1949-73, and was President of the Board from 1969-73. Working with President William Scarborough, he was also the chairman of the Long Range Planning Committee which set the groundwork for the major growth of campus facilities under President Stanley H. Martin.

Founders Day Speaker in 1956

The full text of this address can be found here.

Speaking as an alumnus and a Trustee  as well as the Chairman of the Long Range Planning Committee, he notes that these things were absolutely necessary:

  1. High Quality Education
  2. More and Better Faculty, with salary improvements
  3. Physical Facilities

I encourage you to read his words. They are as relevant today as they were then.

The tomorrows that they were planning for 63 years ago are now our past. And others are now in the process of planning for the future. Time has a way of shifting from past to present to future. It is with great appreciation that I write to tell of this Giant in Wesleyan history.

John Roy Price (click here for his Bio)

Born: June 15, 1900

Died: June 15, 1975 (unexpectedly on his 75th birthday)

The quotation under his yearbook photo in 1923 seems to be a very fitting one. From Wordsworth, it said, “A man of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows.”