THORNHILL / BOYD - BARBOUR CO; W.VA
JAMES
W. THORNHILL is owner and active proprietor of the J.W. Thornhill
planing-mill
at Belington, an industry not excelled in mechanical
efficiency
and management in this section of West Virginia. The various
processes
of lumber manufacture from the trees in the forest to the
finished
product are intimate by almost life-long experience to Mr.
Thornhill,
and he is the type of business man who thoroughly loves the
material
with which he works.
James
William Thornhill was born July 31, 1866, in Barker District,
Barbour
County. When he was a child his parents moved to Belington,
where
he had the privilege of attending a few brief terms of the common
schools.
He worked in the fields on the home farm, and as a youth of
eighteen
found employment in handling lumber in a lumber yard at wages
of 10
cents an hour. From common labor he was promoted to inspector, at
$35
a month, and for seventeen years he was in the service of the widely
known
lumber and timber firm of Pardee and Curtin at Sutton, West
Virginia.
Mr. Thornhill left this firm in 1907 and returned to Belington
and
took the contract for filling the lumber products of the Belington
Planing
Mill Company. When this firm became financially involved he
bought
the plant, in 1912. The plant was then of very small dimensions,
employing
perhaps ten men. Mr. Thornhill at once injected new energy and
new
possibilities into the business. The plant at the beginning of 1922
has
three times the machinery it had when Mr Thornhill took charge,and
its
drying kilns have a capacity of 100,000 feet. A year after Mr.
Thornhill
became owner of the old plant an enemy set fire to the lumber
yard
and everything but the mill was destroyed. The loss entailed was
greater
than the resources that remained, but with the insurance and the
credit
he had established he restocked his plant and pushed the business
even
harder than before. Gradually his energy found fruit in the
extending
stacks of lumber and the great quantities of finished material
in their
warehouses and shipped out by the car loads. The buzz and hum
of the
planers and saws has been sweet music to the loyal men who make
up the
force of from thirty to forty-five who handle the extensive
business
of the plant.
The Belington
community regards Mr. Thornhill as one of its permanent
citizens,
and he in turn has made use of his growing prosperity for the
benefit
of the little city. In 1917 he finished his own home, a spacious
and
generous residence, the planning and arrangement being the result of
the
joint co-operation of himself and Mrs. Thornhill. All the finish and
much
of the other material entering into this home came from his planing
mill.
Mr. Thornhill was reared in a democratic family and has voted that
ticket
beginning with Grover Cleveland. He has always been loyal to the
Presbyterian
Church of his mother, and for a number of years he was an
elder
in the church of Sutton, while he lived there. Outside of these
interests
his life has been in his business and in his home,and he has
not
been attracted into fraternal organizations.
On April
11, 1889, Mr. Thornhill married Miss Cora E. Dunham, daughter
of John
C. Dunham and grand-daughter of Rev R.F. Dunham, a Baptist
minister.
She was a niece of R.J. Dunham, of Phillipi. Mrs. Thornhill,
who
died May 17, 1908, was the mother of three children. The oldest, Mary
Leoline,
born January 13, 1890, is the wife of W. E. Coffman of Keyser,
West
Virginia. The only son of Mr. Thornhill by this union is W. Frank
Thornhill,
was born September 10, 1892. He married Flora Griffin.
Evelyn
Ruth Thornhill, the youngest of the three children, was born
December
31, 1898, and is the wife of H. Sherwood Shinn, of Belington.
November
29, 1911, Mr. Thornhill married MISS GRACE MARGARET BOYD. She
was
born in Harrison County, August 21,1891, daughter of ROBERT CALVIN
and
JOCASTA (GOODWIN) BOYD, being the fourth among their five children.
The
others are: BESSIE MAY, wife of J. R. McHenry, of Centralia, West
Virginia,
BENJAMIN THOMAS, of Weston; ROBERT COY, of Denver, Colorado;
and
GEORGE DEWEY, of Buckhannon. Mrs. Thornhill had a public school
education
and was married at the age of twenty at Oakland, Maryland. Mr
and
Mrs Thornhill have two children, MARGARET LEE, born May 11, 1913,
and
JAMES WILLIAM, JR., born May 29, 1916.
During
the World war the Thornhill home played its part in the burden of
financing
the war and its auxiliary efforts,taking large amounts of
bonds
and contributing to the Red Cross, and doing some of the practical
work,
such as knitting for the soldiers at the front.
Source:
The History of West Virginia, Old and New, The American
Historical
Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III - Barbour
*******************************************************************
Thanks to Karen Schrode from Ohio,USA