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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
November 10, 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. 308-309
Barbour
ELIJAH ELSWORTH CLOVIS, M. D. The State Tubercu-
losis Sanitarium at Terra Alta was established in 1911,
and the initial quarters were first opened for the recep-
tion of patients in January, 1913. From the beginning the
superintendent of the sanitarium has been Doctor Clovis,
a West Virginia surgeon and physician who successfully
combated the white plague as his personal enemy, and soon
after recovering came to his present office and respon-
sibilites.
Doctor Clovis was born at Hebron, West Virginia, August
27, 1879. His grandfather, Solomon Clovis, was a native
of Pennsylvania and many years before the Civil war
moved from Greene County, that state, and bought Falls
Mills at Shiloh, West Virginia. Later he located at Hebron,
where he became a manufacturer of brick and tile, also
conducted a tan yard, and continued active in those lines
of business the rest of his life. He married Elizabeth
Wrick, a native of Hebron in Pleasants County. Their
children comprised three sons and four daughters, and the
three sons and one daughter, Mrs. Semantha Wagner, are
still living. The sons are Benjamin, Theodore and Amos.
The two older sons were Union soldiers in the Civil war.
Amos Clovis was born in Pleasants County in 1854 and he
took up farming as his vocation instead of giving his
attention to the factory or the merchant's counter. He
was active in this line until advanced years came on, and
he still lives on the farm. He and the other members of
the family have been very stanch republicans, but none
of them have been active in political affairs. Amos Clovis
is a member of the Church of Christ. In Hebron he mar-
ried Martha J. Fleming, who was born at Fairmont in
1856, daughter of Enoch Fleming. Their children are:
W. Edward, who has the Ford automobile agency at St.
Marys, Dr. Elijah Elsworth; Cora wife of Homer F. Simon-
ton, of St. Marys; Harry T., of St. Marys; and Lawrence,
a drug clerk at Huntington.
Elijah Elsworth Clovis grew up around Hebron, where
the country air and the life of the farm contributed to
his physical development. He attended the public schools,
taught school four years in a country district, and at the
same time carried on his studies in high school branches
preparatory to entering medical college. Doctor Clovis was
graduated in 1905 from the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons at Baltimore, where he specialized in diseases of the
chest. After graduation he practiced five years at Hebron,
giving up his professional work when threatened with a
breakdown from tubercular trouble. He employed his will
power and his professional knowledge in his own behalf,
and for two years lived in the healthful atmosphere around
Asheville, in Western North Carolina. He practically re-
covered his normal health there and then returned to West
Virginia, and in August, 1912, entered upon his duties as
superintendent of the Tuberculosis Sanitarium at Terra
Alta.
This institution had provision for only sixty patients
when it was opened in January, 1913. By June of that
year the full quota of patients had been received. Subse-
quent additions were made to the facilities by sixty more
beds in 1916, forty more in 1919 and forty in 1920, so
that at present there are accommodations for 200 patients,
and there is a long waiting list of applicants, indicating
the need for such an institution and also for additional
facilities of that kind. During the past nine years the
sanitarium has treated more than 2,000 patients, and a
large number of them have been out five or six years after
being discharged as cured.
Doctor Clovis, on account of his position and also his
individual attainments, is one of the widely known pro-
fessional men in the state. He is president of the Preston
County Medical Society, a member of the West Virginia
State and American Medical associations and the Amer-
ican Sanitarium Association. He was made a Mason at
Hebron and is a past master of that lodge, a member of
Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling, and is
affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and Independent Or-
der of Odd Fellows. He is a member of the Official Board
of the Terra Alta Methodist Church.
At Hebron January 1, 1904, Doctor Clovis married Miss
Clara McKnight, who was born there, a daughter of James
B. McKnight. Mrs. Clovis finished her early education
in the Carroll High School, and was a teacher before her
marriage, doing her last work in the grade school at Whis-
key Run, Ritchie County. Doctor and Mrs. Clovis have two
daughters, Mildred and Madaline.
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