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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 26, 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. 326-327
Barbour
GEORGE E. CAIN owns and conducts the Belington Garage,
a modern and well ordered establishment in the fine little
City of Belington, Barbour County, where he is known and
valued as a progressive business man and liberal and loyal
citizen. He was born in Tyler County, this state, August
28, 1876, and there continued his association with farm
industry until he was twenty-three years of age, his educa-
tional advantages in the meanwhile having been those of
the rural schools and the summer normal schools. He made
a record of three years of effective service as a teacher
in the rural schools, and at the age of twenty-three years
he took the position of bookkeeper for the Kane & Keyser
Hardware Company at West Union. As secretary of this
company he assisted in the opening of the branch store
at Belington in 1901, and here he continued his connection
with the company until 1903, when he here engaged in the
ice and bottling business, in which he continued until his
business plant was destroyed by fire in 1910. In the spring
of 1911 he established on the site of his present garage
an enterprise in the handling of farm implements and
machinery, feed, etc., and this he continued until 1914, since
which time he has been one of the leading representatives
of the automobile business in this locality. He was local
agent for the Ford and Overland automobiles for six years,
and still continues representative of the latter and also of
the Buick cars, he having dropped the Ford agency in
1919. In the past six years he has sold in Barbour County
a greater number of Overland cars than the combined sale
of all other make of cars. In 1918 Mr. Cain erected the
main building of his present large and modern garage plant,
a concrete structure 100 by 120 feet in dimensions, a part
of the building being two stories in height and the upper
floor being now fitted out as one of the most attractive
club rooms in the state. The equipment of the sales rooms
and repair shops is of the best modern type, and the busi-
ness constitutes an important feature in the vital activities
of Belington.
The political allegiance of Mr. Cain is given to the
democratic party, but he has had no desire to enter the
arena of so called practical polities. He served two years
as city recorder of Belington and is now secretary of the
local Chamber of Commerce. He is affiliated with the
Masonic Blue Lodge at Belington and the Chapter of Royal
Arch Masons at Philippi, the county seat. He and his
wife are members of the Christian and Methodist Episcopal
Church respectively.
In April, 1904, Mr. Cain wedded Miss Olive Wilson, who
was born and reared in Marion County and who is the
elder of the two surviving children of W. D. Wilson, her
sister Flossie, being the wife of L. V. Atha, a passenger
train conductor on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, with
residence at Grafton, this state. Mr. and Mrs. Cain have
four children: Wilson and Kathryn are, in 1922, students
in the Belington High School, Lucile is attending the Junior
High School, and Richard Lee is an infant.
Mr. Cain is a son of Nathan and Elizabeth (Freeman)
Cain, both representatives of old and honored families of
West Virginia and both residing on the fine old homestead
farm in Tyler County, where they established themselves
soon after their marriage. Nathan Cain was born in Tyier
County, in 1846, and in what is now West Virginia was
also born his father, Lorenzo D. Cain, who was a farmer
by vocation. The family name of his wife was Hanes, and
they became the parents of eight sons and four daughters.
Mrs. Nathan Cain was born in Doddridge Connty, a daugh-
ter of Smith Freeman. George E. Cain, of this review, is
the eldest of the family of four children: Emma is the
wife of L. B. Strickling, of Wellsburg, Brooke County;
Maude is the wife of J. L. Walton, of Clarksburg, this
state; and Orpha is the wife of Eanza Pitts, an oil well
driller in Tyler County.
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