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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
Barbour
NELSON B. MICHAEL, M. D. The good service proceeding
from his knowledge and skill as a physician and surgeon
Doctor Michael has exercised chiefly for the benefit of the
people of the prosperous little mining community of Junior
in Barbour County. His father was also a physician, and
the family is one of the older ones of Preston County.
His grandfather, William G. Michael, was born in the
vicinity of Brandonville, Preston County, and devoted his
active life to the farm. He was in the Union army at the
time of the Civil war, and received an injury while on
duty, though not on a battlefield. He frequently attended
the reunions of his comrades, was a republican and a mem-
ber of the United Brethren Church. He died on his farm
near Fellowsville about 1881. William G. Michael married
Mary Forsyth, and they had a family of five sons and four
daughters.
Dr. John F. Michael, father of the physician at Junior,
was born near Fellowsville in Preston County, April 17,
1842, and his varied gifts made him a useful man through-
out his career. At the time of the Civil war he enlisted
in the Seventeenth West Virginia Infantry and served three
years as a Union soldier. In one battle he was wounded
in the thigh. Soon after the war he married, and then
employed his liberal education to teach school for a num-
ber of years and also farmed, for about a dozen years he
operated a grist-mill between Tunnelton and Fellowsville.
He left milling to begin the study of medicine, reading in
the office of Doctor Kennedy at Grafton, and with Doctor
Harvey at Tunnelton, and later entered the College of Phy-
sicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, where he graduated in
1883. He returned to his home community to practice, and
was one of the busy professional men of Preston County
for a quarter of a century. After two or three years he
moved from his home in the country to Fellowsville, and a
short time before his death he went to Morgantown to live
with a son, E. W., where he died September 26, 1910.
Dr. John F. Michael married Annie Myers, daughter of
Daniel Myers, who married a Miss Wiles. Mrs. John
Michael is still living, and divides her time among her
children. These children comprise a notable family of nine
sons, and there is not a daughter in the family. A brief
record of the sons is as follows: Rev. Albert E., a Metho-
dist minister near Fairmont, who married Sarah Cin Clair
and has three children: Doctor Willis S., who is a graduate
of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore,
in practice at Bower, West Virginia, and married Lena Roy
and has three children: Ezra W., of Phoenix, Arizona, who
married Delia Bollyard; Oliver O., of Pittsburgh, who mar-
ried Sarah Shahan and has four children; Doctor Nelson
Burton; J. Frank, veterinary surgeon of Buckhannon, who
married Annie Pratt; Jasper K., unmarried and associated
with his brother in Arizona in the real estate business;
Charles Walter, a Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph operator
at Terra Alta, who married Annie Watkins, who died leav-
ing four children; Harvey R., telegraph operator of the
Baltimore and Ohio at Piedmont, who married Mattie Moore
and has two children.
Nelson B. Michael was born near the village of Fellows-
ville, December 9, 1874, his birthplace being within three
miles of that of his father. He had learned to support
himself and provide for his needs before he became a physi-
cian, and was a teacher before he entered medical college.
He acquired his own education in public schools and in the
Fairmont State Normal School. He taught for five terms,
his last work as a teacher being done at Thomas, West Vir-
ginia. He left there to enroll as a student in the Maryland
Medical College at Baltimore, from which he graduated in
1904. Doctor Michael practiced for two years at Rock Cave
in Upshur County, and in 1908 moved his residence to
Junior. He carries on an extensive practice, largely among
the miners of this locality for eight years, until the mines
closed down. He then moved to Hendrick in Tucker County,
where he practiced three years, after which he returned to
Junior, and now regards that as his permanent home.
Doctor Michael is a member of the Tri-County, West Vir-
ginia State and American Medical associations. He has
been town health officer of Junior, also a member of the
Common Council, but has never been in polities beyond
voting the republican ticket, beginning with the McKinley
campaign of 1896. Doctor Michael is not a member of
any fraternity, and he and his wife are Methodists.
On July 29, 1908, at Hendricks, West Virginia, Doctor
Michael married Rachel Roy, daughter of Washington J.
and Catherine (Simmons) Roy. She was born in Tucker
County, October 25, 1881, and was educated in the public
schools. Of the two children of Doctor and Mrs. Michael,
Blake Allison, the youngest, was born May 7, 1910. Loyal,
the first born, died aged five months.
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