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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. 335-336
PHILIP A. SWITZER. When a boy just in his "teens"
Philip A. Switzer worked in and had the chief responsibili-
ties of mechanical management of a country mill. After
that he was otherwise engaged, picking up a somewhat
varied experience in business, but milling has remained his
chief occupation. He is one of the prominent men of
Philippi in the suburban industrial village of Mansfield,
where he is a member of the firm E. R. Dyer & Company,
millers and lumber dealers.
Mr. Switzer was born in Pendleton County, at Upper
Tract, June 16, 1857. His father, David N. Switzer, was
a native of Hardy County, West Virginia, and was of Swiss
ancestry. He married Frances Wilson, also a native of
Hardy County and of an old family of Western Virginia.
David Switzer was a miller, and lost his life by accident in
1859, when the mill headgate fell upon him. His wife sur-
vived and died at the village of Mansfield in 1900, when
eighty-five years old. Her children were: Miss Mary, de-
ceased; Virginia A., who was the wife of John A. W. Dyer,
of Mulvane, Kansas; Daniel S., who died unmarried at the
age of twenty-five; David P., who became a miller and
died at Spencer, West Virginia; Jesse O., who died in Har-
rison County; Gabriel T., who died in Pomona, California,
leaving a son, Claude; Charles K., of Philippi, who married
Minnie Dyer and has three daughters; and Philip Anderson.
Philip A. Switzer grew up in Pendleton County, attended
the free schools for four months each year, and was
thirteen years old when he took charge of the operation
of an old water mill at Tipper Tract. He remained at that
work about a year, and subsequently was placed in a coun-
try store and had a considerable mercantile experience in
different parts of Pendleton County. His first independent
experience as a merchant was in partnership with Edmond
R. Dyer, his present partner. For about four years they
conducted a business at Ruddle, until Mr. Dyer left the
county. Mr. Switzer was then a member of the firm Snell
and Switzer, wholesale and retail grocery merchants at Har-
risonburg, Virginia, for about two years. Leaving there he
returned to Pendleton County, and in the fall of 1888
engaged in milling, conducting the mill of E. D. Ruddle until
March, 1891.
At the latter date Mr. Switzer again became associated
with Mr. Dyer at Philippi, and for over thirty years has
been a partner in the Dyer Mill at Mansfield. This milling
enterprise is the chief feature in that community and com-
prises a flourmill, with a capacity of fifty barrels
daily, a sawmill and planingmill. The output of these
mills is sold almost entirely in the local market. With a
record of over thirty years operation the plant has never
shut down except for repairs, and has proved itself one
of the large, healthy and growing concerns of Barbour
County. Around the mills and depending upon them as
the chief source of livelihood has sprung up a village com-
munity. Mr. Switzer is a partner with his brother C. K.
Switzer in the Mansfield Mercantile Company, conducting a
mercantile business in the village of Mansfield.
Mr. Switzer is a business man and has never been what
might be called a leader in politics, though he has per-
formed his duty when required. He served as a member
of the County Court of Barbour County from 1910 to 1916,
and during the last year was chairman of the court. During
his term the old bonded debt of the county was liquidated
and the last of the railroad bonds were paid off. Mr.
Switzer was elected as a democrat in a district normally re-
publican by more than 400, and his own majority was 430.
His colleagues on the board were E. A. Waugh, Z. Taylor
Crouso, L. P. Bennett and William Scrimgeour.
July 1, 1887, Mr. Switzer married at Baltimore, Mary-
land, Miss Rachel Virginia McClung, who was born in
Highland County, Virginia, and was reared in Pendleton
County, West Virginia. Her father, Silas B. McClung, has
spent his life as a farmer and is living in Pendleton County
at the age of eighty-eight. He was a Confederate soldier go-
ing into the war at the beginning and doing his duty in the
Army of Northern Virginia until the close of the struggle,
and was never wounded. He married Miss Nannie Lemmon,
of an old family of Botetourt County, Virginia. She died
in 1916. Her children were: Mrs. Switzer, who was born
January 20, 1869; Warren, who died in Pendleton County
in May, 1921; Clarence, a farmer on the old McClung home-
stead in Pendleton County; Josie, who married Rev. William
Compton, of Jarrettsville, Maryland; Henry McClung, of
Los Angeles, California; and Edgar, a traveling salesman
out of Chicago.
Mr. and Mrs. Switzer have reared three children, all of
whom are now established in vocations or homes of their
own. The oldest is Lena Virginia, connected with the
auditing department of the Income Tax Bureau of the U. S,
Treasury Department. The son, Charles McC., graduated
from Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Vir-
ginia, in 1915, and on August 25 of that year became a
chemist in the laboratories of the Dupont Corporation, con-
tinuing with that great industry until 1920 and is now
a manufacturer of cellulose product at Rutherford, New
Jersey. The youngest child, Ethel C., is the wife of Austin
C. Merrill, deputy United States clerk at Philippi.
Mr. and Mrs. Switzer are members of the Crim Memorial
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Philippi. In
Masonry he is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason
and a member of Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at
Wheeling, is a past noble grand of Philippi Lodge No. 59,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is a member of the
Encampment of that order, and is a charter member and
for ten years has been recordkeeper of the Knights of
the Maccabees.
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