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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@earthlink.net
July 10, 2000
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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. 492-493
Barbour
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 manage-
ment 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.
His father was Frank Thornhill, who was born in old
Virginia, was a Southerner in sentiment and sympathy
on the issues of the Civil war, and at one time was made
prisoner and put in Camp Chase, Ohio. He spent his active
life as a farmer, and died at Belington in Barbour County
in 1873, at the age of fifty-two. He was a strong demo-
crat, and both he and his wife were loyal and active mem-
bers of the Presbyterian Church. His wife was Elizabeth
Jane Willis, who came from Rappahannock County, Vir-
ginia, daughter of Francis Willis. She was born January 7,
1829, and died at Sutton, West Virginia, March 10, 1897,
aged sixty-eight. Frank Thornhill was born September 22,
1821, and died November 19, 1873. They began life
without special education, were good workers, had high
ideals, and reared a family of useful children. The chil-
dren were: Mary, who married the late Albert Rohrbough,
of Belington; Martha Ann, who died at Philippi, wife of
S. H. Morrall; Elizabeth Jane, wife of Monroe Phillips,
of Belington; and James William.
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 com-
mon 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 prod-
ucts 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, em-
ploying 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 machin-
ery it had when Mr. Thornhill took charge, and its drying
kilns have a capacity of 100,000 feet. The planing mill
specializes in the manufacture of interior trim and finish
from West Virginia wood, including poplar, chestnut, oak
and basswood. Much of the output finds market as far
away as Cleveland, Ohio and New York City. The bass-
wood nearly all goes East, while the oak is marketed in
the West, showing that Western people have a higher
appreciation and demand for superior wood finish than
Eastern people. The business is both wholesale and retail.
The principal retail business is done at Zanesville, Ohio,
under the name of the F. L. Israel Lumber Company. The
plant at Belington is capable of furnishing all the lumber
products and finishing required in the building of an entire
house. Fourteen acres of ground situated along the Weaver
Branch of the Western Maryland Railroad furnishes space
for the plant and yard.
Mr. Thornhill plans for 1922 a new mill, with a capacity
a third larger than the present one, and with greatly im-
proved facilities, including four new heavy finishing ma-
chines and with power available for its operation.
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. Grad-
ually his energy found fruit in the extending stacks of lum-
ber 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.
One of the important departments is that in which the
tools are made and dressed and adjusted to do lumber
trimming and finishing. In charge of this department
is Mr. Mikes, tool maker and dresser, foreman of the
mechanical department and an expert in the art of condi-
tioning tools. The planing department is almost dustless,
since the machines are all equipped with blower pipes,
which suck all dirt and shavings into the boiler-room, where
this by-product is utilized at great saving for fuel. A
water plant equal to a fire emergency is installed, and an
electric system of wiring carries light to any part of the
plant and yard. In the new plant the equipments will be
such as to supersede the cruder processes of handling prod-
uct now in use, and these facilities will represent the
climax of achievement in ten years under the practical eye
of Mr. Thornhill, the owner and manager.
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. Thorn-
hill. All the finish and much of the other material enter-
ing 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. Dnnham, 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, and her three children are William Eugene,
Robert Thornhill and Mary Frances. The only son of Mr.
Thornhill by this union is W. Frank Thornhill, who was born
September 10, 1892, and is now superintendent of the
Thornhill Planing Mill at Belington. He married Flora
Griffin, daughter of Rev. Mr. Griffin, and they have two
children, Josephine Ann and Catherine Lee. Evelyn Ruth
Thornhill, the youngest of the three children, was born
December 31, 1898, and is the wife of H. Sherwood Shinn,
of Belington, who is now finishing his education in West
Virginia University at Morgantown.
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 (Good-
win) 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 educa-
tion 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.
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