|
HARRISON COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
******************************************************************
Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
March 19, 2000
******************************************************************
The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 366
Harrison
HUGH JARVIS, vice president of the Union National
Bank in the City of Clarksburg, Harrison County, has been
one of the two men primarily influential in the upbuilding
of this institution, which is one of the most substantial
and important in his native county. Mr. Jarvis was born
on a farm near Shinnston, this county, December 16, 1870,
and is one of a family of seven children born to Lemuel
D. and Martha (McCann) Jarvis. The father long held
prestige as one of the progressive exponents of agricul-
tural and live-stock industry in this section of the state,
was influential in public affairs in the community and
served as sheriff of the county. He was seventy-seven
years of age at the time of his death. His parents were
Joseph and Lucy (Beall) Jarvis, and his paternal grand-
father was Solomon Jarvis, who came from Maryland and
settled in what is now Harrison County, West Virginia,
as early as 1788, when this section was little more than a
frontier wilderness. The family name has been closely
and worthily linked with civic and material development
and progress in the county during the long intervening
years. Mrs. Martha (McCann) Jarvis still maintains her
home at Clarksburg, has been a resident of Harrison
County from the time of her birth and is now one of the
most venerable and loved native daughters of the county,
she being in her eighty-ninth year at the time of this
writing, in 1921. Her parents, James and Achsah J.
(Price) McCann, were sterling pioneers of the county.
Hugh Jarvis was a mere boy at the time of the family
removal from the farm to Clarksburg, the county seat,
where he profited fully by the advantages of the public
schools. As a youth he entered the employ of the Balti-
more & Ohio Railroad Company, with which he continued
in service several years, during the greater part of which
he was cashier at the Clarksburg station. Later he re-
ceived appointment to the position of deputy clerk of
Harrison County, and he initiated his banking career by
accepting the position of cashier of the West Union Bank
at West Union, Doddridge County. In 1900 he became
associated with Paul M. Robinson, of whom individual
mention is made on other pages, in organizing and found-
ing the People's Banking & Trust Company at Clarksburg,
with Mr. Jarvis as cashier. Later Messrs. Jarvis and
Robinson became actively concerned in the organization
and incorporation of the Union National Bank of Clarks-
burg, in 1905, and the new institution absorbed the busi-
ness of the People's Banking & Trust Company and also
that of the Traders National Bank of Clarksburg. The
consolidation proved a stroke of business expedience and
good judgment, as is attested by the splendid success that
has attended the Union National Bank, of which both Mr.
Jarvis and Mr. Robinson became vice presidents at the
time of incorporation. Under their direct and effective
management and progressive policies the bank has become
one of the largest and strongest financial institutions in
Northern West Virginia. In 1912 the bank erected for its
own occupancy a handsome and modern office building,
known as the Union Bank Building, and the same would
be a credit to a city of first metropolitan rank.
Aside from his banking interests Mr. Jarvis is the
owner of valuable farm property and is one of the many
extensive cattle-growers of Harrison County. He has
other capitalistic investments of important order, and
takes deep interest in all that concerns the welfare and
progress of his home city and native county. In the York
Rite of the Masonic fraternity his maximum affiliation is
with the local Commandery of Knights Templar, and he
has received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite,
besides being a member of the Mystic Shrine. He and his
wife are active members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.
In the year 1900 was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
Jarvis and Miss Harriett Maxwell, a daughter of Porter
and Columbia C. (Post) Maxwell, and the children of this
union are three in number.
|
