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MERCER COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
"John \"Bill\" Wheeler"
wheeler@gru.net
December 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 ll.
pg. 115
GORDON S. SEAL, of Bluefield has had an extensive experience as a coal
operator, banker and in other lines. This is one of the prominent names in West
Virginia business circles, his father, Capt. John R. Seal, having long been
prominent as a banker and coal man in Charleston.
While Gordon S. Seal is a native of New York City where he was born June 23,
1880, his parents were born in Virginia and he represents an old family of
Virginia ancestry. He is a son of Capt. John R. and Nannie (Wood) Seal. Hid
father was vice president of the Charleston National Bank, and for many years
had extensive holdings and management of coal and railroad properties.
Gordon S. Seal acquired a common and high school education at Charleston,
and from there entered Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, where he graduated
A.B. in 1902. Since his university career he has given undivided attention to
his business affairs, first entering the coal business with his father. In 1913
they sold their interests, and Gordon Seal was then for the following two years
associated with the John T. Hesser Coal Company. He removed to Bluefield in
1915, and from 1916 to 1918 was in the real estate and banking business with
the Virginia Realty & Loan Company. In August. 1919, he assisted in organizing
and incorporating the Curtis-Seal Company, a firm handling general office
supplies over an extensive territory in which the important pints are
Williamson, Bluefield, Welch, Bramwell, and Tazewell, but he sold out of this
business in November, 1921.
Mr. Seal in 1907, at Montgomery, West Virginia, married Miss Inez Austin,
daughter of George C. and Jennie Austin. Four children were born to their
marriage, and the three living are Lyall Austin, John Ridley and Jane Ann. Mr.
Seal and family are members of the Episcopal Church, and he is a Royal Arch,
Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Elks, the
Kiwanis Club, Chamber of Commerce and Bluefield Country Club. He is an outdoor
man, fond of strenuous exercise, plays golf and tennis, and his hobby is motor
trips to distant points.
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