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MONONGALIA COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
PJSTON@aol.com
December 2, 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 II
pg 91
Samuel Allen PHILLIPS is one of the representative business men and loyal and
progressive citizens of Morgantown, Monongalia County, and takes lively
interest in all that touches the welfare of this city, the seat of the
University of West Virginia.
He was born at Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania, August 15, 1876, a
son of James E. B. and Anna M. (Engle) Phillips. The father was born in
Whitley Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania, in 1855, of Welsh lineage, and
was but a boy at the time of his father's death.
After his mother contracted a second marriage young James left home, and most
of his early life thereafter was passed in and about Masontown, Pennsylvania.
His marriage occurred at Waynesburg, that state, and after there working a
few years in a planing mill he engaged in mercantile business at Sycamore in
the same county. After selling this business he engaged in quarrying stone in
the same county, and after selling his quarries he returned to Waynesburg and
entered the employ of the Waynesburg & Washington Railroad Company. He
continued his active connection with railroad service twenty six years, and
in 1911 he retired from his position, that of conductor, and assumed charge
of a moving-picture theater, of which his son Samuel A. was part owner, at
Grafton, West Virginia.
Later he became chief of the police department of Grafton, and while in the
discharge of his official duties as such he was killed by an assassin, Jacob
Lutz, February 10, 1919. The assassin was later convicted of murder in the
first degree, after two trials, and July 22, 1921, expiated his crime on the
gallows in the State Penitentiary of West Virginia at Moundsville.
Mrs. Anna M. (Engle) Phillips was born at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, in 1858,
a daughter of Solomon Engle, of English ancestry. Mrs. Phillips still
maintains her home at Grafton. Of the children the eldest, David C., still
resides in his native City of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania; Samuel A., of this
sketch, was next in order of birth; William died in infancy; George W.
resides at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and is baggage master on the
Monongahela division of the Pennsylvania railroad; Joseph H. resides with his
widowed mother at Grafton, West Virginia; and Mrs. Mary Blood resides at
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
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