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PRESTON COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA - BIOS: Gustkey, Carl Edward
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
September 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. 281-282
Preston County
CARL EDWARD GUSTKEY. It can properly be said that
Carl Edward Gustkey was the architect of his own early
destinies as well as his mature career. He became a
worker when a mere boy, and his work proved a training
school in which he has developed his successful career
as a merchant, and he has been a business man of inde-
pendence in Preston County during the greater part of
his life.
He was born in Newburg, April 17, 1880. His grand-
father, Edward Gustkey, brought his family in company
with a party of immigrants from Hanover. Germany, the
party being delivered near Hardman, West Virginia, under
contract to work for Mr. Hardman in getting out iron
ore. This work was the first employment of Edward
Gustkey in the United States. After five or ten years
he moved to Pittsburgh, where his sons became employes
of the steel mills, and he then returned to West Virginia,
settled at Newburg, and finally at Independence, where
he spent his last years in cultivating a small plot of ground.
He died in 1889, at the age of seventy-six. His children
were: Anna, who married August Shrader and is now
living at Independence at the age of seventy-two; William,
now deceased, spent a greater part of his life at Pitts-
burgh and several of his sons became men of prominence
in railroad circles.
Carl Edward Gustkey, Sr., was born in Hanover and
was thirteen years of age when brought to the United
States. He acquired a limited education, but sufficient
to transact the affairs of life. As a young man he entered
the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company as
a laborer on a repair gang. Later he became an engineer
at the Edgar Thompson Steel Mills, and while operating
a locomotive in the Edgar Thompson plant of the Beth-
lehem Steel Company near Braddock, Pennsylvania, he was
accidentally killed on August 4, 1889, at the age of thirty-
four. At Independence, West Virginia, he married Eliza-
beth Avers, who was born at Terra Alta in 1854. Her
parents were John H. and Yetta Avers. John Avers, a
native of Holland, was a farmer in Germany, and brought
his family to the United States, arriving in very straight-
ened circumstances financially. After purchasing a cow
he had only seven dollars left. At Terra Alta he began
with a small parcel of ground and farmed it. Later he
moved to Independence, West Virginia, and entered the
railroad employ, and after many years of service in the
Newburg, West Virginia, shops of the Baltimore & Ohio
he retired. He died at Independence at the age of eighty-
eight. He had a large family, and some of his sons be-
came prominent in railroad circles.
The children of Carl E. Gustkey, Sr., and wife who lived
to maturity were: Carl E., now of Independence, West
Virginia; Anna, who married Thomas Gough, now of
Blaine, West Virginia, and Harry Wilson, now of Detroit,
Michigan.
Carl Edward Gustkey, Jr., was only nine years of age
when his father died. He had the privilege of attending
only seven terms of public schools. At the age of four-
teen he became an employe in the store of W. E. Sharp
& Company, at Independence, West Virginia, at $12.00
per month. Later he worked for Mr. Sharps alone, then
for his successors, Hartley & Metzler, and finally, in 1904,
bought the intprest of Mr. Metzler, this transaction re-
sulting in the change of the firm name to Hartley & Gust-
key. This his first partnership, was with J. M. Hartley,
now of Fairmont, West Virginia, and a pioneer merchant
of West Virginia. The firm is still doing business pros-
perously and with a large establishment occupying the
site of the first store established in the Village of Inde-
pendence before the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was built.
Mr. Gustkey is working with undiminished energy and with
the efficiency acquired by many years of experience as a
merchant, and gives practically all his time to the store,
althongh he has had some capital invested in a small way
in coal mines. He is a director of the First National Bank
of Newburg, and has also served Lyon District three years
as a member of the Board of Education.
Mr. Gustkey was reared in a home where the politics
was democratic, but he cast his first presidential vote for
Colonel Roosevelt in 1904 and has supported the republican
ticket in national elections ever since. He is affiliated
with Newburg Lodge of Masons, the Royal Arch Chapter
Find Knights Templar Commandery at Grafton, the Mystic
Shrine at, Wheeling, is a past chancellor of Damon Lodge.
No. 5 Knights of Pythias, at Newburg, is a past grand
of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Independence,
and is a member of Grafton Lodge, No. 638, Loyal Order
of Moose. While a member of the Lutheran Church, he
is also active in the interests of the Methodist Protestant
Church.
At Independence. June 14, 1906, Mr. Gustkey married
Daisy Lenore Wilkins, who was born at Independence,
August 14, 1880, only four months younger than her hus-
band. Her parents were Isaac and Elizabeth (Helmick)
Wilkins, early settlers of Preston County, and her maternal
grandfather, Helmick, was a pioneer circuit rider of the
Methodist Protestant Church, covering Preston, Taylor and
nearby counties, and spent the greater part of his life near
the Village of Independence. Mrs. Gustkey was the young-
est of four children. The others are: Inez, a teacher in
the Grafton public schools; Mrs. May Gibson, of Newburg;
and Arthur, a successful architect at Pittsburgh. Mr. and
Mrs. Gustkey have two sons, Carl Wilkins, born in 1908,
and Earl, born in 1911.
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