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PRESTON COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
November 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. 335
JOHN W. WHITTAKER, manager of the Whittaker Gro-
cery Company of Terra Alta, has had an earnest and hard
working career, and has progressed from a boy laborer in
the mines through successive grades of commercial enter-
prise, until the net results of his life's activities in Pres-
ton County comprise an impressive achievement and a place
of honor in the community.
He was born at Austen, Preston County, December 24,
1867. His father, Joseph M. Whittaker, spent all his active
life as a miner and mine foreman. A native of England,
he came to the United States at the age of twenty-five, and
spent the rest of his career at Austen, West Virginia, in
the mines of that locality. He died in 1901. His wife,
Elizabeth Price, was a native of Wales and came to the
United States when a girl of five years. She died in 1916,
aged seventy-three. Their children were: Anna, wife of
M. D. Montgomery, of Tunnelton; John W.; Mary Sophia,
widow of G. M. Renshaw, of Pomeroy, Ohio; Martha Ellen,
wife of B. F. Renshaw, of Newburg, West Virginia; Joseph
M., of Lorain, Ohio; Edward, a mine foreman at Tun-
nelton; and William, of Bradley, Ohio.
John W. Whittaker lived in a miner's home in the en-
vironment of a busy mining district at Austen, attended
the common schools there and during intervals did what
work he was able to do in the mines. At the age of fifteen
he began earning his living, his first work being as a
"trapper" in the mines, following which he was a coal
hauler and coal miner. After four years in the practical
side of coal mining, during which time he gave his earn-
ings to the support of the family, he took a place in the
mine company's store at Austen, clerking for two years,
and then acting as buyer. After five years with the min-
ing company's store a shortage of work caused a shut-
down of the commercial establishment, and Mr. Whittaker,
using his own modest savings and borrowing other capital,
started business for himself at Tunnelton under the name
John W. Whittaker. He was a merchant there seven years
and built up a large and successful establishment, finally
selling to A. J. Bonafield, whose son is a leading coal
operator in that vicinity. After leaving his own business
Mr. Whittaker went on the road as a traveling salesman
for Pugh & Beavers, of Terra Alta, wholesale grocers.
During the next five years he built up a large business
for the firm in West Virginia and Maryland, and was then
taken into partnership, the name of the house being changed
to the Pugh & Beavers Grocery Company. A branch house
was established at Grafton and another at Elkins in 1906,
Mr. Whittaker remaining as manager of the Terra Alta
business. He continued in that capacity for ten years,
and in December, 1916, he and his associate, Mr. Wotring,
bought the Terra Alta house, the result of that deal being
the present Whittaker Grocery Company, of which Mr.
Whittaker is manager and Mr. Wotring accountant and
office man. Tinder the energetic administration of Mr.
Whittaker and his partner this business has grown apace,
and it is already in excess of its warehouse and office
facilities at Terra Alta. The company has an extensive
trade over a district twenty-five miles north and south of
Terra Alta, and along some seventy-five miles of railroad.
Mr. Whittaker is also a stockholder and is vice president
of the Terra Alta Bank, with the management of which
he has been identified for several years.
His participation in politics has been only that of a re-
publican voter, and only once did he consent to accept pub-
lic office, one term on the common council. During that
term the council eliminated the cigarette license, making it
unlawful for a cigarette to be sold within the corporate
limits, an ordinance still prevailing. Mr. Whittaker is a
member of the Masonic Order, Knights of Pythias and
Odd Fellows. He was reared a Methodist and for many
years has been active in the church of that denomination
at Terra Alta, serving on the church board a dozen years,
and for thirteen years has been superintendent of the
Sunday School and twice has been a delegate to the West
Virginia Conference.
January 22, 1892, at Newburg, Mr. Whittaker married
Miss Mary Jane Hebb; daughter of Sibrant and Ellen
(Blackburn) Hebb, of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Of the
children born to their marriage, the oldest is Percey, now
a traveling salesman for the Whittaker Grocery Company
and who was in camp at Parkersburg getting ready for
service in the World war, but was never called out. He
married Nellie Shaffer, and they have a daughter, Ilene,
and twins, Percy H., Jr., and Betty Jean. The second
child, Bernice Maria, is in the service of the National Home
and School Association of New York City, an organization
for the purpose of drawing the school and home closer
together. The third child, Elsie Elizabeth, is the wife of
H. H. Parsons, bill clerk of the Whittaker Grocery Com-
pany. The two younger children are Paul H. and John
W., Jr., both in grade school at Terra Alta.
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