Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography of  Charles H. WATKINS,Jr.

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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
pgs. 282-283

    Charles H.Watkins,Jr.  Many industries and commercial establishments have 
contributed to the growing prestige of Wheeling as one of the leading 
business cities of the Ohio Basin, and among them is Watkins & Company, 
proprietors of the largest furniture store between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. 
 The president of this company is C.H. Watkins, Jr., who has been in business 
at Wheeling ever since he left school.
    The present company is successor to and includes the history of eight 
successive retail stores at Wheeling.  The oldest of these was the Palace 
Furniture Company, Incorporated, in 1896, while in the same year three 
employes of House & Hermann organized a partnership under the name White, 
Handley & Foster.  C. H. Watkins, Jr., became interested in this partnership 
in 1900, at which time the firm, became Foster & Watkins.  The following year 
he acquired Mr. Foster's interests and incorporated C. H. Watkins, Jr., & 
Company.  This in turn in 1903 consolidated with the Palace Furniture 
Company, under the management of Mr. Watkins.  The Palace Furniture Company 
in 1917 acquired the furniture business of W. F. Sharbaugh & Sons Company.  
Another important department was added in 1917 with the purchase of the 
clothing store of Walker Allen & Son.  In 1918 the Palace Furniture Company 
acquired the business of House & Herrmann, an old Wheeling business firm 
which then ceased to exist.  The new combination was known as Watkins, House 
& Herrmann, and more recently, to avoid confusion, the corporate name of 
Watkins & Company was adopted.  This is now not only the outstanding 
furniture business in the state, but is a complete department store, 
occupying a large frontage at 1302-1308 Main Street.  The official personnel 
of the company are: C. H. Watkins, Jr., president; Marsh Watkins, vice 
president; J. Wilson White, secretary-treasurer.
    Charles Hamilton Watkins, Jr., was born on Wheeling Island, March 7, 
1871.  Watkins is a very old American family of Welsh ancestry.  There were 
three brothers, named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego Watkins, who came from 
Wales and settled in the colonies of Delaware and Maryland, whence their 
descendants have scattered to all parts of the country.  The 
great-great-grandfather of the Wheeling business man was Peter Watkins, who 
was born in Delaware, December 30, 1712.  During the Revolutionary war he 
held letters of marque from the Continental Congress.  He was killed on board 
a United States Man o' War, April 12, 1788.  His son, Thomas Watkins, was 
born March 8, 1771, and was an early pioneer of Southern Ohio, locating in 
Guernsey County, where he followed farming until his death on August 7, 1844. 
 On November 2, 1802, he married Elizabeth Worley, who was born in Belmont 
County, Ohio, October 12, 1786, and died in Guernsey County, March 11, 1831.  
Their son, John Watkins, grandfather of C. H. Watkins, Jr., was born in 
Guernsey County, Ohio, November 11, 1804, and as a young man settled on 
Wheeling Island, thus having a home convenient to his business as a steamboat 
engineer and river pilot.  The last years of his life he was toll taker at 
the old bridge between Bridgeport and Wheeling Island.  He died at the age of 
seventy-two.  December 12, 1828, John Watkins married Sarah Dillon Hunter, 
who was born December 12, 1800, and died on Wheeling Island in 1866.
    Charles H. Watkins Sr., was born on Wheeling Island March 21, 1841, and 
spent all his life in Wheeling.  He was an accountant, and for a number of 
years was manager of M. Marsh & Son.  He died at Forest View, Elm Grove, 
Wheeling, in October, 1908.  He had a record as a soldier of the Union Army 
in the Civil war, having enlisted in 1861 in Carlin's Battery D, First West 
Virginia Light Artillery.  He was taken prisoner at the battle of Lexington, 
and was in Libby Prison until he and a companion, William Pebler, made their 
escape from that famous warehouse prison.  As a result of his stay there he 
was incapacitated for further duty, and after 1864 was not in the army.  He 
served three years as city clerk of Wheeling, but after resigning would never 
seek another political office.  He was one of the founders of the Thompson 
Methodist Episcopal Church of Wheeling and very active in its affairs.  C. H. 
Watkins, Sr., married Rachel Ann Marsh, who was born at East Wheeling in 
1844, and died in 1906.  A record of their children is:  Mifflin Marsh and 
William Brown, both of whom died in infancy; Charles H., Jr.; John Wagner, 
who died at the age of twenty years; Harry Adams, owning and operating a 
ranch near Fruita, Colorado; Edna Rachel, wife of French D. Walton, former 
city editor of the Wheeling Intelligencer and now conducting a successful 
publicity business at Wheeling; Joseph Jacobs, a dealer in automobile 
accessories at Clarksburg, West Virginia; Roy Naylor, who died at the age of 
four years; and Wilbur Whally, who was associated with his brother, Charles, 
in business and died of the influenza, January 30, 1919.
    Charles H. Watkins, Jr., attended the public schools of Wheeling, but at 
the age of sixteen left school to go to work in a retail store.  For a short 
time he was assistant bookkeeper of L. S. Delaplain Son & Company, and then 
kept books for J. W. Hunter until 1896.  His first independent effort in a 
business was as member of the firm Exley, Watkins & Company, operating a 
preserving plant, and Mr. Watkins retained his financial interest in this 
business until 1907.  However, after 1900 he was not active in the 
management, having, as noted above, acquired the interests of his partner in 
the firm Foster & Watkins, with which he had been previously associated as a 
silent partner.  Then the firm Foster & Watkins was changed to C. H. Watkins, 
Jr., & Company, and Mr. Watkins has been the leading spirit in the successive 
changes and increases in this great mercantile and department store.  He has 
direct personal charge of the undertaking department of the business.  There 
are seven departments altogether.
    Mr. Watkins is a republican in politics, and for four years was a member 
of the West Virginia Republican State Committee.  He was for ten years a 
member of the Wheeling City Council, serving in the second branch six years 
and in the first branch four years.  He is on the Official Board of the 
Thompson Methodist Episcopal Church, served for some time as president of the 
Men's Bible Class, and is affiliated with Wheeling Lodge No. 28, Benevolent 
and Protective Order of Elks.  During the war Mr. Watkins was a "Four Minute" 
speaker and helpfully interested in all the drives for funds for the Red 
Cross, Liberty Loan and other causes.
    September 18, 1890, he married on Wheeling Island, Miss Annie M. Sadler, 
daughter of William Hall and Margaret (Ford) Sadler, now deceased.  Her 
father was a river man in early life and later an interior decorator.
    Mr. and Mrs. Watkins have an interesting family of five children.  The 
oldest is Marsh, vice president of Watkins & Company, and a prominent 
Wheeling business man whose career is noted more in detail below.  The second 
child, Margaret Ford, died at the age of four years.  James Hunter, who was 
born June 30, 1900, is a salesman for Watkins & Company, and a graduate of 
Linsly Institute at Wheeling, having been a member of both the football and 
baseball teams of the institute.  The fourth child, Roy Naylor, born August 
4, 1904, is in the junior class of the Wheeling High School, while Dorothy 
V., born July 31, 1907, is in the first year of her high-school work.
    Marsh Watkins was born July 14, 1891.  He graduated from the Wheeling 
High School and received his law degree from West Virginia University in 
1912.  He was very prominent in all student activities at the university, 
making the Varsity Football Team and also played baseball, and was a member 
of the Phi Kappa Sigma, and the university societies Sphinx Club and Mountain 
Club.  Marsh Watkins practiced law at Wheeling until 1918.  April 7, 1918, he 
enlisted for the war, was commissioned a first lieutenant of the Army Service 
Corps, Department of Judge Advocate General, in August, 1918, was stationed 
at Camp Upton, Long Island, and in October, 1918, transferred to the 
infantry.  He received his honorable discharge in December, 1918, and on his 
return to Wheeling gave up his law business to join his father as vice 
president and assistant manager of Watkins & Company.  He is a republican and 
for two years was a municipal judge of Wheeling.  Marsh Watkins is a member 
of Thompson Methodist Episcopal Church, Wheeling Lodge No. 5, F. and A. M., 
is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason in West Virginia Consistory No. 
1, a member of Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and Wheeling Lodge No. 28, 
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.  He also belongs to the American 
Legion. 
    May 7, 1917, at Wheeling, Marsh Watkins married Miss Ada Marie Young, 
daughter of George H. and Mary (Graham) Young, the latter still living at 
Wheeling.  Her father, who died at Wheeling in 1904, was chief clerk in the 
local offices of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway.  Mrs. Marsh Watkins is a 
graduate of the high school at Sarahsville, Ohio.  They have one daughter, 
Ruth Eileen, born July 18, 1918.