Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Dolan, James November 9, 1853 - ???? ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Marta Burns marta43@juno.com September 20, 2024, 5:52 pm Source: Gresham and Wiley, 1889: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia, Fayette Co, PA, page 429 Author: John H. Gresham & Samuel T. Wiley James Dolan, the accommodating proprietor of the "Central Hotel" at Vanderbilt, was born at Brandy Gap Tunnel, near Clarksburg, West Virginia, November 9, 1853, and is a son of Micheal Dolan and Mary Burk Dolan. Micheal Dolan Sr, grandfather, came from Ireland to Clarksburg, West Virginia, about 1846 and died at Grafton aged seventy six years. His wife was Mary Cummings, who died before he left Ireland. Micheal Dolan, father, was a native of Ireland; he came with his father in 1846 to Virginia, now West Virginia, where he married Miss Mary Burk, daughter of Patrick Burk and Mary Barry Burk, natives of Ireland who are now living in Buckhannon, West Virginia, he in the ninety sixth year of his age, and she in the ninety third. James Dolan was educated in the primary schools of Virginia and the academy at Clarksburg; in 1870 was crippled in an explosion at Brooks Tunnel in Somerset county, Penna. The first regular business that he engaged in was keeping a grocery store at Clarksburg in 1871. In 1874 when able to resume work, he removed to Hill Farm Coke Works in Fayette county, and engaged as a contractor at the mines. He next became proprietor for two years of a grocery store at Dunbar, and then removed in 1883 to Braddock's Fields where he opened at conducted for eighteen months the Central Hotel. US Steel's Edger Thompson Plant stands on the site of Braddock's Field. Disposing of his Braddock's Fields property in 1885, he returned to Fayette county, opened the Central Hotel at Vanderbilt, and has continued to run it successfully up to the present time. In 1879 he married Miss Mary Elizabeth Thornton Rogan, a native of Ireland. The father died at Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1887. To their union were born four children: William Francis Dolan, James Edward Dolan, Arthur Augustus Dolan, and Mary Ellen Dolan. Mrs Dolan died August 5, 1888. This file has been created by a form at http://www.usgwarchives.net/pafiles/ File size: 2.5 Kb