JAMES LEWIS CALDWELL

Source:  WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry
	 The Lewis Publishing Company 1928 - Volume 5, page 285-286

 JAMES LEWIS CALDWELL. This is an honored name in two of the large
communities of West Virginia. James Lewis Caldwell, Jr., is active head of
the Chrisman Foundry Company at Morgantown. He is a son of the late James
Lewis Caldwell, one of the most prominent bankers and industrial leaders of
West Virginia whose home was at Huntington.
        James Lewis Caldwell, Sr., was born at Elizabeth, Wirt County,
Virginia, May 20, 1846, and died at Huntington October 18, 1923, when
seveny-seven years of age. His parents, John T. and Regina M. (Burns)
Caldwell, were born in Ohio, and the former followed the occupation of
farming. James Lewis Caldwell during his boyhood attended the rural schools
in Meigs County, Ohio, and toward the end of 1862, before he was seventeen
years old, enlisted in Company F of the Sixtieth Ohio Infantry. He saw some
of the hardest fighting of the war, including the battles of the
Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Appomattox. For a
short time after the war he was in the insurance business at Wheeling and
then removed to Guyandotte, identifying himself with the community which
has since become the City of Huntington. After 1887 his home was in
Huntington proper. For some years he was in the lumber business, but in
1884 was the leader in organizing the First National Bank of Hun
tington, became its president, and had filled that office continuously
nearly forty years before his death. He brought the bank to a point where
it was the largest in the state in resources, having assets of over eight
million dollars. As a financier he was associated with many of the
important organizations in his section of the state. He organized in 1892
the Huntington Electric Light & Street Railway Company which built the
pioneer electric railway line in the country. He organized and built the
Guyandotte Valley Railway, now part of the Chesapeake & Ohio System; was
president of the Consolidated Light & Railway Company at Republican,
Illinois; president of the Dingess Run Coal Company, secretary and
treasurer of the Logan Cannel Coal Company, a director and member of the
executive committee of  Huntington Land Company. He served as a delegate at
large at the National Republican Convention of 1904, and for many years was
an outstanding figure in the party. He was a member of the P
resbyterian Church.
        James Lewis Caldwell, Sr., married in Kanawha County in 1871, Miss
Mary O'Bannon Smith. More than a year before his death they celebrated
their golden wedding anniversary. Throughout their married lives they had
only two homes. Mrs. Caldwell was born at Louisville, Kentucky, and was
reared and educated there. Her father, Nicholas Smith, was a wholesale
merchant. Mrs. James Lewis Caldwell died October 3, 1927.
        James Lewis Caldwell, Jr., one of a family of seven children, was
born at Huntington, September 1, 1889, and spent his youthful years in his
native city. He was given most liberal education opportunities, and after
the public schools at Huntington attended the Bingham School at Asheville,
North Carolina, also Marshall College at Huntington, and was graduated in
1913 from the law department of West Virginia University. Mr. Caldwell
practiced law for five years at Huntington, being associated during that
time with the firm of Campbell, Brown & Davis, and also with Samuel Biern.
In connection with his law practice he was also associated with his father
in banking and business. Mr. Caldwell in 1918 removed to Morgantown to take
an active part in the Chrisman Foundry Company, and has since been vice
president of that corporation. This company has a large and well equipped
plant, including a foundry and mining car shop, located on Long Street in
the industrial suburb of Westover.
        Mr. Caldwell enlisted in 1917, and was sent for training to the
Radio School of the Texas A. and M. College, and after completing the
course was with a radio field signal battalion at Camp Logan, Houston,
Texas, until honorably discharged in November, 1918. Mr. Caldwell is
affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Masonic
fraternity, the Phi Kappa Psi and Theta Mu Epsilon fraternities, is a
member of the Morgantown Country Club, a Republican and a Presbyterian. His
home is at 130 Prairie Avenue, Morgantown.
        He married in March, 1914, Miss Mary Louise Chrisman, a daughter of
Robert R. and Mary Elizabeth (McLane) Chrisman. A brief sketch of her
father, founder of the Chrisman Foundry Company, is given in the preceding
sketch. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Caldwell have two children: James Lewis Caldwell
III, born in 1915; and Robert Chrisman Caldwell, born in 1917.


Transcribed by: <AUPQ38A@prodigy.com> (MRS GINA M REASONER), 1999

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