Huntington, W. Va.
805 Vernon Street
(Westmoreland)
Wayne County News
Wayne, W. Va.
Gentlemen:
About two months ago a large industry came from New York to Huntington to locate a factory employing about 250 men and women. Mr. A. F. Thompson who formerly had a stove factory in Cabell County, but who now owns a stove factory in Westmoreland, Wayne County, happened to be present at the meeting of the West End Commercial Club and heard the discussion about the new factory. One of the factory representatives remarked that he had been down in Wayne County near the Ball Brothers glass plant looking over some proposed sites. One of those present who didn't want this county to get the factory said, "They will tax you to death down in Wayne County." Other remarks were made against Wayne County as a proper site for the factory.
After they all got through, Mr. A. F. Thompson, mentioned above, got up and told all of them that he was raised in Cabell County and had done lots of business there, but that he had been treated better down in Wayne County than in Cabell County in the matter of taxation, and Mr. Thompson offered the factory a gift of two hundred dollars toward a factory location if they would locate in Wayne County.
Friends, the factory sites in Wayne County need to be boosted and shown to people who plan to locate in the Tri-State section. We have some of the best factory locations between Four Pole and Big Sandy that are to be found anywhere in the State. We need more boosters of the type of Mr. Thompson, R. F. Morgan, H. R. Alexander, J. H. Nichols and others. A county Chamber of Commerce could be organized to advantage, composed of such men. The river front of Wayne County has a great future as a manufacturing center, and we need boosters to show others what we have. Our factories here are well pleased with Erwin Blankenship, our assessor, and they feel that they are getting a square deal in Wayne County in the matter of valuations and taxes.
Lee Frazier
Funeral services were held Monday morning of this week for Captain Joseph M. Ferguson, of Ashland, Kentucky, who died at his home last Friday night.
Captain Ferguson was a native Wayne County man and had numerous relatives and a wide circle of friends and admirers in this county who were shocked to hear the news of his death. Captain Ferguson was the brother of the late Charles W. Ferguson, who for so many years lived and conducted a mill and store at Elmwood, a mile South of town at the present location of his son, L. B. Ferguson. Capt. Ferguson was an officer in the Eighth Virginia Cavalry of the Confederate Army and until his death last week he was one of the few surviving veterans of the Civil War from this county.
He was born on October 11, 1834, the son of Milton Ferguson, of what is now Wayne Court House. As a lad he attended school at the historic Inductive Seminary, which was conducted within the boundaries of the present city of Ashland but before the present city of Ashland was incorporated. Before the Civil War, he married Miss Susan Cannon, a native of Kentucky.
At the outbreak of the war, he joined the Eighth Virginia Cavalry, entering with the rank of lieutenant and emerging with a commission as major. He was wounded at Gettysburg, and as the result had a stiff knee which caused him to walk with a limp for the remainder of his life.
After the war, he took up residence on a farm, much of which was in the present town limits of Ashland.
He was one of the organizers of the Second National Bank of Ashland and its first depositor. He had extensive business and property interests at the time of his death.
The first Mrs. Ferguson died in October of 1894. Later he married Mrs. Eugenia Dickenson, who survives him. Three children by the first marriage survive him. They are Mrs. H. M. Pollock and Mrs. A. H. Ferguson of Ashland and Mrs. Smile Smith of Oakland, Cal.
Funeral services were held at the home on Newman Street in Ashland, Monday, with Rev. A. L. Spencer, M. E. Minister, and Rev. S. S. Daughery, Presbyterian minister, in charge of the services. Burial was made in the cemetery at Ashland. The services were largely attended, and many folks from Wayne County were among those present.
Transcription by June White