ROBERT W. BALL.     In his younger years Mr. Bail was one of the very successful teachers of Vinton County, though is perhaps best known over the county as a whole through his valuable service as county treasurer, an office from which he retired only about a year ago.
     He belongs to a family that was among the pioneers in crossing the Allegheny Mountains from the original thirteen colonies into the vast and unsettled West.  The Bails were especially identified with that section of Virginia, which is now the State of West Virginia.  His great grandfather was Thomas Bail, who was born in Sutton in what is now West Virginia, about 1775-76, early in the War of the Revolution.  He lived in that rugged district of Western Virginia, and along with farming he combined his activities as a hunter and woodsman.  He lived to be an old man.  His son, Robert W. Bail, grandfather of Robert W. of Vinton County, and probably an only son and child, was born near Sutton, West Virginia, Jan. 13, 1813.  He grew up and came to know his native hills and the forests and waters of West Virginia like a book.  Like his father, he was proficient in all the arts and crafts of the frontier and was skillful with his rifle and also with the rod.  By those accomplishments he did much to supply a living in addition to his main business as a farmer.  Grandfather Bail married Alice Barnett, who was born in West Virginia of Maryland parents, who spent most of their lives in that state.  Soon after their marriage Robert W. Bail and wife set out for a still more distant point in the Middle West.  As was the usual practice in that time of limited transportation facilities, they embarked their family and possessions on a flatboat which voyaged down the Little Kanawha River and the larger Ohio River as far as Ironton.  After landing they located in Lawrence County and lived in the neighborhood of several of the old-time furnaces of that date, the Vesuvius, Oak Ridge and Latrobe.  There Mrs. Robert W. Bail died when between fifty and fifty-five years of age.  Afterwards Robert W. Bail moved to Vinton County, and died there in 1893 in his eighty-first year.  He was a democrat, and that has been the prevailing political faith of the family for generations.  Robert's son, Isaac V., had moved to Vinton County in 1873, and that was the cause of the father coming to this section.  The only other two children in the family were Thomas and Felix, both of whom died in childhood in Lawrence County, having been victims of the scarlet fever.
     Isaac V. Bail, father of the former county treasurer, was born in Lawrence County, Ohio, Jan. 21, 1848.  He was reared and educated there, having attended some of the old log school houses that then were in fashion.  In 1867 he married Mary (Markin) Gates, widow of Frank Gates.  Frank Gates was killed at Cloyd Mountain in West Virginia while a Union soldier with the Ninth West Virginia Volunteers, marriage; being at that time in the prime of life.
     In 1873 Isaac V. Bail and wife moved to Vinton County, and subsequently established a home in Vinton Township.  He died on his farm home in that township Mar. 20, 1913.  He was a member of the Latter Day Saints Church.  His widow is still living at Radcliff in Vinton County, and celebrated her seventy-second birthday in May, 1915. She is also a member of the same religious faith.  While the family lived in Madison Township of Vinton County the following children were born: Robert W., James, who died at the age of twenty-eight after his marriage; Loie, who died at the age of nineteen, and William, who died at the age of twenty.  After the parents moved to Vinton Township their youngest child, Seth N., was born.  He is now a farmer on the old homestead in Vinton Township, and by his first wife, Oro T. Harris, who died young, he had two children, Ronald and Marie; while by his second marriage to Laura McGee he had a son named Orin.
     Mr. Robert W. Bail was born in Madison Township of Vinton County, Mar. 6, 1877.  He received his early education in the public schools and when twenty years of age he took up his vocation as a teacher and followed it steadily for fourteen years in Vinton County.  He has been one of the most proficient and capable rural schoolmasters and it is the large acquaintance he acquired while teaching, and the thorough integrity he has manifested in all his relations that brought him to the important county office of county treasurer, to which he was elected in 1910.  He was re-elected, and served altogether four years.  It has been frequently said that the affairs of the county treasurer's office were never in better hands than while Mr. Bail was in office.  He had previously filled the offices of township and school treasurer.  He is an active democrat, and a man of leading influence in his home county.
      In Meigs County, Ohio, Mr. Bail married Cora M. Bratton.  She was born in Columbia Township of Meigs County, Sept. 1, 1875, and was reared and received her education there.  Her parents were Adam and Millie (Chaney) Bratton, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Pennsylvania.  Her father was born in Meigs County in 1851 and her mother was born in 1860 in Western Pennsylvania.  Millie Chaney came to Meigs County with her parents when she was a small girl.  Her parents were Enos and Catherine (Boone) Chaney.  Her mother was a native of Pennsylvania and a direct relation of the noted Daniel Boone.  Catherine Boone Chaney died in Clark County, Ohio, in 1915 at the age of eighty-six.  Her husband fell while a gallant soldier in an Ohio regiment during the Civil war.  Adam Bratton and wife after their marriage started out as farmers in Meigs County, and all their children were born in that community.  Later they moved to Vinton Township in Vinton County, and still occupy a farm in that locality.  Mrs. Bail was one of a family of six sons and two daughters, namely Gayley, who is married and lives in Meigs County; Carrie, wife of J. M. Silves, a merchant at Point Rock in Meigs County, and they have one child named Otho; Mrs. Bail, who was the third among the children; Almeda, wife of William H. Little, a bridge carpenter in Clark County, and they have two children named Clare and Edith; Amy A., wife of Fern Vale, a locomotive engineer living in Columbus, and they have a daughter named Dorothy Helen; Elmer, a commercial traveler for the Shredded Wheat Company, with headquarters at Cleveland; Lola, wife of George Hess, who lives in Columbus, Ohio; Zelia, wife of R. H. Knapp of Vinton Township.
     Mr. and Mrs. Bail are the parents of two children.  Flora M., born July 25, 1902, is now a member of the freshman class of the McArthur High School; Olive Kathleen, born Dec. 27, 1906, is now in the fourth grade of public schools.  Mr. Bail is a member of the Christian Church, while his wife belongs to the Latter Day Saints.  Fraternally he is affiliated with the Blue Lodge of Masons at Wilkesville, Ohio, and with the Improved Order of Red Men at Radcliff.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1109

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1294

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 928

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1090

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1275

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 954

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1024

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 894

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1339

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1131

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 856

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1123

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1247

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1300

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1354

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 749

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 751

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 911

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 993

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1124

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 788

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 940

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1015

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1222

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1311

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 1022

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 880

Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 842