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WILLIAM W. GATES, JR.
Numbered among the representative business men of the
City of Portsmouth, Scioto County, Mr. Gates
is here the treasurer of the Irving Drew
Shoe Company, which is successfully engaged in the
manufacturing of shoes and which represents one of the
important industrial enterprises of the city.
Mr. Gates is a scion of a family that was
founded in Ohio in the early pioneer days and that found
representation in New England in the colonial era of our
national history. On a farm one-fourth of a mile
distant from the Village of Cheshire, Gallia County,
Ohio, William W. Gates, Jr., was born on the 13th
of March, 1863, and the place of his nativity was a
house that had there been erected by his paternal grand
father. He is a son of William W. and Alvina
Elizabeth (Nye) Gates.
William W. Gates, Sr., was born on a pioneer
farmstead in the immediate vicinity of Marietta,
Washington County, Ohio, on the 16th of October, 1827,
and is a son of Samuel Haskell Gates, who
was born in the Town of Kingston, Plymouth County,
Massachusetts, on the 3d of September, 1792. The
latter was a son of John Gates, who became the
founder of the family in Ohio, to which state he came in
the early part of the nineteenth century and numbered
himself among the pioneer settlers of Washington County.
There he purchased a tract of heavily timbered land and
instituted the reclamation of a farm, this old home
stead being situated about one mile northeast of the
site of the present courthouse in the City of Marietta.
His original domicile was a log cabin, sixteen feet
square, with chimney constructed of sticks and mud and
with the expansive fireplace that served both for
warming and cooking purposes, a pony having been used in
dragging the mammoth back logs into the little building
and making them ready for the fireplace. This
primitive house continued to be the family home for
several years and then a more pretentious structure was
provided, though the latter also had no semblance of
modern architecture and facilities. John Gates
was a man of strong mental and physical power and great
sincerity and force of character. He was a deep
Bible student and devout Christian worker, and though
not regularly ordained he was often called upon to serve
as a local preacher. He was one of the influential
and honored pioneers of Washington County and there both
he and his wife passed the closing years of their lives
at Marietta, the maiden name of the latter having been
Haskell.
Samuel Haskell Gates, grandfather of him whose
name initiates this article, was a youth at the time of
the family removal from Massachusetts to the pioneer
wilds of Ohio, and he and his brother Eben
succeeded eventually to the ownership of their father's
old homestead farm, upon which they erected a
substantial two-story house of hewed logs, near the site
of the original cabin. In Washington County he
learned the trade of cooper, which he successfully
followed in connection with his farming industry.
Later he purchased another farm in the same vicinity and
there he continued to reside until 1835, when he sold
the property and removed to Gallia County. In the
spring of 1836 he purchased a tract of land in Cheshire
Township, where he reclaimed a productive farm and in
Gallia County he became also a successful dealer in farm
produce, which he transported by flat-boats down the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, in which
city he found a profitable market for his produce,
besides selling his boats, which were virtually
impossible of the return navigation up the river.
He made the return voyage to his home by means of the
old-time packet steamboats, and he continued to reside
on his old homestead in Gallia County until his death,
which occurred Mar. 23, 1847. His wife, whose
maiden name was Mary Wheeler, was born at
Rutland, Vermont, and was a daughter of John Wheeler,
who set forth for Ohio in company with his family, the
household effects having been loaded on a sloop for
transportation by the Great Lakes, but disaster having
overtaken the little vessel; so that the goods of the
sturdy pioneer was lost. Upon his arrival in Ohio
Mr. Wheeler established the family home in
Licking County, where he passed the residue of his life.
Mrs. Mary (Wheeler) Gates survived her husband
and was summoned to the life eternal on the 8th of
August, 1855, their eight children having been:
William W., Henry W., Lucy A.,
Samuel H., John B., Abbie A.,
Harriet C. and Franklin O.
William W. Gates, Sr., was reared to manhood
under the sturdy discipline of the home farm and finally
he removed with his family from Gallia County to West
Virginia, where he remained for a comparatively short
period. On his return to Ohio he established his
residence in Scioto County, where he leased a farm near
Portsmouth and for several years there gave his
attention to diversified agriculture and stock growing.
Venerable in years, he lived retired in the City of
Portsmouth, secure in the high regard of all who knew
him until his death, July 7, 1915. His wife was
born on a farm near Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio, and is
a daughter of Melzar Nye, who was born at
Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1785, a son of Ebenezer
Nye, who likewise was a native of Connecticut and
who came thence to the Northwest Territory, then
including Ohio, in the year 1790. This was soon
after the little settlement had been established at
historic old Marietta, Ohio, and in the stockade there
established as protection against the Indians he and his
family resided five years. Later he purchased a
tract of land nine miles distant from the now thriving
city of Marietta, on the banks of the Muskingum River,
and there he resided many years, as one of the sterling
pioneers who aided in the social and material
development of the Buckeye State in the early stages of
its history. He had been a valiant soldier of the
Continental Line in the War of the Revolution and he
passed the closing period of his long and useful life at
Barnesville, Belmont County, where he died in the year
1829. His wife, whose maiden name was Desire
Sawyer, had passed to eternal rest in 1800.
Melzar Nye as a boy and youth gained
ample experience in connection with the labors and
hardships of pioneer life on the embryonic farm of his
father, and as a young man he assisted in the making of
some of the original surveys in Washington County, where
he finally bought a tract of land near his father's
homestead. He cleared and otherwise improved much
of this land and there remained until 1827, when he sold
the property and removed to Meigs County, where he
purchased a farm in Salisbury Township. He
reclaimed this homestead and on the same passed the
residue of his life, his death having occurred When he
was eighty-eight years of age. He wedded Miss
Phoebe Sprague, who was born in
Massachusetts, her ancestors having been numbered among
the founders of Hingham, that state, and an excellent
genealogical history of this sterling old family having
been compiled and published by Warren Vincent Sprague.
Mrs. Phoebe (Sprague) Nye was born in 1788 and
died at the age of seventy-two years. Her six
children who attained to years of maturity were: Mary
D., Margaretta Z., Sarah C., Melzar,
Almira and Alvira (twins). Alvira,
who was the wife of W. W. Gates, Sr., died June
4, 1915.
At this juncture is entered brief record concerning the
children of William W. and Alvira Elizabeth (Nye)
Gates: Ella is the wife of Irving Drew,
the executive head of the Portsmouth Shoe Manufactory
which bears his name; Laura is the wife of
Stephen Chick, of Portsmouth; William W., Jr.,
is the Immediate subject of this review; Hattie
is the wife of Lewis Spencer, of Portsmouth; and
Edward S. and John are deceased.
Passing the days of his boyhood on the
farm, William W. Gates, Jr., acquired his
preliminary education in the district schools and
supplemented this by attending the public schools of
Portsmouth. At the age of seventeen years he here
entered the employ of the Drew-Selby Shoe
Company, in various departments of whose factory he
gained practical experience in all details of the
business. He continued with this concern until the
dissolution of the partnership of the principals, in
1902, and he then became associated with Mr. Drew
and others in organizing the Irving Drew
Company of which he became treasurer, an office of which
he has been the incumbent from the time of the
incorporation of the company. He has been one of
the influential factors in the development of the large
and substantial business of the company and is known as
an able executive as well as a man of broad and accurate
knowledge of the practical details of the industrial
enterprise with which he is identified.
Mr. Gates is not only one of the substantial
business men and liberal and progressive citizens of
Portsmouth but has also ordered his life in such a way
as to merit and receive the confidence and esteem of all
with whom he has come in contact. His political
allegiance is given to the republican party and both he
and his wife are members of the Second Presbyterian
Church in their home city, he having served for more
than a decade past as superintendent of its Sunday
school.
In the year 1888 was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
Gates to Miss Harriet S. Chick, who was
born on a farm in Clay Township, Scioto County, and who
is a daughter of Charles and Sarah (Lawson) Chick,
the former of whom died in 1877 and the latter in 1910.
Charles Chick was born in Gallia County, this
state, on the 23d of December, 1823, and was a son of
William Chick, a native of Somersetshire, England,
where he was born in 1794. In 1817 William Chick,
accompanied by his brothers, Charles and John,
immigrated to the United States. In his native
land he had learned the trade of stone mason, at the
Portsmouth Navy Yard, and after coming to America he
followed his trade several years, in Scioto County,
Ohio. In 1828 he purchased a farm of 500 or 600
acres in the French Grant and removed his family there.
In 1846 he purchased a tract of 237 acres, including the
present site of the Burgess Steel and Iron Works, but
while preparing to move to his new house was taken sick
and died at the old home stead in the French Grant, his
wife, whose maiden name was Nancy Skinner,
having preceded him to the "Great Beyond" the year
previous. Both were members of the Baptist Church,
in the faith of which they reared their eight children.
Charles Chick devoted his entire active life to
agricultural pursuits and became one of the
representative agriculturists and stock-growers of
Scioto County. He purchased the interests of the
other heirs to his father's extensive farm and on the
same he continued to reside until his death, his widow
having thereafter removed to the City of Portsmouth,
where she maintained her home during the residue of her
life. In 1854 Charles Chick wedded Miss
Sarah Lawson, daughter of John and Rebecca Watson
Lawson, June, 1854. Thomas Lawson,
grandfather of John Lawson, was a native of
Hampshire County, Virginia, and a representative of that
fine old commonwealth as a patriot soldier in the War of
the Revolution. William Lawson, grandfather
of Sarah Lawson, was one of the first settlers in
Scioto County, Ohio, having located on the tract of land
now occupied by the City of Portsmouth. Michael
Watson, great-grandfather of Mrs. Gates
on the maternal side, was a native of Maryland, whence
he removed to Kentucky in 1790, and from the latter
state he came to Ohio in 1804 and became one of the very
early settlers of Adams County, where he continued to
reside until his death.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging
Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916 - Page
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