#roneyspoint

[ledenews]

History: Henry Schmulbach - The Fate of an American Dream – Part 2

He was a mere 8-year-old child when his parents, Johan and Anna Elizabeth Schmulbach, joined another family to depart Germany for the United States.

The Schmulbachs settled in Wheeling as did thousands of other German immigrants because not only did the region have German-language newspapers and several relevant singing societies, but employment also was in ample supply to hard-working men and, in some cases, male children. Henry Schmulbach was such a young man and at the age of 10 he accepted a cabin boy position on a steamboat offered by an uncle, George Fellers.

Once the Civil War began in early 1861, Schmulbach left the waterway at 17 years old to open a grocery store in the area now recognized as Centre Market. He sold the retail business operation three years later and briefly returned to the steamboat industry, but according to information listed in the Ohio County Public Library archives, it was in 1865 when Schmulbach got his first taste of the alcohol business in the Upper Ohio Valley.

“By all accounts, Henry Schmulbach was a very motivated young man,” said local historian Ryan Stanton, an educator at Wheeling Park High School. “I’ve not found any documents or direct quotes about his thirst for money, but his early work history certainly appears to have something of a start as far as his wish to collect as much wealth as possible.

“Henry must have been a saver in his early years, too, because it’s apparent he jumped from one industry to the other and not as an employee but as an owner,” he explained. “That trend continued, too, with everything he did until he died in 1915. Schmulbach was always in charge, and if he wasn’t when he first got involved with something new, his role always changed very quickly to titles like president and chairman.”

Schmulbach had several financial interests in the Wheeling area.

A perfect example of such a movement involved the German Bank of Wheeling. Again, the OCPL’s archived obituary for Schmulbach reveals why the entrepreneur targeted the institution in his late 30s.

“This bank owes its life to Mr. Schmulbach. The bank was incorporated in the late '40s and grew steadily until 1879. In that year a failure of the tobacco crop, in which much of its resources were invested, caused it to meet severe losses.”

In the very beginning, Schmulbach and bank president Chester D. Hubbard opposed the bank board's decision to suspend operations, and soon later Schmulbach took over as the bank’s president.

“One of the main focuses for Schmulbach later in his life was the German Bank of Wheeling. Everything I have seen about that stage of his life allows me to believe that the bank was one of the great points of pride of his life,” Stanton reported. “Of course, the German Bank of Wheeling is now known as Wesbanco Bank, so he must have built something that has lasted through the years when many banks have not. I think it speaks to the due diligence that he displays with everything he did both professionally and for recreation. He made sure he did everything the right way.

“By all accounts, I’ve seen, that’s how he went about everything beginning when he was young through his 70 years here,” he said. “I believe his life is the true story of realizing the American dream as it was presented to immigrants at the time he moved to the United States as a child.”

There are many legends connected to the Roney's Point area of Ohio County, and some are true while others are not.

A Brewer’s Death Nail

In the 1912 general election, after years of effort by state lawmakers, a majority vote by 92,342 Mountain State residents cast ballots in favor of prohibition, which became state law at midnight on June 30, 1914.

It was not until Dec. 5, 1933, when the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and effectively repealed nationwide prohibition, and West Virginia was the 15th state to vote in favor of repeal. Schmulbach, and his brewery, however, already had been dead for nearly 20 years.  

“When lawmakers in West Virginia approved prohibition, that had to have broken Schmulbach’s heart because he had worked so hard to establish what he did in the brewing business. At first, his board of directors tried to relocate the brewery to Ohio, but that never materialized, and I believe part of the reason why was because Henry and the others were so well off at that point that they let it go,” Stanton said. “To the employees of the brewery and the employees of all the other connected businesses, it had to be devastating, but for a guy like Schmulbach, he had so much wealth and so many other businesses that he really didn’t need to brew beer anymore.

The Schmulbach Mansion was the first house in Ohio County to feature air conditioning, but once the millionaire died, his widow sold it to the Ohio County Commission.

“But it still had to hurt. It was what he was really known for,” the historian considered. “They had a lager, a porter, and a crown ale that were very, very popular, and they had some seasonal beers as well for certain times of the year. The man loved his heritage and that’s why when the fall rolled around, he brewed and distributed an Oktoberfest beer that was said to be very good,” he said. “Schmulbach was also a master marketing guy, and it was obvious he had a lot of fun with it.”

Of course, Henry Schmulbach succeeded in establishing yet another “first” despite having died following a year of poor health.

“There was a time when a person could take a trolley from downtown Wheeling to Roney’s Point, and when Schmulbach died, they had the funeral up here, and they had special trolley service to get everyone to the service. By all accounts, that service was a very big deal,” Stanton said. “Henry actually had the first funeral procession that was led by automobiles. The very first ever in the Wheeling area.

“Not only was this guy an entrepreneur and the first person to do a lot of different things, but he was a very driven man to set a lot of standards in this area. The Schmulbach Building, which is now known more as the Wheeling-Pittsburgh headquarters, is an example of how he went about it the right way,” he said. “That’s why seeing the mansion the way it is now with so much of it missing and all of the vandalism and graffiti that’s taken place is a pretty sad thing to me.”

In the basement of the former Wheeling-Pitt headquarters is a bathhouse that was included in the 1907 construction by the builder, Henry Schmulbach, and these ornate wall sculptures remain today.

The Widow

When Pauline Bertschy Schmulbach passed away several years after her husband’s death, her estate was valued at more than half a million dollars, a figure that would exceed $8 million today.

That estate, however, did not include the family’s property at Roney’s Point because she had sold it to Ohio County for $125,000 in 1917.

“She didn’t want to live there, not even when Henry was alive,” Stanton insisted. “Not only did Henry and Pauline know each other from their church, but she was the hostess at the family funeral parlor. She was a very social lady, so living out in the middle of nowhere like Roney’s Point was back then never appealed to her. She did it, but once she could sell, she did.

“But back then, very soon after the Great Depression hit, Ohio County utilized the land as the county poor farm. The men of the county would go there and work the farm so they could earn some of the food they produced there, and they also earned a few bucks each day that they were able to take home to help with their families.”

The inside of the mansion has been vandalized on many occasions through the years.

Some of the men, Stanton said, would live on the property, too, and the county established the County Farm Cemetery for the interments of those who passed away during those years. The graveyard later was utilized for the patients who passed away at the hospital, and those who simply wished to use the yard as their final resting place.

Most of the graves today, however, are unmarked, and the gas and oil industries as well as flooding have left the cemetery completely unmarked.

“That’s just an example of everything else that has happened to the Schmulbach property at Roney’s Point,” Stanton said with disappointment. “His Chapline Street home has been preserved, and it’s now in a protected block with other beautiful Victorian houses, and the brewery building still stands, too, and the Schmulbach Building is pretty much known as the Wheeling-Pitt building now because the steel company had several floors of it for its headquarters for a lot of years.

“But with all my research on Henry Schmulbach, I have always had the impression that it was the Roney’s Point property he was most proud of because it was where he could take all of his hobbies and have fun with them,” the historian added. “But then it was all allowed to just rot, so I guess, it’s gone the same way the American dream has through the years.”

[ledenews]

History: Henry Schmulbach - Once The East Coast's Wealthiest Man – Part 1

(Publisher’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on Henry Schmulbach, perhaps the greatest self-made entrepreneur in the history of the Upper Ohio Valley. The second part will publish tomorrow afternoon.)

The man was most well-known for his brewery that was housed in an impressive building in South Wheeling and churned out as many as 100,000 barrels of beer annually, including his signature ale, his stout, and his crown, but Henry Schmulbach was the first to accomplish many other feats, too, simply because he wanted to.

The German immigrant was moved by his parents to Wheeling as a child, and as soon as he could he began his working career in the retail grocery industry before transitioning into whole liquor sales as a teenager. Then, at 38 years old, Schmulbach purchased Nail City Brewery and almost immediately transformed it into a regional operation with distribution taking place through West Virginia, Ohio, and along the East Coast.

Before long, the success of the Schmulbach Brewery Company permitted him to own interest in steamboat, streetcar, telephone, and iron and nail companies, and he also opened Mozart Park, a recreational area with an incline ride that extended from the hilltop community to South Wheeling. The Wheeling area has not seen such a spectacle since. The entrepreneur also saved the German Bank of Wheeling in 1880, now known as Wesbanco Bank, and 25 years later funded the construction the Schmulbach Building between 1904-07, a 12-story structure recognized as the first skyscraper in the state of West Virginia.

“I think his character, his toughness, his work ethnic, and his vision that allowed him to see what was coming to make money was really impressive. He had a cement company, for example, and he established that because he saw that Wheeling would be booming,” said historian Ryan Stanton, a teacher at Wheeling Park High School who has completed the most research into the legendary businessman. “So, of course, he had the Leinman Cement Company and provided all of the concrete for what was the largest and most rapid growth the Wheeling area has ever realized in its history.

“He was known for treating his employees very well and that’s because he wanted everyone to be successful,” he said. “All of his businesses were very dangerous places to work in because all places were pretty dangerous because most owners didn’t take the precautions like he did. Henry paid his people well and wanted them to thrive, but he wanted them to be protected as much as possible, too. To me, that speaks volumes.”

Schmulbach had several financial interests in the Wheeling area.

Wishes and Whims

During his prime, Schmulbach’s wealth was rapidly growing and that allowed for the successful businessman to begin enjoying the finer things no matter where they were produced in the world. A favorite of his were the most unique automobiles he’d purchased and imported, and he also fancied horses.

In order to own several breeds, he discovered and purchased more than 200 acres of land that sat above the Stone Tavern, an inn that opened soon after National Road was surveyed in 1806 to allow passage through Ohio County. Known as the Heimberger House, it was a stopping place for pioneers searching opportunities in the west of a growing United States.

“Schmulbach’s development of his Roney’s Point property all started because of his love for horses. He became really involved with horses racing, but he treated his own horses as his pets,” Stanton explained. “If you drive up to this property today, there is a well pad where he once had a long barn that he constructed for his horses, and most of that part of property was on the east side and is closest to U.S. Route 40. He had caretakers living in the long barn to maintain the area he used for those horses during the early 1900s.

“He always had plans to build the mansion and the other structures on this property, but initially he purchased about 250 acres for the horses and that was it for a while,” the local historian recalled. “And then, he started with the mansion, and I think the house really was just a part of Schmulbach’s flare and his style, and because, later in his life, he started acquiring a lot of other hobbies. One of them was growing exotic plants and he knew he could do that at his home in Center Wheeling no matter how grand the Victorian home (2311 Chapline Street) was and still is today.”

The popularity of Roney's Point has declined over the past decade or so.

Trees Perfectly Aligned

Today the roadway is named County Farm Road and it leads to the decaying remnants of the former Roney’s Point Hospital, a building that first cared for Ohio County’s highly contagious tuberculosis patients, and then the area’s mentally ill.

Behind that sprawling one-story structure rests a small neighborhood of eight homes, and before the hospital rests the vestiges of what once was Henry’s Schulbach’s innovative mansion and compound. County Farm Road once was only the brewer’s driveway and it was line by perfectly placed and spaced maple trees, most of which were removed more than a decade ago by employees of Chesapeake Energy to widen the roadway for the large water, drilling, and fracking trucks.

“I know when the mansion was completed around 1911, there were 11 different structures he had built on his property at Roney’s Point that were burned down in the 1970s for training by the Valley Grove and Triadelphia volunteer fire departments, but I believe there was a hand full of others,” Stanton reported. “One of the buildings Schmulbach had was an ice plant because his mansion was the first in Ohio County with some form of air conditioning. They would make the ice and put in areas of the basement, and apparently they had fans down there that would push the cool air up to the floors above.

“I have worked with former Ohio County deputy Harry Croft because he lived up there back in the 1950s,” he said. “One day we were working together on an auction and I told him about my interest in Roney’s Point and Henry Schmulbach and he grabbed a piece of paper and drew this map of all the buildings he remembers from living up here and working up there. Most of what he drew, though, isn’t standing anymore because of the fires and because of the decay that’s taken place over time.”

Schmulbach's old home has been rotting away since a large fire in thre early 1970s destroyed most of it.

A Banker’s Bankroll

Stanton has come to acquire a plethora of Schmulback artifacts during his years of extensive research, and he has become well known for his interest in the storied businessman. In fact, following a presentation he made on the brewer/banker at the Ohio County Public Library, a couple approached him with a box of belongings once owned by Henry Schmulbach.

One article was a bank book.

“They just approached me and said they thought I should have what was in the box because they understood I was the person looking for anything connected to Schmulbach and his history,” he recalled. “When I looked inside, it was numbered as one of several at the same bank, and since I’ve been able to collect several more of them from most of the other banks in the Wheeling area.

“And there were a lot of banks in Wheeling, and in one of them had thousands upon thousands of dollars in them, and that didn’t include what he had invested in his own bank, the German Bank of Wheeling,” Stanton continued. “I’m really sure there are many more of the bank books out there, probably in other boxes packed away somewhere in attics and basements in the area, but based on what I see in the ones I have, he had to be the wealthiest man in the Ohio Valley if not in the entire country. Based on his house in Center Wheeling, the materials used for the mansion, and all of his different businesses, money by far was never an issue for Henry Schmulbach.”

But how rich was he say, perhaps, in today’s dollars?

“Was he as wealthy as say an Elon Musk is today? Oh yeah, he sure was. For his time? Without a doubt. We’re talking about as multi-millionaire and that was something that just didn’t exist not only around here but anywhere at that time in the history of the United States,” Stanton insisted. “The man had anything he wanted, and if you look at all of his properties and his assets, you just know that to be true. And he was a philanthropist, too, so he didn’t keep all of his money to himself.

“He may have had the reputation of being a gambler and something of a rough character, but he also cared about his community. Henry never forgot where he came from, and I think that’s something that needs to be recognized and retold for the people of today,” he explained. “I believe some people from today could likely learn a lot from the life Henry Schmulbach and how he went about things the right way.”

[ledenews]

History: Henry Schmulbach- The Fate of an American Dream – Part 2

He was a mere 8-year-old child when his parents, Johan and Anna Elizabeth Schmulbach, joined another family to depart Germany for the United States.The Schmulbachs settled in Wheeling as did thousands of other German immigrants because not only did the region have German-language newspapers and several relevant singing societies, but employment also was in ample supply to hard-working men and, in some cases, male children. Henry Schmulbach was such a young man and at the age of 10 he accepted a cabin boy position on a steamboat offered by an uncle, George Fellers.Once the Civil War began in early 1861, Schmulbach left the waterway at 17 years old to open a grocery store in the area now recognized as Centre Market. He sold the retail business operation three years later and briefly returned to the steamboat industry, but according to information listed in the Ohio County Public Library archives, it was in 1865 when Schmulbach got his first taste of the alcohol business in the Upper Ohio Valley.“By all accounts, Henry Schmulbach was a very motivated young man,” said local historian Ryan Stanton, an educator at Wheeling Park High School. “I’ve not found any documents or direct quotes about his thirst for money, but his early work history certainly appears to have something of a start as far as his wish to collect as much wealth as possible.“Henry must have been a saver in his early years, too, because it’s apparent he jumped from one industry to the other and not as an employee but as an owner,” he explained. “That trend continued, too, with everything he did until he died in 1915. Schmulbach was always in charge, and if he wasn’t when he first got involved with something new, his role always changed very quickly to titles like president and chairman.”Henry Schmulbach, Brewer, Banker (Photo from the Ohio County Public Library Archives.)A perfect example of such a movement involved the German Bank of Wheeling. Again, the OCPL’s archived obituary for Schmulbach reveals why the entrepreneur targeted the institution in his late 30s.“This bank owes its life to Mr. Schmulbach. The bank was incorporated in the late '40s and grew steadily until 1879. In that year a failure of the tobacco crop, in which much of its resources were invested, caused it to meet severe losses.”In the very beginning, Schmulbach and bank president Chester D. Hubbard opposed the bank board's decision to suspend operations, and soon later Schmulbach took over as the bank’s president.“One of the main focuses for Schmulbach later in his life was the German Bank of Wheeling. Everything I have seen about that stage of his life allows me to believe that the bank was one of the great points of pride of his life,” Stanton reported. “Of course, the German Bank of Wheeling is now known as Wesbanco Bank, so he must have built something that has lasted through the years when many banks have not. I think it speaks to the due diligence that he displays with everything he did both professionally and for recreation. He made sure he did everything the right way.“By all accounts, I’ve seen, that’s how he went about everything beginning when he was young through his 70 years here,” he said. “I believe his life is the true story of realizing the American dream as it was presented to immigrants at the time he moved to the United States as a child.”Schmulbach was a ahead of his time when marketing his brewery products in local newspapers in the late 1800s.A Brewer’s Death NailIn the 1912 general election, after years of effort by state lawmakers, a majority vote by 92,342 Mountain State residents cast ballots in favor of prohibition, which became state law at midnight on June 30, 1914.It was not until Dec. 5, 1933, when the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and effectively repealed nationwide prohibition, and West Virginia was the 15th state to vote in favor of repeal. Schmulbach, and his brewery, however, already had been dead for nearly 20 years. “When lawmakers in West Virginia approved prohibition, that had to have broken Schmulbach’s heart because he had worked so hard to establish what he did in the brewing business. At first, his board of directors tried to relocate the brewery to Ohio, but that never materialized, and I believe part of the reason why was because Henry and the others were so well off at that point that they let it go,” Stanton said. “To the employees of the brewery and the employees of all the other connected businesses, it had to be devastating, but for a guy like Schmulbach, he had so much wealth and so many other businesses that he really didn’t need to brew beer anymore.The majority of the front of the mansion was lost in a fire that took place on the property in 1972.“But it still had to hurt. It was what he was really known for,” the historian considered. “They had a lager, a porter, and a crown ale that were very, very popular, and they had some seasonal beers as well for certain times of the year. The man loved his heritage and that’s why when the fall rolled around, he brewed and distributed an Oktoberfest beer that was said to be very good,” he said. “Schmulbach was also a master marketing guy, and it was obvious he had a lot of fun with it.”Of course, Henry Schmulbach succeeded in establishing yet another “first” despite having died following a year of poor health.“There was a time when a person could take a trolley from downtown Wheeling to Roney’s Point, and when Schmulbach died, they had the funeral up here, and they had special trolley service to get everyone to the service. By all accounts, that service was a very big deal,” Stanton said. “Henry actually had the first funeral procession that was led by automobiles. The very first ever in the Wheeling area.“Not only was this guy an entrepreneur and the first person to do a lot of different things, but he was a very driven man to set a lot of standards in this area. The Schmulbach Building, which is now known more as the Wheeling-Pittsburgh headquarters, is an example of how he went about it the right way,” he said. “That’s why seeing the mansion the way it is now with so much of it missing and all of the vandalism and graffiti that’s taken place is a pretty sad thing to me.”Many explorers believe the Schmulback Mansion was once the mental asylum on Roney's Point, but that facility is on up the road.The WidowWhen Pauline Bertschy Schmulbach passed away several years after her husband’s death, her estate was valued at more than half a million dollars, a figure that would exceed $8 million today.That estate, however, did not include the family’s property at Roney’s Point because she had sold it to Ohio County for $125,000 in 1917.“She didn’t want to live there, not even when Henry was alive,” Stanton insisted. “Not only did Henry and Pauline know each other from their church, but she was the hostess at the family funeral parlor. She was a very social lady, so living out in the middle of nowhere like Roney’s Point was back then never appealed to her. She did it, but once she could sell, she did. “But back then, very soon after the Great Depression hit, Ohio County utilized the land as the county poor farm. The men of the county would go there and work the farm so they could earn some of the food they produced there, and they also earned a few bucks each day that they were able to take home to help with their families.”The inside of the mansion has been vandalized on many occasions through the years.Some of the men, Stanton said, would live on the property, too, and the county established the County Farm Cemetery for the interments of those who passed away during those years. The graveyard later was utilized for the patients who passed away at the hospital, and those who simply wished to use the yard as their final resting place.Most of the graves today, however, are unmarked, and the gas and oil industries as well as flooding have left the cemetery completely unmarked.“That’s just an example of everything else that has happened to the Schmulbach property at Roney’s Point,” Stanton said with disappointment. “His Chapline Street home has been preserved, and it’s now in a protected block with other beautiful Victorian houses, and the brewery building still stands, too, and the Schmulbach Building is pretty much known as the Wheeling-Pitt building now because the steel company had several floors of it for its headquarters for a lot of years.“But with all my research on Henry Schmulbach, I have always had the impression that it was the Roney’s Point property he was most proud of because it was where he could take all of his hobbies and have fun with them,” the historian added. “But then it was all allowed to just rot, so I guess, it’s gone the same way the American dream has through the years.”(Photography by Michael Novotney) Read the full article

[ledenews]

History: Henry Schmulbach - Once The East Coast's Wealthiest Man – Part 1

(Publisher’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on Henry Schmulbach, perhaps the greatest self-made entrepreneur in the history of the Upper Ohio Valley. The second part will publish tomorrow afternoon.)The man was most well-known for his brewery that was housed in an impressive building in South Wheeling and churned out as many as 100,000 barrels of beer annually, including his signature ale, his stout, and his crown, but Henry Schmulbach was the first to accomplish many other feats, too, simply because he wanted to.The German immigrant was moved by his parents to Wheeling as a child, and as soon as he could he began his working career in the retail grocery industry before transitioning into whole liquor sales as a teenager. Then, at 38 years old, Schmulbach purchased Nail City Brewery and almost immediately transformed it into a regional operation with distribution taking place through West Virginia, Ohio, and along the East Coast.Before long, the success of the Schmulbach Brewery Company permitted him to own interest in steamboat, streetcar, telephone, and iron and nail companies, and he also opened Mozart Park, a recreational area with an incline ride that extended from the hilltop community to South Wheeling. The Wheeling area has not seen such a spectacle since. The entrepreneur also saved the German Bank of Wheeling in 1880, now known as Wesbanco Bank, and 25 years later funded the construction the Schmulbach Building between 1904-07, a 12-story structure recognized as the first skyscraper in the state of West Virginia.“I think his character, his toughness, his work ethnic, and his vision that allowed him to see what was coming to make money was really impressive. He had a cement company, for example, and he established that because he saw that Wheeling would be booming,” said historian Ryan Stanton, a teacher at Wheeling Park High School who has completed the most research into the legendary businessman. “So, of course, he had the Leinman Cement Company and provided all of the concrete for what was the largest and most rapid growth the Wheeling area has ever realized in its history.“He was known for treating his employees very well and that’s because he wanted everyone to be successful,” he said. “All of his businesses were very dangerous places to work in because all places were pretty dangerous because most owners didn’t take the precautions like he did. Henry paid his people well and wanted them to thrive, but he wanted them to be protected as much as possible, too. To me, that speaks volumes.”Henry Schmulbach, Brewer, Banker (Photo from the Ohio County Public Library Archives.)Wishes and WhimsDuring his prime, Schmulbach’s wealth was rapidly growing and that allowed for the successful businessman to begin enjoying the finer things no matter where they were produced in the world. A favorite of his were the most unique automobiles he’d purchased and imported, and he also fancied horses.In order to own several breeds, he discovered and purchased more than 200 acres of land that sat above the Stone Tavern, an inn that opened soon after National Road was surveyed in 1806 to allow passage through Ohio County. Known as the Heimberger House, it was a stopping place for pioneers searching opportunities in the west of a growing United States.“Schmulbach’s development of his Roney’s Point property all started because of his love for horses. He became really involved with horses racing, but he treated his own horses as his pets,” Stanton explained. “If you drive up to this property today, there is a well pad where he once had a long barn that he constructed for his horses, and most of that part of property was on the east side and is closest to U.S. Route 40. He had caretakers living in the long barn to maintain the area he used for those horses during the early 1900s.“He always had plans to build the mansion and the other structures on this property, but initially he purchased about 250 acres for the horses and that was it for a while,” the local historian recalled. “And then, he started with the mansion, and I think the house really was just a part of Schmulbach’s flare and his style, and because, later in his life, he started acquiring a lot of other hobbies. One of them was growing exotic plants and he knew he could do that at his home in Center Wheeling no matter how grand the Victorian home (2311 Chapline Street) was and still is today.”One of more than 10 buildings Schmulbach had constructed on his Roney's Point property was this spacious greenhouse.Trees Perfectly AlignedToday the roadway is named County Farm Road and it leads to the decaying remnants of the former Roney’s Point Hospital, a building that first cared for Ohio County’s highly contagious tuberculosis patients, and then the area’s mentally ill.Behind that sprawling one-story structure rests a small neighborhood of eight homes, and before the hospital rests the vestiges of what once was Henry’s Schulbach’s innovative mansion and compound. County Farm Road once was only the brewer’s driveway and it was line by perfectly placed and spaced maple trees, most of which were removed more than a decade ago by employees of Chesapeake Energy to widen the roadway for the large water, drilling, and fracking trucks.“I know when the mansion was completed around 1911, there were 11 different structures he had built on his property at Roney’s Point that were burned down in the 1970s for training by the Valley Grove and Triadelphia volunteer fire departments, but I believe there was a hand full of others,” Stanton reported. “One of the buildings Schmulbach had was an ice plant because his mansion was the first in Ohio County with some form of air conditioning. They would make the ice and put in areas of the basement, and apparently they had fans down there that would push the cool air up to the floors above.“I have worked with former Ohio County deputy Harry Croft because he lived up there back in the 1950s,” he said. “One day we were working together on an auction and I told him about my interest in Roney’s Point and Henry Schmulbach and he grabbed a piece of paper and drew this map of all the buildings he remembers from living up here and working up there. Most of what he drew, though, isn’t standing anymore because of the fires and because of the decay that’s taken place over time.”Schmulbach was interred in Greenwood Cemetery following his death on Aug. 13, 1915.A Banker’s BankrollStanton has come to acquire a plethora of Schmulback artifacts during his years of extensive research, and he has become well known for his interest in the storied businessman. In fact, following a presentation he made on the brewer/banker at the Ohio County Public Library, a couple approached him with a box of belongings once owned by Henry Schmulbach.One article was a bank book.“They just approached me and said they thought I should have what was in the box because they understood I was the person looking for anything connected to Schmulbach and his history,” he recalled. “When I looked inside, it was numbered as one of several at the same bank, and since I’ve been able to collect several more of them from most of the other banks in the Wheeling area.“And there were a lot of banks in Wheeling, and in one of them had thousands upon thousands of dollars in them, and that didn’t include what he had invested in his own bank, the German Bank of Wheeling,” Stanton continued. “I’m really sure there are many more of the bank books out there, probably in other boxes packed away somewhere in attics and basements in the area, but based on what I see in the ones I have, he had to be the wealthiest man in the Ohio Valley if not in the entire country. Based on his house in Center Wheeling, the materials used for the mansion, and all of his different businesses, money by far was never an issue for Henry Schmulbach.”But how rich was he say, perhaps, in today’s dollars?“Was he as wealthy as say an Elon Musk is today? Oh yeah, he sure was. For his time? Without a doubt. We’re talking about as multi-millionaire and that was something that just didn’t exist not only around here but anywhere at that time in the history of the United States,” Stanton insisted. “The man had anything he wanted, and if you look at all of his properties and his assets, you just know that to be true. And he was a philanthropist, too, so he didn’t keep all of his money to himself.“He may have had the reputation of being a gambler and something of a rough character, but he also cared about his community. Henry never forgot where he came from, and I think that’s something that needs to be recognized and retold for the people of today,” he explained. “I believe some people from today could likely learn a lot from the life Henry Schmulbach and how he went about things the right way.” Read the full article

[ledenews]

History: Henry Schmulbach- Wheeling’s Own Elon Musk – Part 1

(Publisher’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on Henry Schmulbach, perhaps the greatest self-made entrepreneur in the history of the Upper Ohio Valley. The second part will publish tomorrow afternoon.)The man was most well-known for his brewery that was housed in an impressive building in South Wheeling and churned out as many as 100,000 barrels of beer annually, including his signature ale, his stout, and his crown, but Henry Schmulbach was the first to accomplish many other feats, too, simply because he wanted to.The German immigrant was moved by his parents to Wheeling as a child, and as soon as he could he began his working career in the retail grocery industry before transitioning into whole liquor sales as a teenager. Then, at 38 years old, Schmulbach purchased Nail City Brewery and almost immediately transformed it into a regional operation with distribution taking place through West Virginia, Ohio, and along the East Coast.Before long, the success of the Schmulbach Brewery Company permitted him to own interest in steamboat, streetcar, telephone, and iron and nail companies, and he also opened Mozart Park, a recreational area with an incline ride that extended from the hilltop community to South Wheeling. The Wheeling area has not seen such a spectacle since. The entrepreneur also saved the German Bank of Wheeling in 1880, now known as Wesbanco Bank, and 25 years later funded the construction the Schmulbach Building between 1904-07, a 12-story structure recognized as the first skyscraper in the state of West Virginia.“I think his character, his toughness, his work ethnic, and his vision that allowed him to see what was coming to make money was really impressive. He had a cement company, for example, and he established that because he saw that Wheeling would be booming,” said historian Ryan Stanton, a teacher at Wheeling Park High School who has completed the most research into the legendary businessman. “So, of course, he had the Leinman Cement Company and provided all of the concrete for what was the largest and most rapid growth the Wheeling area has ever realized in its history.“He was known for treating his employees very well and that’s because he wanted everyone to be successful,” he said. “All of his businesses were very dangerous places to work in because all places were pretty dangerous because most owners didn’t take the precautions like he did. Henry paid his people well and wanted them to thrive, but he wanted them to be protected as much as possible, too. To me, that speaks volumes.”Henry Schmulbach, Brewer, Banker (Photo from the Ohio County Public Library Archives.)Wishes and WhimsDuring his prime, Schmulbach’s wealth was rapidly growing and that allowed for the successful businessman to begin enjoying the finer things no matter where they were produced in the world. A favorite of his were the most unique automobiles he’d purchased and imported, and he also fancied horses.In order to own several breeds, he discovered and purchased more than 200 acres of land that sat above the Stone Tavern, an inn that opened soon after National Road was surveyed in 1806 to allow passage through Ohio County. Known as the Heimberger House, it was a stopping place for pioneers searching opportunities in the west of a growing United States.“Schmulbach’s development of his Roney’s Point property all started because of his love for horses. He became really involved with horses racing, but he treated his own horses as his pets,” Stanton explained. “If you drive up to this property today, there is a well pad where he once had a long barn that he constructed for his horses, and most of that part of property was on the east side and is closest to U.S. Route 40. He had caretakers living in the long barn to maintain the area he used for those horses during the early 1900s.“He always had plans to build the mansion and the other structures on this property, but initially he purchased about 250 acres for the horses and that was it for a while,” the local historian recalled. “And then, he started with the mansion, and I think the house really was just a part of Schmulbach’s flare and his style, and because, later in his life, he started acquiring a lot of other hobbies. One of them was growing exotic plants and he knew he could do that at his home in Center Wheeling no matter how grand the Victorian home (2311 Chapline Street) was and still is today.”One of more than 10 buildings Schmulbach had constructed on his Roney's Point property was this spacious greenhouse.Trees Perfectly AlignedToday the roadway is named County Farm Road and it leads to the decaying remnants of the former Roney’s Point Hospital, a building that first cared for Ohio County’s highly contagious tuberculosis patients, and then the area’s mentally ill.Behind that sprawling one-story structure rests a small neighborhood of eight homes, and before the hospital rests the vestiges of what once was Henry’s Schulbach’s innovative mansion and compound. County Farm Road once was only the brewer’s driveway and it was line by perfectly placed and spaced maple trees, most of which were removed more than a decade ago by employees of Chesapeake Energy to widen the roadway for the large water, drilling, and fracking trucks.“I know when the mansion was completed around 1911, there were 11 different structures he had built on his property at Roney’s Point that were burned down in the 1970s for training by the Valley Grove and Triadelphia volunteer fire departments, but I believe there was a hand full of others,” Stanton reported. “One of the buildings Schmulbach had was an ice plant because his mansion was the first in Ohio County with some form of air conditioning. They would make the ice and put in areas of the basement, and apparently they had fans down there that would push the cool air up to the floors above.“I have worked with former Ohio County deputy Harry Croft because he lived up there back in the 1950s,” he said. “One day we were working together on an auction and I told him about my interest in Roney’s Point and Henry Schmulbach and he grabbed a piece of paper and drew this map of all the buildings he remembers from living up here and working up there. Most of what he drew, though, isn’t standing anymore because of the fires and because of the decay that’s taken place over time.”Schmulbach was interred in Greenwood Cemetery following his death on Aug. 13, 1915.A Banker’s BankrollStanton has come to acquire a plethora of Schmulback artifacts during his years of extensive research, and he has become well known for his interest in the storied businessman. In fact, following a presentation he made on the brewer/banker at the Ohio County Public Library, a couple approached him with a box of belongings once owned by Henry Schmulbach.One article was a bank book.“They just approached me and said they thought I should have what was in the box because they understood I was the person looking for anything connected to Schmulbach and his history,” he recalled. “When I looked inside, it was numbered as one of several at the same bank, and since I’ve been able to collect several more of them from most of the other banks in the Wheeling area.“And there were a lot of banks in Wheeling, and in one of them had thousands upon thousands of dollars in them, and that didn’t include what he had invested in his own bank, the German Bank of Wheeling,” Stanton continued. “I’m really sure there are many more of the bank books out there, probably in other boxes packed away somewhere in attics and basements in the area, but based on what I see in the ones I have, he had to be the wealthiest man in the Ohio Valley if not in the entire country. Based on his house in Center Wheeling, the materials used for the mansion, and all of his different businesses, money by far was never an issue for Henry Schmulbach.”But how rich was he say, perhaps, in today’s dollars?“Was he as wealthy as say an Elon Musk is today? Oh yeah, he sure was. For his time? Without a doubt. We’re talking about as multi-millionaire and that was something that just didn’t exist not only around here but anywhere at that time in the history of the United States,” Stanton insisted. “The man had anything he wanted, and if you look at all of his properties and his assets, you just know that to be true. And he was a philanthropist, too, so he didn’t keep all of his money to himself.“He may have had the reputation of being a gambler and something of a rough character, but he also cared about his community. Henry never forgot where he came from, and I think that’s something that needs to be recognized and retold for the people of today,” he explained. “I believe some people from today could likely learn a lot from the life Henry Schmulbach and how he went about things the right way.” Read the full article

[ledenews]

History: Henry Schmulbach- Wheeling’s Own Elon Musk – Part 1

(Publisher’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on Henry Schmulbach, perhaps the greatest self-made entrepreneur in the history of the Upper Ohio Valley. The second part will publish tomorrow evening.)The man was most well-known for his brewery that was housed in an impressive building in South Wheeling and churned out as many as 100,000 barrels of beer annually, including his signature ale, his stout, and his crown, but Henry Schmulbach was the first to accomplish many other feats, too, simply because he wanted to.The German immigrant was moved by his parents to Wheeling as a child, and as soon as he could he began his working career in the retail grocery industry before transitioning into whole liquor sales as a teenager. Then, at 38 years old, Schmulbach purchased Nail City Brewery and almost immediately transformed it into a regional operation with distribution taking place through West Virginia, Ohio, and along the East Coast.Before long, the success of the Schmulbach Brewery Company permitted him to own interest in steamboat, streetcar, telephone, and iron and nail companies, and he also opened Mozart Park, a recreational area with an incline ride that extended from the hilltop community to South Wheeling. The Wheeling area has not seen such a spectacle since. The entrepreneur also saved the German Bank of Wheeling in 1880, now known as Wesbanco Bank, and 25 years later funded the construction the Schmulbach Building between 1904-07, a 12-story structure recognized as the first skyscraper in the state of West Virginia.“I think his character, his toughness, his work ethnic, and his vision that allowed him to see what was coming to make money was really impressive. He had a cement company, for example, and he established that because he saw that Wheeling would be booming,” said historian Ryan Stanton, a teacher at Wheeling Park High School who has completed the most research into the legendary businessman. “So, of course, he had the Leinman Cement Company and provided all of the concrete for what was the largest and most rapid growth the Wheeling area has ever realized in its history.“He was known for treating his employees very well and that’s because he wanted everyone to be successful,” he said. “All of his businesses were very dangerous places to work in because all places were pretty dangerous because most owners didn’t take the precautions like he did. Henry paid his people well and wanted them to thrive, but he wanted them to be protected as much as possible, too. To me, that speaks volumes.”Henry Schmulbach, Brewer, Banker (Photo from the Ohio County Public Library Archives.)Wishes and WhimsDuring his prime, Schmulbach’s wealth was rapidly growing and that allowed for the successful businessman to begin enjoying the finer things no matter where they were produced in the world. A favorite of his were the most unique automobiles he’d purchased and imported, and he also fancied horses.In order to own several breeds, he discovered and purchased more than 200 acres of land that sat above the Stone Tavern, an inn that opened soon after National Road was surveyed in 1806 to allow passage through Ohio County. Known as the Heimberger House, it was a stopping place for pioneers searching opportunities in the west of a growing United States.“Schmulbach’s development of his Roney’s Point property all started because of his love for horses. He became really involved with horses racing, but he treated his own horses as his pets,” Stanton explained. “If you drive up to this property today, there is a well pad where he once had a long barn that he constructed for his horses, and most of that part of property was on the east side and is closest to U.S. Route 40. He had caretakers living in the long barn to maintain the area he used for those horses during the early 1900s.“He always had plans to build the mansion and the other structures on this property, but initially he purchased about 250 acres for the horses and that was it for a while,” the local historian recalled. “And then, he started with the mansion, and I think the house really was just a part of Schmulbach’s flare and his style, and because, later in his life, he started acquiring a lot of other hobbies. One of them was growing exotic plants and he knew he could do that at his home in Center Wheeling no matter how grand the Victorian home (2311 Chapline Street) was and still is today.”One of more than 10 buildings Schmulbach had constructed on his Roney's Point property was this spacious greenhouse.Trees Perfectly AlignedToday the roadway is named County Farm Road and it leads to the decaying remnants of the former Roney’s Point Hospital, a building that first cared for Ohio County’s highly contagious tuberculosis patients, and then the area’s mentally ill.Behind that sprawling one-story structure rests a small neighborhood of eight homes, and before the hospital rests the vestiges of what once was Henry’s Schulbach’s innovative mansion and compound. County Farm Road once was only the brewer’s driveway and it was line by perfectly placed and spaced maple trees, most of which were removed more than a decade ago by employees of Chesapeake Energy to widen the roadway for the large water, drilling, and fracking trucks.“I know when the mansion was completed around 1911, there were 11 different structures he had built on his property at Roney’s Point that were burned down in the 1970s for training by the Valley Grove and Triadelphia volunteer fire departments, but I believe there was a hand full of others,” Stanton reported. “One of the buildings Schmulbach had was an ice plant because his mansion was the first in Ohio County with some form of air conditioning. They would make the ice and put in areas of the basement, and apparently they had fans down there that would push the cool air up to the floors above.“I have worked with former Ohio County deputy Harry Croft because he lived up there back in the 1950s,” he said. “One day we were working together on an auction and I told him about my interest in Roney’s Point and Henry Schmulbach and he grabbed a piece of paper and drew this map of all the buildings he remembers from living up here and working up there. Most of what he drew, though, isn’t standing anymore because of the fires and because of the decay that’s taken place over time.”Schmulbach was interred in Greenwood Cemetery following his death on Aug. 13, 1915.A Banker’s BankrollStanton has come to acquire a plethora of Schmulback artifacts during his years of extensive research, and he has become well known for his interest in the storied businessman. In fact, following a presentation he made on the brewer/banker at the Ohio County Public Library, a couple approached him with a box of belongings once owned by Henry Schmulbach.One article was a bank book.“They just approached me and said they thought I should have what was in the box because they understood I was the person looking for anything connected to Schmulbach and his history,” he recalled. “When I looked inside, it was numbered as one of several at the same bank, and since I’ve been able to collect several more of them from most of the other banks in the Wheeling area.“And there were a lot of banks in Wheeling, and in one of them had thousands upon thousands of dollars in them, and that didn’t include what he had invested in his own bank, the German Bank of Wheeling,” Stanton continued. “I’m really sure there are many more of the bank books out there, probably in other boxes packed away somewhere in attics and basements in the area, but based on what I see in the ones I have, he had to be the wealthiest man in the Ohio Valley if not in the entire country. Based on his house in Center Wheeling, the materials used for the mansion, and all of his different businesses, money by far was never an issue for Henry Schmulbach.”But how rich was he say, perhaps, in today’s dollars?“Was he as wealthy as say an Elon Musk is today? Oh yeah, he sure was. For his time? Without a doubt. We’re talking about as multi-millionaire and that was something that just didn’t exist not only around here but anywhere at that time in the history of the United States,” Stanton insisted. “The man had anything he wanted, and if you look at all of his properties and his assets, you just know that to be true. And he was a philanthropist, too, so he didn’t keep all of his money to himself.“He may have had the reputation of being a gambler and something of a rough character, but he also cared about his community. Henry never forgot where he came from, and I think that’s something that needs to be recognized and retold for the people of today,” he explained. “I believe some people from today could likely learn a lot from the life Henry Schmulbach and how he went about things the right way.”

[ledenews]

County Farm Cemetery a Focus for New OC Commissioner

The first person interred at the County Farm Cemetery in Roney’s Point took place on July 7, 1932. His name was Nathan Parson, and according to the interment record, the man was “colored.” To find his gravesite, though, is impossible. According to the records kept by the Ohio County Commission, the County Farm Cemetery has been sparsely utilized since July 1973, but Anita Blue was interred in Roney’s Point in March 1987 to rest with a relative, Katherine Cook, who was buried there on Nov. 12, 1932. Cook was No. 24, and technically Blue was No. 762, but neither grave can be located today, and the same is true about the majority of the others because the burial ground has not been maintained for many years. In fact, even the sign that once marked the entrance to the cemetery is no longer hanging from the posts that remain in place today. A photo published by findagrave.com displays the sign resting against an iron gate in September 2011, but the fencing is no longer in place, as well. The first burial at the County Farm Cemetery took place nearly a century ago. The County Farm Cemetery is located along Roney’s Point Run Road past County Farm Road, a narrow street that leads to the remnants of the Schmulbach Mansion, the former tuberculosis/mental health hospital, and to a half dozen homes. A small stream runs along the border of the graveyard, but a concrete bridge was constructed to allow visitors to cross. Read the full article