OLDEST WOMAN IS DEAD

MRS. ELLEN MINES, WIDOW OF LATE MADISON MINES, PASSES TO GREAT BEYOND.

LIVED TO THE ADVANCED AGE OF NINETY-FOUR YEARS AND ALWAYS HALE AND HEARTY.

Settled Near Clarksburg Over Sixty Years Ago and Helped Greatly in Accumulating a Handsome Estate By Her Frugality and Industry–Was Beloved By Many Friends.

The Daily Telegram., December 10, 1904

Mrs. Ellen Mines died at the home of her son, James H. Mines, in the Stealey addition at 7 o’clock Friday morning. December 9, 1904. Until the past year she enjoyed the best of health all her long life and was a woman of most remarkable constitution of old age, however, seized her and after a year’s feebleness death camp. A woman of strong will and mental faculties, she retained her mind to the very last. Although at intervals the few days before her death she was only semi-conscious.

The funeral will be held at the residence Sunday afternoon at two o’clock and will be conducted by Rev. Robert B. McDanel, her pastor. The interment will be in the family lot in the Odd Fellows’ Cemetery.

The deceased was the widow of James Madison Mines, who died in March, 1896, after an illness of seventeen weeks and at the age of 84 years. Surviving her of the immediate family are her two sons, Lewis H. Mines, of Warren, Ohio, and James H. Mines, of this city, and two daughters, Mrs. Susan Reed, of Wilsonburg; besides about forty grand children and a number of great grandchildren, and some of the last named have arrived at marriageable age.

The husband of the deceased, James Madison Mines, was a product of the grand old mother of states, Virginia, born in Augusta County, Va., in 1812, and his parents, Lewis and Hannah (Gabbert) Mines, were also natives of that state. About the year 1837 the parents came to what is now Taylor county, West Virginia, and four years later to Harrison County, where both passed a number of years later and now lie buried in the Gore graveyard on the Shinnston pike, near Adamston.

The elder Mines was a carpenter, but gave his attention to other enterprises as well, and was fairly successful. In politics he was a Whig, and a soldier in the war of 1812. His father, Peter Mines, came to this country from England prior to the Revolution and probably fought with the Colonists. He married a Scotch lady.

James Madison Mines, the only child of his parents, was married in the year 1832 to Miss Ellen King, the subject of this sketch, who was born December 31, 1810, and who was the daughter of Richard and Mary King. Mr. King was born in England, but after growing up he came to America and was married in Virginia, in which state the remainder of his days were passed. Mr. King was a stone mason by trade and followed that until his death about 1818. He was a Revolutionary soldier. Mrs. King died about 1830. She had been married three times and the subject of this sketch was a daughter by her first marriage.

Mr. and Mrs. Mines lived two-thirds of a century together and until death parted them and were the parents of nine children, all of whom were reared to manhood and womanhood, namely, Mary Margaret, deceased, wife of Jacob J. Lough, of Salem; Lewis Henry Mines, of Warren, Ohio; Hannah J., deceased, first wife of Jasper Pew, of Clarksburg; Sarah Ann, deceased, wife of James Peter Carr, of Flint, Doddridge county; Elizabeth Ellen, deceased, wife of Isham A. Morrison, deceased, of Wilsonburg; James Harvey Mines, of Clarksburg; Minerva,  wife of Edmund Fittro, of Wilsonburg; Susan, wife of Charles T. Reed, of Wheeling; Louisa, deceased, first wife of Amos Payne, of Clarksburg.

Mr. and Mrs. Mines became residents of Harrison County in 1841 and four years resided at what is known as the “Stone House,” now the Gore farm. After that he settled in the woods at the mouth of Limestone Creek, at Adamston, and there he acquired 550 acres of fine farming lands.

Aside from tilling the soil he was engaged in other enterprises, teaming, etc. and for many years burned all the lime Clarksburg uses, and 2,000 bushels, all that was used in the building of the asylum at Weston. The lives of himself and wife, as well as the children, were busy ones. He started without capital, and all they accumulated was the result of their own industry, a splendid and creditable estate. He paid a man $50 to bring him to Harrison County, and very soon afterward would have given that much more to have gone back, not being used to pioneer life, but they went to work with a will and prospered an were happy.

Mrs. Mines, along with her husband, were life-long members of the Baptist church, and were admitted to membership in the Baptist church here by letter fifty-three years ago and remained members to the time of their death.

The deceased was largely responsible for her husband’s success, being an earnest, faithful helpmate, and because of her kind disposition and charitable nature none asked alms at her hands that were not objects of her benevolence.

By her death one of the most remarkable women of the county has gone to the Great Beyond, as well as probably the oldest in Harrison county, as she would have been 94 years of age, had she survived until the 31st of this month.