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Note: The Wrick family is of English - German ancestry. The name may be of Dutch origin. The birthplace of the first person in our line, Thomas Wrick, is not known. He was living in Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey in 1792 when he was included in the Amwell Township Militia List. His oldest son Benjamin was born in New Jersey, 11 March 1795. The family came to Dunkard, Greene County, Pennsylvania between 1795 and 1800. Thomas and his wife, Rebecca, lived the rest of their lives there. In 1818 Thomas Wrick loaned $2000 to Leonard Stewart, taking a mortgage on his property. In 1824 he sold the Mortgage to someone else for "a valuable consideration to me in hand paid". $2000 was about five years salary for the average worker at that time, which indicates Thomas was a man of ample means, James their third son who was born around 1805 in Dunkard, moved to Mole Hill, West Virginia between 1820 and 1829. Here they had a farm. On July 2, 1949 this very small village in the isolated hills of West Virginia made the national news by changing their name. They made a "Mountain" out of a "Mole Hill".
For the celebration someone wrote a song, which was sung to the fiddle tune "She'll Be Comin 'Round the Mountain".
We Love Mountain, It's A West Virginia Town.
It was Mole Hill till we changed the name around.
Everyone is out and shoutin'
Let's change Mole Hill into Mountain.
We love Mountain, it's a West Virginia town.
We love Mountain, it's a West Virginia town.
Come on down to Mountain - take a look around.
It was Mole Hill, but that's ended.
As a Mountain, it's so splendid.
We love Mountain, it's a West Virginia town.
An article in the ÙCiÙDParkersburg News, ÙC/iÙDOctober 17, 1999, 50 years later, gives a report of the events surounding the name change and says that most of the residents regret the name change.
Christopher Columbus Wrick, eldest son of James, married Margaret Ann Ridgeway, who was born in Green County, Pennsylvania, They settled in Tollgate, Ritchie County, West Virginia. C. C. Wrick was called Lum. He had a farm and also ran a general store in Tollgate. Lum's granddaughter, Elizabeth Ann Davison remembers a story about her grandfather: He ran away to join the Union Army at Gettysburg. He was too young, 14 years old, to be a soldier so they let him be a drummer boy. He was not hurt, but in the same year his father died and he was sent home to help his mother on the farm. (However Lum's birth date of 1841 makes him about 22 years old. Also the 1860 census does not list his father, James, with Harriet and the family. This indicates that Lum's father died before the Civil War. It is probably an embellishment of the true story. He could have left after his father died and then returned because his mother needed help.) Elizabeth Ann Davison also remembers that Harriet had some psychological problems. Thus, she may have needed help running the farm.
All the sons of Lum left the farm and moved to Fairmont, West Virginia where they worked on the B&O Railroad. Except for census records as a child, Raymond Wrick is listed in other records as the son of Christopher Columbus and Margaret Wrick. Raymond married Grace Belle Bond, sister of Mona Bond. However, Mona Bond knew that he was the illegitimate child of Lum's daughter Rosa L. Wrick. Dollie F. Wrick, born long after Lum's death is also Rosa's daughter. This secret was hidden from Raymond's daughter Mary Grace Wrick (Alley) until Mona Bond was an old lady living with Lawrence and Mary Alley in Florida. One day, when she was mad at Mary, Mona responded by saying, "what can you expect from the daughter of an illegitimate child!" The long kept secret was out. Neither of Rose's children are listed in the Ritchie Co. or other WV county birth records.
Raymond and Grace Bond eloped, taking the train to Oakland, Maryland, just over the West Virginia boarder. This was "the place" to get married quickly in those days offering 24 hr. service. They had their only child, Mary Grace, in 1913. Grace died in 1916 of appendicitis. They lived in Smithburg, West Virginia. It was a long train ride to the nearest hospital in Parkersburg. Her appendix ruptured and she didn't make it there in time.
Raymond went to World War I in 1917. He broke his hip when a pontoon bridge fell on him in France and was discharged in 1919. He was in and out of the hospital with this injury the rest of his life. There is a picture of him standing with a cane soon after the war. Mary Grace lived with her grandparents, the Joseph Bond family, and spent little time with her father. She does remember spending the summer with him when she was 9 years old. He was a train dispatcher for the B&O Railroad in 1929 when he met his second wife, Alice Neeson. Later he was a reporter and typesetter for the Morgantown Post. Raymond and Alice had two daughters. Raymond was killed in an auto accident in 1931 when Alice was carrying their second child. Alice never remarried. (The period around 1931 had an unusually high increase in auto accidents and deaths. It is thought that the speed of the cars had increased and the quality of the roads had not improved to handle these cars.)
Raymond's death certificate gives the cause of death: Fractured skull, crushed chest, fractured pelvis, Manor of injury: Automobile hitting pole on highway. Interestingly, his father and mother as reported by his wife, Alice, are his grandparents Columbus Wrick and Margaret Ridgway. Did she ever know that he was an illegitimate child? He was still overseas at the Armistice signing and was buried on Armistice Day, 11 November 1931. Mona Bond wrote, "He was killed in a car - driving alone - between Morgantown and Star City. He was working on the paper in Morgantown and living in Star Cith. He wrapped the car around a telephone pole. It was a Sunday morning. I don't know whether he had been working that night. I don't know whether they ever determined the cause."
Raymond was a Private in Company B 308ÙCsupÙDthÙC/supÙD W. Va Field Signal Batalion Signal Corps 83 Division. Enlisted at Camp Sherman, Ohio 7 December 1917. Honorable Discharge at U. S. General Hospital #2 Fort McHenry, MD, 22 Nov 1919. Ser. No. 1961377 (from records at Grafton cemetery)
In July 1980 I (Lawrence, III) met Alice in Morgantown when she was 77 years old. My mother Mary Grace had never met her, and did not want to meet her. There was always some barrier between the families. The obvious reason would be that the Bonds were afraid that their granddaughter, who had lived with them for 13 years, would move back to live with her father after he remarried. The Bond family knew the Wrick family well. Joseph or some of his brothers helped build Lum Wrick's house in Tollgate. They tore down the house of Joseph's father, Benjamin Bond, on Middle Island Creek in Smithburg and used the material in the Tollgate house. Benjamin's house was on the hillside between the Archibald Cemetery and the creek.
Note: There is another Ray Wrick who joined the army in NY State 17 June 1915.
ÙCbÙDReferences to Raymond Wrick in Trade Journals:ÙC/bÙD
The Railroad Telegrapher, Order of Railroad Telegraphers (U.S.)
Vol 26, No. 6, June 1909
IN MEMORIAM
Referencing the death of the family members of some members...
ÙCiÙDResolvedÙC/iÙD, That the members of Monongah Division, No. 33 Order of Railroad Telegraphers, extent to the bereaved brothers and families our heartfelt sympathy in this hour of affliction and be it further
ÙCiÙDResolved, ÙC/iÙDThat a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to each of the bereaved families, a copy to be spread on the minutes of our next meeting, and a copy sent to our official organ for publication.
Clark E. Ogden, Frank M. Baker,
Ray Wrick,
ÙCiÙD Committee
ÙC/iÙD The Railroad Telegrapher , Page 1012
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The Railroad Telegrapher, Order of Railroad Telegraphers (U.S.)
Vol 26, No. 5, May 1909
At a metting on March 28 (1908) in Red Men's Hall. On Merchant street, Fairmont, W. Va. (Ray Wrick was not present)
Bro. C. E. Ogden, at "D" Clarksburg, was off two days account of his wife being sick. Was relieved by bro. Wrick.
Bro. Smith, second trick at "D" Clarksburg was off one night, relieved by Bro. Cain, second trick from W. Va. & P. Jct. Bro. Cain was relieved by bro. Wrick.
There was a little mistake in the appointments. Bro. Nestor was appointed at W. Va. & P. Jct. instead of Bryon. Brother Nester was off a couple of days, relieved by bro. Wrick.
The Railroad Telegrapher , Page 801 =====================
The Typographical journal: Volume 79 the Union 1931
Raymond Wrick, chairman of the scale committee, tendered his resignation and C S Calahan was appointed in his place
Page 76
Executive committee and Membership committee: R. L. Wrick
Page 607
Raymond L. Wrick, Popular linotype operator in the employ of the Post, was killed almost instantly while en route to his home in Morgan Park Sunday morning, November 8, while driving his car. Wrick, alone in the car at the time of the crash, is believed to have lost control of the machine because of a sudden fainting spell or because of a sudden pain in his leg, which was badly injured in the war. His body was crushed and his skull was fractured. He was given a full military funeral, with burial in the National Cemetery in Grafton, W. Va.
Burland DeBolt
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