From "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and 
Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902. 

Typed by Laurie Birks Dean

pp. 445-446

Johnson Camden McKINLEY, one of the most successful and prominent 
young business men of Wheeling, West Virginia, is of Scotch-English 
extraction.  He is a native of Parkersburg, West Virginia, and is a 
son of John Stringer and Amanda (Camden) McKinley, both of whom were 
natives of Virginia.  J. S. McKinley went west to Kansas when J. C. 
was a small boy, in search of a more healthful climate.  He entered 
the grain business in the West, and was for many years a successful 
dealer.  He was a Democrat in politics, was active in political 
affairs and filled various Kansas offices, prior to his death in 
1898.  He was a grandson of Capt. John McKinley, to whom the original 
site of Wheeling, - 283 acres, near the mouth of Wheeling Creek, - 
was granted by patent by the state of Virginia, as the bounty lands 
of a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War.  The family are connected 
with the McKinley clan of Scotland.
	The mother of Johnson Camden McKinley is a direct descendant of 
the English Camdens and is a sister of Hon. Johnson N. Camden, who 
was United States senator from West Virginia.  She resides in 
Wheeling, at No. 84 Fourteenth street, with her son, J. C., and two 
of his sisters, - having reared four children.  These daughters, 
Caroline and Matilda, are Daughters of the American Revolution, while 
their brother is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.  
One daughter, Virginia, married Daniel Belford, and lives at Andover, 
Kansas.  The family are all members of the St. Matthew's Protestant 
Episcopal church.
	While still young Mr. McKinley accompanied his parents to 
Southern Kansas, where he grew to manhood and remained until 1893.  
Returning to the East, he found employment on the Monongahela River 
Railroad, a coal road, operating the Monongah Coal & Coke Company.  
Later he was made general agent and paymaster on the same road, and 
was employed by that company for five years.  He severed his 
connection with the company in 1898, to enter the coal business for 
himself, having obtained at that time the sole agency, both wholesale 
and retail, of the Monongah and Fairmont coal companies for Wheeling 
and vicinity.
	In the summer of the same year he assisted in organizing the 
Highland Coal & Coke Company, which was very prosperous and was later 
absorbed by the Fairmont Coal Company.  In December, 1899, he 
organized the Alexander Coal Company, operating also in the Fairmont 
district and absorbed by the Fairmont Coal Company, January 1, 1901.  
In October, 1900, Mr. McKinley organized the Wheeling Steam Coal 
Company, which operates successfully on the Terminal Railroad of the 
Pennsylvania line in Ohio county.  This company is operating very 
successfully near the corporation line of Wheeling, and employs about 
100 men.  Mr. McKinley is president and manager of this company at 
the present time.
	Quite recently Mr. McKinley organized the Crystal Manufactured 
Ice Company of Wheeling, which was incorporated September 20, 1901.  
This company purchased the large ice business of A. M. Hamilton.  The 
main office is located at Twenty-seventy and Main streets, with a 
branch office and ample stables at Twenty-nineth and Woods streets.  
The company gives promise of doing an immense business and its 
success is looked upon as a certainty.  Mr. McKinley personally takes 
entire charge of all his varied interests in both the coal and ice 
business.  Like his father he follows the leadership of the 
Democratic party.  As his career shows, he is a thorough business 
man, awake to present opportunities, and with the unusual degree of 
push and energy that invariably insure success.