From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, page 282.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


WILLIAM S. FARIS

William S. Faris is a son of William M. Faris, whose father, William 
Faris, is mentioned in the preceding sketch of Capt. Joseph A. Faris.  
The wife of William M. Faris was Betsy Cowen, daughter of the late 
Judge Benjamin S. Cowen, of St. Clairsville, a well-known congressman 
of Ohio.  William S. was born in the city of Wheeling, W. Va., May 
8,1856, and received his educational training in the public and 
private schools of Bellaire and St. Clairsville. He learned the 
printer's trade in the office of the BELMONT CHRONICLE, St. 
Clairsville, and while there started, with two other boys, a small 
juvenile sheet, only few copies of which were regularly issued.  He 
went to Bellaire in 1872, and did the local work for Miss Mary 
Hoover's BELLAIRE CITY COMMERCIAL, till 1874, and in that year made a 
tour of West Virginia as correspondent for the Wheeling Register.  In 
the next two years, read law with Reese & Gallaher, at Bellaire, 
continuing literary and newspaper work in the meantime.  In 
partnership with W. C. Warnock, now editor of the Bellaire Democrat, 
he ran a small literary paper called Bric-a-Brac, long before 
Scribners introduced their magazine department of that name and 
style.  In 1876 and '77 he taught school at Jacobsburg, Ohio, and in 
1877-78, was principal of the Fifth ward schools, during a part of 
which time he started and issued a weekly paper, the BELLAIRE 
PHONOGRAPH.  In January, 1879, he accepted the position of night 
editor on the WHEELING REGISTER, and remained there till April, 1880, 
when he accepted a position on the INTELLIGENCER, and was city editor 
of that paper till August, 1889, when, with the Tucker Brothers, he 
established the WHEELING GRAPHIC.  December 1, the firm of Tucker, 
Faris & Tucker, dissolved, and Mr. Faris accepted the position of 
associate editor of the Ohio Valley MANUFACTURER, but on April 13, 
1890, returned to his old position as city editor of the 
lNTELLIGENCER. In 1877 he was married to Miss Maggie E. Powell, of 
Bellaire, a union blessed with the birth of three children. 


(Linda Fluharty)