From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, page 365.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


W. W. McCONNELL

W. W. McConnell, of Wheeling, proprietor of the largest slack 
cooperage manufactory in West Virginia, was born at that city, 
September 14, 1844.  He is the son of a prominent early citizen of 
Wheeling, Richard McConnell, who was born at Wellsburg, in 1815, the 
son of Richard McConnell, a native of Ireland, who was one of the 
pioneers of the valley.  The junior Richard McConnell came to 
Wheeling when about fifteen years of age, and carried on the 
coopering business for a considerable period.  He afterward resided 
three years at Martinsville, and in 1860 removed to Indiana, whence 
after three years he returned to Wheeling, where he was in business 
as a cooper until his death, in 1887.  His wife, Elizabeth Holmes, 
was born in eastern Virginia, and died in 1869.  Of the eleven 
children born to them, four survive.  W. W. McConnell learned the 
business with his father, and in 1863 he opened a shop on Market 
street, which in 1866, he turned over to his father.  He then opened 
a new shop on Zane street, and conducted it until 1870, when he 
embarked in the retail grocery trade in East Wheeling.  Returning to 
his former business four years later, he became a partner with his 
father in the manufacture of packages for the glass houses, the first 
enterprise of the kind in the city.  Not long afterward the 
partnership was dissolved, but in 1880, Mr. McConnell purchased his 
father's business, which has since increased year by year, until he 
now has the largest slack cooperage establishment in the state.  The 
large works at the corner of Thirty-fifth and McColloch streets were 
erected in 1886, and an addition in 1889, and in the fall of 1888, he 
added the coal business to his other enterprise.  Twenty-five to 
forty men are employed in the works.  Mr. McConnell is a stockholder 
in the Hobbs Glass works.  His religious and fraternal memberships 
are with the Zane Street Methodist church, the I.O.O.F., and the 
A.O.U.W.  In 1869 he was married to Margaret, daughter of John 
Kinghorn, of Wheeling, and she died in 1876, her four children having 
also died.  In 1879 he was married to Mary E., daughter of Benjamin 
Dillon.  She died in 1881, leaving one daughter, and he was united in 
1883, to West Virginia Dillon, by whom he has two children living.        


(Linda Fluharty)