From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, pages 370-371.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


HARLAN P. McGREGOR

Harlan P. McGregor, one of the leading business men of Wheeling, 
manager of the wholesale and retail glass and china-ware house of 
Barnes & McGregor, was born in Ritchie county, W.Va., then Wood 
County, Va., January 17, 1845.  He is a son of William McGregor, a 
prominent early settler and land holder in West Virginia.  The latter 
was born at Philadelphia, in 1818, the son of John  McGregor, a 
native of Scotland, and a descendant of Rob Roy.  John McGregor was 
married in Scotland.  He was a prominent Mason in Scotland and Knight 
Templar.  William McGregor left his home at Philadelphia in 1838 or 
about that year, and removed to what was then Wood county, Va., and 
purchased 4,000 acres of good farming land at 17 cents per acre, the 
tract being a part of the Washington survey.  An old tax receipt 
given by the sheriff of Wood county, now in the possession of H. P. 
McGregor, accounts for taxes on a few articles  of personal property 
at $1.48, and on the entire tract of 4,000 acres of land at the total 
sum of 40 cents.  Now, the portion of the land on which William 
McGregor resides has a selling price of $100 per acre.  The senior 
McGregor was married to Elizabeth Hall, a lady of Virginia birth and 
English descent, and she is also living.  Their son, H. P. McGregor, 
passed his early days on the farm, and received a common school 
education, which was supplemented with a course at the Baltimore 
commercial college during the war period.  Toward the close of that 
struggle, in 1864, he served a few months in the West Virginia 
militia, and when the war was over, he opened a general store at 
Cairo, W.Va., which he conducted until 1870, when he was elected 
clerk of the board of supervisors of Ritchie county.  In the spring 
of 1872 he removed from Cairo to Wheeling, and took a position as 
traveling salesman for the wholesale queensware house of Barnes & 
Walton.  This place he held for eleven years, and meanwhile the firm 
was changed from Barnes & Walton to Thomas Walton & Co., the 
associate of Mr. Walton being the subject of this sketch.  Mr. 
McGregor was also the partner in the firm of James F. Barnes & Co., 
which succeeded the firm just named in 1877, and on February 29, 
1889, the firm of Barnes & McGregor succeeded to the business.  Mr. 
Barnes had died in 1888, and the estate of that gentleman and Mr. 
McGregor had conducted the business, with Mr. McGregor in charge, 
until the formation of the new firm.  Mr. McGregor is also a 
stockholder in the Peabody and Fire Marine Insurance companies.  He 
has also taken a worthy and prominent part in public affairs.  He was 
elected to the first branch of the city council in 1884 from the 
Seventh ward, and in 1886 was elected a member of the board of 
commissioners of Ohio county, from the Madison district, and re-
elected in 1888. He was one of the organizers of the Union building 
and loan association in April, 1889, and is secretary of the same.  
He was made a Master Mason in Mt. Olivet lodge, No. 3, Parkersburg, 
in 1886, and is now a member of Ohio lodge, No. 1, of Wheeling 
consistory, No. 1, S.R.M., and has been secretary of the same since 
its organization in 1886.  He and wife are members of the Mehodist 
Episcopal church.  Mr. McGregor was married in December, 1872, to 
Lucy Boggs, a daughter of James Baggs(?), deceased, who was for many 
years superintendent of the water works of Wheeling.     


(Linda Fluharty)