From HISTORY OF THE PAN-HANDLE, West Virginia, 1879, by J. H. Newton, 
G. G. Nichols, and A. G. Sprankle. Page 263  

Contributed by Linda Cunningham Fluharty.


SAMUEL LAUGHLIN, senior partner in the firm of Laughlin, Bros. & Co., 1208 Main 
street, is third son of the late John Laughlin, a native of West Virginia, who 
was born in 1789. Samuel was born in Wheeling in 1834, and first entered the 
drug business with Dr. Geo. W. Blockson, at Zanesville, Ohio, with whom he 
remained five years. He then came to Wheeling and bought out the old business of 
Pryor, Paull & Co., having in partnership with him his brother, Alexander 
Laughlin, and the late Mr. S. B. Bushfield. They ran it together ten years, but 
at a dissolution in 1864, the firm style was changed to Laughlin Bros., & Co., 
who five years later moved their business from Market street to its present 
address, where they still conduct it. This was the pioneer drug house in West 
Virginia, and to-day is among the most important wholesale houses in the state, 
carrying a stock probably worth $60,000. Nor should we fail to remark, as an 
evidence of their enterprise, that they invested in the right of Dr. Todd's 
famous pills for a cash consideration of $25,000. Mr. S. Laughlin has served 
faithfully in our City Council, several terms - filled the capacity of treasurer 
to the Soldier's Aid Society during the late war, and is, and has been, for many 
years, vice-president of the Exchange Bank of Wheeling. He was married to Sydney 
P., second daughter of the late Samuel Ott, by whom he has a family of three 
children. Mr. Ott was the pioneer hardware merchant in Wheeling, founder of the 
present firm of Ott, Hall & Co.