Alexander Zeck (1852-1934)
Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Monongalia, Marion and Taylor Counties, West Virginia
Rush, West & Company, Publishers; Philadelphia, PA.; 1895
pages 29-30 (in the Taylor County section)
ALEXANDER ZECK, of Grafton, who is one of the leading insurance men and pioneer steam fitters of northern West Virginia, and who is one of the conspicuous self-made men of the State, is a son of Michael and Eva E. (Marbourgh) Zeck, and was born at the world-famed Johnstown, of Cambria county, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1852. He is of German descent, and his mother dying when he was but three years of age he was taken and reared by his maternal grandfather, Frederick Marbourgh, who was a member of one of the oldest and most substantial mercantile firms of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Alexander Zeck attended the public schools of Johnstown until he was fifteen years of age, and then left that industrial city, whose name became world-wide in the tragic story of its great flood, whose horrors have been scarcely equaled in all the ages of human history. He left school in 1867 to enter the employ of the Allegheny Valley railroad company, and two years later, at the early age of seventeen years, was given charge of a passenger engine on the road between Pittsburg and Oil City, Pennsylvania. He soon became proficient and able as an engineer, and had charge of engines over different roads for six years. At the end of that time, in 1875, he retired from railway service, although in the line of promised promotion for ability and efficiency, and embarked in the book and stationery business at Grafton, in which he continued successfully up to 1887. In that year he and C. H. White formed a partnership under the firm-title of A. Zeck and company, and engaged in the wholesale confectionery business, which they conducted for a period of two years. In the meantime Mr. Zeck had become interested in the efforts being made to manufacture artificial ice at home, and in 1889 succeeded in organizing an ice company under the title of Tygart's Valley Ice company, which erected the Grafton ice factory. Mr. Zeck remained in this company one year, which under his management declared a dividend of twenty per cent. on five months' work, when it was succeeded by R. W. Kennedy and company. He then, in 1890, engaged in the present prosperous business of contracting on steam heating and power plants and general steam engineering. He makes specialties of steam fitting and fixtures and ventilating, and has built up a remarkably fine business in a field of work that is fast becoming popular in a country whose growth and progress absolutely demand it. He has fitted up many of the finest residences of this section with steam heating apparatus, and is now engaged in putting in steam fixtures in the State Reform school building at Pruntytown, which contains thirty-five hundred feet of radiating surface in its pipes and heaters, and the West Virginia Conference seminary buildings, which require about six thousand feet of radiation. In 1880 Mr. Zeck embarked in the fire, life and accident insurance business, and now controls ninety per cent of all the insurance patronage of Taylor county. He represents a number of the oldest and most reliable companies of this country and Great Britain, among which are the Aetna, Providence, Washington, Franklin, Bowery and Marine of the United States, and the Royal and Lancashire of England.
On December 12, 1877, Mr. Zeck was united in marriage with Lelia M. Ware, a daughter of Robert M. Ware, of Grafton. They have two children: Fred Van and Hazel Pansey.
In politics Mr. Zeck is a staunch republican. He served several terms as school commissioner of Grafton and Fetterman districts, and in 1893 was a member of the republican convention that met at Elkins and nominated Hon. A. G. Dayton, the present congressman for the Second Congressional district, against Hon. William L. Wilson, the author of the Wilson bill and the present postmaster-general of the United States. He is a member of St. Paul's Lutheran church, in which he has been an elder and treasurer for the past fifteen years, and is treasurer of the West Virginia State Sunday School association. He is prominent in the Pythian brotherhood and the Masonic fraternity, being a member of Friendship Lodge, Knights of Pythias; Grafton Lodge, No. 15, Free and Accepted Masons, and Copestone Chapter, Royal Arch Masons.
Alexander Zeck in his active and useful career has well and abundantly exemplified the characteristics of a good citizen, a true friend and a practical business man, and has been the architect of his own fortune in the truest sense of that term.
Additional Information:
Monongalia, WV - Death Certificate# 11011
Alexander Zeck - died 15 Aug 1934 in Morgantown, Monongalia, WV
Family Group Report / Census for Alexander Zeck & Lelia M. Ware