PIONEER COAL BARON - JOHN COOPER HOUSE
John Cooper's home is located in Coopers, WV. HISTORIC JOHN COOPER HOUSE IN YEAR 2020 This Historic John Cooper House is located at 853 Coopers Street in the Coopers area that is now incorporated as a part of The Town Bramwell. The house has been renovated in recent years. |
Coal Baron John Cooper |
John Cooper's Wife, Marie Padbury Cooper (1844 -1920 ) |
From Martha Jane Becker's book: Bramwell - The Diary of a Millionaire Coal Town"... What John Cooper started in 1884, those who followed him into the Cooper-Bramwell-Freeman triangle helped develop into one of the most unusual of all coal fields towns. He was born in South Staffordshire, England on November 14, 1842. His parents were too poor to send him to school, so at the age of six years he was taken by his father to start his life in the mines. He continue to study on his own and worked in the mines to gain experience and strength, so by the time he came to the United States in 1862 he had held about every position in the mines, except that of mine foreman. He came to the United States at the age of nineteen. He stayed in Pennsyvlainia until 1873 when he moved to Fayette County, WV. John Cooper married Maria Padbury (1844-1920). They were married on December 17, 1866 in the Church of St. Edmund Dudley, Staffordshire Co., England. He brought his wife to the United States in 1867. They arrived in Port of New York on January 16, 1867. The ship was the Edinburg. They had nine children. In 1884 John Cooper arrived in Mercer County and made his first lease with then the Bluestone Land Company. Mr. Cooper made a fortune in the coal mines of southern West Virginia and it is said that he left a honored name in the history of West Virginia. According to the great grandson of John Cooper he died on 6 December 1899. Ms. Becker's book on Bramwell's history futher details the life of this Bramwell legend and gives John Cooper's death date only as 1898. John Cooper's mine in Cooper section of Bramwell shipped his first coal from W. Virginia's valuable Pocahontas Coalfield over N&W Rail Road on Nov. 4, 1884. The Coaldale, Caswell Creek & Booth-Bowen mines were operated by Cooper, Jones, Freeman, Booth & Bowen. These were pioneer mines in the field. The Flat Top Coal Land Assocociation which later was named the Pocahontas Coal & Coke became the coalfield's largest landholder in the area.
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