U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Shawkey, Morris Purdy (b. 1868) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: West Virginia and Its People by Thomas Condit Miller and Hu Maxwell Lewis Historical Publishing Co 1913 Volume II, Page 66 Hon. Morris Purdy Shawkey, son of George and Annie Elizabeth (Witherspoon) Shawkey, was born February 17, 1868, at Sigel, Pennsylvania. His early education was gained at the country schools of the neighborhood, he going from these to Bellevue Academy. The next step was Oberlin College, leaving which he matriculated at the Ohio Western University, and received the baccalaureate degree in 1894. In 1909 he received the degree of Master of Arts, which was conferred by the same institution. Upon leaving college he taught school for a time in Pennsylvania and Kansas, and served for a year in Reynolds, North Dakota, as superintendent of schools, gathering in all these places a fund of information in educational matters and methods that later was to prove of great value to him. Some of this harvest of ideas he was able to put into practical use when he became head of the normal department of the Wesleyan College, at Buckhannon, West Virginia. He came to Charleston in 1897, and for eight years he acted as chief clerk of the department of schools. A wide and critical knowledge of literature, and an intimate and practical acquaintance with the needs of schools have enabled Mr. Shawkey to do valuable work in the revision of text books. He early began this work, being hardly out of college when he introduced important alterations in the school books he used. When Rand, McNally & Company, map publishers and engravers, of Chicago and New York, issued the revised edition of their grammar school geography, Mr. Shawkey was asked to write the West Virginia supplement. In 1902 he was elected to the state legislature, and during his term in that body was chairman of the committee on education. In 1906 he was elected county superintendent of schools of Kanawha county, West Virginia. Two years after this, in 1908, he was made state superintendent of schools, which responsible position he still holds (1912). While Mr. Shawkey's energies have been largely given to educational work, he has also taken part in some business enterprises of note. In 1906 he found the Kanawha Savings & Loan Association, and has been a d1rector and is still a stockholder in the same. He started in 1907, the West Virqinia Educator, and has been the managing editor ever since. In his political affiliations Mr. Shawkey is a Republican; and he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He married in 1902, Elizabeth L. Carver, born in 1874, near Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, daughter of John Carver, one of the leading coal operators of West Virginia. Mr. Carver died in Charleston, March 1, 1912, but Mrs. Carver died when her daughter was still a very young child. Mr. and Mrs. Shawkey have three children: Morris Carver, born March 8, 1904; John Witherspoon, born December 5, 1907; Leonard Asbury, born May 7, 1909. --------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: West Virginia Legislative Hand Book and Manual and Official Register Compiled and Edited by John T. Harris, Clerk of the Senate The Tribune Printing Co., Charleston, W.Va. 1916 Pages 763-764 Superintendent of Free Schools. MORRIS PURDY SHAWKEY (Republican) State Superintendent of Free Schools of West Virginia, was born at Sigel, Pennsylvania, in 1868. He is one of the numerous sons of the old Keystone State who have gone to other fields to do a worthy work. In many senses Mr. Shawkey may be regarded as a typical American citizen. His father was a sturdy and energetic Teuton, born not far from the banks of the Rhine, in 1830. His mother was of Scotch-Irish blood and a descendant of the family of John Witherspoon, who was in Revolutionary times President of Princeton University and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. After his graduation from the Ohio Wesleyan University Mr. Shawkey taught school for a time in Kansas and Pennsylvania and served one year as superintendent of schools at Reynolds, North Dakota, gathering in all these places a valuable fund of information and experience in school affairs. He came to West Virginia in 1895, and since that time has been closely identified with the educational interests of this state. He became a member of the faculty of the West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buckhannon, leaving there in 1897 to accept the position of chief clerk in the State Department of Schools. In 1906 he was elected county superintendent of schools of Kanawha county and two years later was elected state superintendent. The most recent honor to come to him was his election to the presidency of the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association for the 1916 meeting at Detroit. In 1903 Mr. Shawkey served a term in the State legislature where, aa chairman of the Committee on Education, he played an important part in working out a revision of the School Law, which marked an epoch in the educational history of West Virginia. The new laws included the uniform examination law, the compulsory attendance law, the free text book law, and the institute attendance law. Mr. Shawkey's administration as State Superintendent has been marked by a systematic campaign for the betterment of the rural schools of the state. His ability as a leader and organizer and his untiring energy have won for West Virginia an enviable reputation as the most progressive state in the south in educational methods. West Virginia's "Social Center" plan has attracted wide attention and is being used as a model in many other states. The growth of high schools, the thousands of volumes added to the school libraries, and the improved sanitary conditions are some of the substantial evidences of school progress in the state, and explain why Mr. Shawkey is known in West Virginia as the "human dynamo." In connection with his official services he has also found time to do some editorial and literary work. Superintendent Shawkey is the author of a geography of West Virginia which has had a very wide use in the State and is also author of a history of West Virginia in pamphlet form. He is one of the editors of the West Virginia School Journal and Educator, a journal which has been active and influential in the up-building of school sentiment in West Virginia. While not lacking in appreciation of the purely cultural arts, Mr. Shawkey is by nature of a practical turn of mind, and is essentially an organizer and builder. Every turn of his life has something to show for the work he has done. At Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, he founded and built up the college lecture course which is still flourishing. He was also one of two men to take the responsibility for the first summer school in that institution. As State Superintendent Mr. Shawkey originated and built up the custom of observance of Clean-up and Beautify Day, the State Honor Roll, which has added thousands of days in the aggregate to the attendance of pupils, the present system of state high schools, the present plan of rural supervision by the state, the summer school for colored teachers, and other features of the present progressive educational system. As a member of the State Board of Regents he has been instrumental in building up the more efficient courses of work in both the normal schools and the university and in many other features of the state educational work his hand may be seen as the hand of a public builder of enterprises. It is safe to say that he may be depended upon to do his part in building West Virginia toward the high level of her manifest destiny industrially, socially and educationally. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Men of West Virginia, Volume II Biographical Publishing Company George Richmond, Pres.: C. R. Arnold, Sec'y and Treas. Chicago, Illinois, 1903 Pages 436-438 HON. M. P. SHAWKEY. one of the best known educators in West Virginia, for six years chief clerk in the department of schools, and an author of a number of valuable textbooks, was born at Sigel, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, February 17, 1868. He is a son of George and Annie Elizabeth (Witherspoon) Shawkey, who were pioneers in Western Pennsylvania. The father of Mr. Shawkey was born near Bremen, (Germany, and migrated to Pennsylvania with his parents, in childhood. His mother, who belonged to a Scotch-Irish colonial family, was a daughter of John Witherspoon, who was a grandson of John Witherspoon, the signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey. Her mother belonged to the Siverly family, prominent people in Philadelphia and throughout Western Pennsylvania. Thus, it will be seen, Mr. Shawkey began life with favorable environments. His natural talents were developed in the public schools of his native State, at Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio, and the Ohio Wesleyan University at Deleware, Ohio. He was a leader in college sports, graduated with honors in the class of 1894, and was president of his class. Prior to this he had done a little clerical work in a store and took one year out of his college course to accept a position as assistant superintendent of schools in Pennsylvania. His graduation was followed by one year's service as superintendent of schools at Reynolds, North Dakota, and he was honored by an election to a position on the faculty of Montana University and on that of the West Virginia Conference Seminary, resulting in his acceptance of the latter position. There he remained two years and was most highly esteemed by both students and his associates of the faculty. In 1897 Mr. Shawkey moved to Charleston with State Superintendent J. R. Trotter, a close personal friend, and for six years served as chief clerk in the department of schools and as manager of the West Virginia School Journal. He is the author of the West Virginia supplement to Rand, McNally & Company's "Grammar School Geography." In 1903 he was chairman of the committee of education in the House of Delegates and became active not only on account of his work on school legislation but on other lines. He is the author of the compulsory education law and others, and is a member of the committee on railroads. Mr. Shawkey was the leading candidate for the speakership and was defeated at last only by a combination of the entire field, seven aspirants and their followers, working against him. For three years he has been president of the Central Coal & Lumber Company and is largely interested in other business enterprises. On January 22, 1902, he married Elizabeth Locke Carver, a daughter of John Carver, one of the most progressive and successful business men in the Kanawha Valley, the senior member of the firm of Carver Brothers, among the pioneer coal men of the Valley, and the largest shippers in that section of the State. Mr. and Mrs. Shawkey reside in their pleasant home on Upper Virginia street, Charleston, overlooking the Great Kanawha River. Religiously, Mr. Shawkey is connected with the Methodist Church. Fraternally, he belongs to the college society, Phi Delta Theta. Mr. Shawkey has great confidence in the future of West Virginia and is a zealous worker for the best interests of the State. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional Information: --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARRIAGE REGISTER, Kanawha County, WV, 1902, Page 100, Line 31 Morris Purdy Shawkey (age 33) and Elizabeth Carver (age 25) were married January 22, 1902 in Charleston (wife of M. P. Shawkey) DEATH CERTIFICATE, Cabell County WV #108 Full-name: Elizabeth Carver Shawkey Birth: January 8, 1877 in Wilkesberry Pa Death: January 6, 1933 in Huntington, Cabell County WV Marital-status: Married, M. P. Shawkey Father: John Carver, born in Summerset, England Mother: --- Jones, born in PA Informant: Morris Shawkey Burial: Brookville, Pa. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1880 Census, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania The Township of Eldrech, ED:190, Page No. 15 Lines 2-9, Enum-Dwelling #115, Enum-Family #117 SHAWKEY, George, 46, Farmer, Darmstadt-Darmstadt-Darmstadt ", Elizabeth A, 41, Wife, Keeping house, PA-PA-KY ", Loman W, 21, Son, at-home, PA-Darmstadt-PA ", John W, 19, Son, at-home, PA-Darmstadt-PA ", Frank A, 15, Son, at-home, PA-Darmstadt-PA ", Morrice, 12, Son, at-home, PA-Darmstadt-PA ", Arthur, 9, Son, at-home, PA-Darmstadt-PA ", Oscar E, 4, Son, PA-Darmstadt-PA 1910 Census, Kanawha County, WV Ludon District, Charleston City, ED:58, Sheet 8A Lines 34-39, Enum-Dwelling #123, Enum-Family #125 SHAWKEY, Morris P (head), 38, m1-8yrs, PA-Ger-PA, Superintendant, School ", Elisabeth (wife), 34, 3-children/3-living, PA-Eng-Eng ", Morris C (son), 6, WV-PA-PA ", John W (son), 2, WV-PA-PA ", Lennard A (son), 11/12, WV-PA-PA RIGHT, Mimie M (servant), 30, WV-Va-Va 1920 Census, Kanawha County, WV City of Charleston, Precinct 29, ED:114, Sheet 8A Lines 2-8, Enum-Dwelling #152, Enum-Family #164 SHAWKEY, M. P. (head), 51, PA-PA-PA, Supt Schools, State ", Elizabeth (wife) 45, PA-PA-PA ", M. P, Jr (son) 15, WV-PA-PA ", John (son) 12, WV-PA-PA ", Leonard (son) 10, WV-PA-PA 1930 Census, Cabell County, WV Gideon District, Huntington City, ED:6-15, Sheet 23A Lines 32-36, 1636 5th Avenue SHAWKEY, Morris P (head) 62, m-at-age-34, PA-Ger-US, President, College ", Elizabeth (wife), 50, m-at-age-28, PA-Eng-Wales ", Morris C (son), 26, WV-PA-PA ", John W (son), 22, WV-PA-PA ", Leonard A (son), 20, WV-PA-PA --------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Cabell County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/cabell/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------