U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Conaway, Waitman H. (1871-1929) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Bench and Bar of West Virginia Author: Geo. Wesley Atkinson, LL.B., LL.D. Virginian Law Book Company, Charleston, W.Va., 1919 Pages 478-480 Waitman H. Conaway Mr. Conaway, son of William S. and Mary A. (Arnett) Conaway, was born at Barracksville, Marion County, West Virginia, March 5, 1871, and was educated in the public schools of that section. He learned the trade of a brickmason in which he became proficient, and when he reached his majority he decided to become a lawyer. Indeed, for several years, while working at his trade, he devoted all of his spare time to the study of legal textbooks, in which he had already become quite proficient. He, therefore, through the school of experience and hard knocks made his own way and has reached more than an average standing in the greatest of all the learned professions. By years of diligent self-culture and hard work he has built up a large and profitable clientage, which is steadily increasing and becoming more and more profitable as the years go by. He is a broad, thorough, conscientious lawyer, devoted to his profession, in which he is now taking a leading part. For many years he was the junior member of the law firm of Arnctt & Conaway, of Fairmont, West Virginia, he having been admitted to practice in July, 1805. They represented the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company in Marion and Wetzel Counties, and the various branches of the Standard Oil Company throughout West Virginia. He is a superior trial lawyer, and has appeared as counsel in perhaps half of the Circuit Courts of West Virginia, the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State, and the Supreme Court of the United States. For several years he had a large number of important cases in the United States Court of Claims at Washington, D. C., against the United States, known as the Mississippi River Overflow Cases in the Southern States, and also damage suits against the Government for the construction of dams in the Monongahela River. Very few, if any, lawyers of his age, have appeared in as large a number of courts as he. He was never a candidate for a public office of any sort, and never held an office of any kind. His great grandfather, John Span Conaway, and Rachel Willison, his wife, located on Buffalo Creek, Marion County, Virginia, in 1780, after the Revolutionary War, in which he was a Captain and connected with the Judge Advocate's Department, coming here from Somerset County, Maryland. He is buried on what is believed to be the Old Homestead, a photograph of which may be found in a County History entitled "Marion County in the Making," compiled and edited by the members of the James O. Watson, Jr., High School Class. His grandfather, William Willison Conaway, lived and died on this farm. His wife (Waitman's grandmother), Rhoda Hendrix Conaway, and Waitman's father, William Sanford Conaway, and mother, Mary Arnett Conaway, are buried in the Barracksville Cemetery. His father was a member of the 6th W. Va. Volunteers in the Union Army. His grandmother being married the second time, was a widow pensioner of a soldier of the war of 1812, whose name was James Everly. Since 1789 his family has never lived outside of Fairmont Magisterial District, except Alpheus Conaway, a brother of his father, who moved up on Whetstone, near Mannington, in Mannington District, Marion County. He is very proud of his ancestry, family record and loyalty to his native country. Some one of the family has been in every war since 1776. He married Miss Mary Willa Cuvender. December 26, 189S, and has one son, Harrison, fifteen years of age. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional Information: --------------------------------------------------------------------- from death certificate: Place of death: Fairmont, Marion County, WV Date of death: November 26, 1929 at age 58yrs, 8mos, 21dys Cause of death: Myocarditis Residence at time of death: 109 Virginia Avenue, Fairmont WV Place of burial: Barrackville Cemetery ---------------------------------------------------------------------