William Cole Frailey, iron master, Ironton, Ohio, was born in Fredericktown, Maryland, on October 28th, 1829. His parents were Christian Frailey and Elizabeth Hopeman, the former of Pennsylvania and the latter of Missouri. His father was a Maryland planter but never owned slaves, being a Whig in politics.
Our subject is the youngest son in a family of twelve children — four living. The old-fashioned log schoolhouse was his college, and his very meager education was obtained amid the difficulties of former days when the scholars had to walk several miles to and from school. When he was ten years of age, he was placed in charge of the furnace store of John Brian, of the Catoctin Furnace, in his native county, in which capacity he served for two years. While thus engaged, he would, at odd times, run out to the furnace, which was nearby, and by degrees in this manner, picked up the moulder’s trade.
In 1841, he came to Ohio on foot and worked at his trade for a year at Bloom Furnace in Scioto County and Mount Vernon Furnace in Lawrence County. He received his pay in pig iron, traded it for a horse, and returned to his native county on horseback. There he remained for some four years, engaged in his trade during the working portions of the year and cutting wood in the winter seasons.
Coming West again on foot, he reconnoitered the State of Virginia and a portion of Ohio in search of a position that suited him and was finally brought up in Cincinnati, where he was for several summers engaged at his trade for Messrs. W. C. Davis & Co., returning to his native State in the winters. About one year of this time, however, he spent in school at Burlington, Lawrence County, Ohio, under the instruction of Ralph Leet, Esq. In the fall of 1849, he removed to Ironton and took charge of the molding shop of Messrs. Campbell, Ellison & Co., and remained with them in this capacity until their foundry was burned down in June 1877, making some twenty-eight years.
During all this time, he was superintendent of the molding department of their shops. In 1875, he purchased an interest in Etna Furnace at Rome, Carter County, Georgia, and is still a director in that enterprise. After the burning of the foundry, he was engaged for some six months in settling up the affairs of the firm. He then took charge of the Hanging Rock Foundry and there stayed for one year, at the same time having a stove store and grocery in Ironton,
He subsequently disposed of his grocery and is still carrying on the stove store and gives employment to several men in making the castings for his business. He has served as a member of the Ironton city council and is now a trustee of the waterworks. In 1851, he married Martha O’Neil of Lawrence County, Ohio, by which union had three children born — two having.
He married his second wife, Sallie H. Kern, of Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1876. She died on October 28th, 1879. Mr. Frailey is a most admirable specimen of a self-made man and has been one of his community’s most industrious and hard-working citizens. He has been a town resident from its beginning and is one of the oldest residents yet to remain.
He possesses fine business abilities and is remarkable for his energy and promptness in all business he undertakes. These characteristics have rendered him an influential and esteemed citizen of his adopted place. In politics, he is a Republican and, in his religious connection, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Ironton.
SOURCE: A biographical cyclopedia and portrait gallery of distinguished men: with a historical sketch of the state of Ohio
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