People named Harvey Peal

The Charleston Gazette Thursday, July 8. 1948 Man Providing Poles Describes First Electric Lights of City By William H. Maginnis The only man living who had part in furnishing poles for electric lights in Charleston when they were first installed in 1887 is H. J. Peal of Ruth, the little village in Washington district on RFD 7 out of South Charleston. Otto H. Michaelson is credited with being Charleston's first citizen to be convinced that a central electric light plant would add much to the city's institutions. It was Philip Frankenberger, however, who financed the project, according to R. G. Skinner, manager of the residential sales department of the Appalachian Electric Power Co, who said the town council in October, 1886 granted Michaelson and Frankenberger permission to furnish Charleston with lights and to supply electric illumination to residents and business establishments. Generator Erected -- The Kanawha Electric Light Co, he said, erected on Alderson St, a 100 kilowatt generator belted to a steam engine. Electric service was available only during the dark hours before midnight. By 1888 the company was supplying electric, service to 150 customers. Service was supplied on a flat rate basis and all bills were payable at Frankenberger's store, which was then on Kanawha St. "J. A. Wells, James Peal, my cousin, and I," said H. J. Peal a few days ago, "contracted with O, H. Michaelson to cut and deliver the poles at the wharf at Charleston. "We cut them on Rush creek one mile below Marmet, brought them to the river and floated them to town. "I remember that Wells and I shoved off a raft of 50 one morning at 4 a. m. The river was very high and when we hit the current it threw us across the river against a rock bar. We found a boat and shoved off. Poles Scattered In River-- "Near the site of the present state capital, we met the big Kanawha packetboat running from Pittsburgh, Pa., and when it had passed there were no two poles still together. But we did not lose a pole. There were 150, 30-foot poles and one 40-foot pole, called the main pole. We were invited by Michaelson to be around his music store at 7 p. m. and were present when the first lights came on on Kanawha St, now the boulevard. Mr. Peal said he worked later in coal mines for 37 years, and in that period weighed many thousands of tons of coal for the Marmet Coal Co. "I helped to organize the mines at Hernshaw," he said, "and had charge of supplies in a strike about 1902." Later he was engaged in painting and construction work. He was hoeing his garden when interviewed. Mr. Peal has been married 52 years. His wife, the former Miss Mary Susan Wells, is a niece of J. A. Wells, one of the three who supplied the poles for Charleston's first lights. Mr. and Mrs. Peal have four daughters and two sons. One son, Russell, is a Nazarene preacher at St. Albans.

Harvey Peal was the son of Joseph Andrew Peal and Martha Wilson. He was born in Roanoke, Virginia about 1842 and later located to Kanawha County Virginia (now West Virginia) sometime between 1850 and 1860. At the age of 19, Harvey enlisted in the 22nd Virginia Infantry Regiment of the Confederate Army on June 2, 1861. He was later transferred along with his brother George A. Peal, to Company K, 59th Virginia Infantry Regiment on 25 July 1861. While serving in K Company, 59th Virginia Infantry Harvey was captured and was held as a POW at Fort Delaware. He died there after he was shot and killed by a negro guard. My great grandfather, Harvey Jennings Peal, was named after him. Excerpts From Swann's "Prison Life At Fort Delaware" Edited by Elizabeth Cometti Volume 2, Number 2 (January 1941), pp. 120-141 and Number 3(April 1941), pp. 217-230 PRISONERS COOKING I got the pan, went where they were cooking and found several hundred prisoners, many of them cooking. They had made little holes in the ground, or set up bricks, over which they set their pots and pans. The cut pieces of plank, shingles etc. into shavings with which they kept up a blaze and I was surprised to see how much cooking was done in this way with a very small piece of plank. Some of them were making a sort of soup, by boiling their bread as I had come to do, some who had money or tobacco were making coffee or tea, frying fish, beef etc. or boiling vegetables, some were waiting like myself to get a chance to boil their bread. Some were standing by looking on,tantalized no doubt, but I never knew a prisoner to beg of another, while the great body of them, over 3,000 were in their quarters. I boiled my bread but found it only temporarily allaid(sic) the cravings of hunger. So after a few trials I stopped(sic) it. I will remark that many who had money often gave their rations to others, as well as their old clothes which was a great help to them. I one day enquired of my lieutenants for --Peal from Rush Creek Kanawha, a brave soldier who was captured with them. They said he was shot on the wharf, I forget where, by a negro soldier. That when the prisoners were landed he went aside a step or too (sic), suffering very much with dysentary (sic),that the guard, a negro, ordered him back into the line, but not rising up promptly he was shot and fell over dead. I said poor Peal was a brave soldier. He has left a widowed mother, his brother George was killed at the battle at the White Sulpher(sic). He was the only man, when a volunteer was called for,that would go for a box of cartridges through the storm of bullets. He was returning with a box of cartridges, and in sight of our lines, when he fell and no one dared go to him. I will remark I happened not long since to be talking about the way the Col: was killed, as above stated, and some one in the company said, "I know that man, his name is ---?---- and he lives in a town in Ohio and every body shuns him."