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Tillison Forest Minard Mary 'Elizabeth' Mayle |
Tillison Forest Minard was born in 1893 in Barbour County, WV, the son of William and Elvira (Male) Minerd.
Tillison stood 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed 150 lbs., with black hair and grey eyes, and considered himself "colored" due to his mixed-race heritage. He resided in the Chestnut Ridge section of Philippi.
Tillison was a veteran of World War I, and a local miner, working as a coal “scraper” in 1910 and employed by the Humphreys Coal Company in 1918.
On June 2, 1919, when he was age 26, and she was 25, Tillison entered into marriage with a cousin, Mary "Elizabeth" Mayle (Feb. 12, 1894-1968), the daughter of Lewis and Martha (Male) Mayle, and the granddaughter of Hiram "Poke" and Margaret (Minard) Mayle.
The pair did not reproduce.
The federal census of 1920 shows the Minards making their home
on Chestnut Street in the city of Philippi. By 1930, they had moved to Brownton,
Barbour County, living along an "unimproved road."
In 1933, Elizabeth received property from R.J. and Ada Mayle in the Knotts District of Barbour County. Thirteen years later, in 1946, the Minards deeded to the United States government "the perpetual right to flood via the Tygard River Reservoir Dam" and clear six acres of this land for construction, operation and maintenance of the dam and reservoir.
Today, Tygart Lake State Park comprises 391 acres south of Grafton, with the lake itself spanning a length of 10 miles and 1,750 acres of water.
Tillison was required to register for the military draft during World War II. He disclosed that their home was in Brownton, Barbour County, and that he was employed by the Trussler Coal Company of Flemington.
The 1950 United States Census enumeration lists the pair in Philippi, with 57-year-old Tillison laboring as a farm hand.
At the age of 72, stricken with peritonitis, Elizabeth passed away on March 16, 1967. The remains were lowered under the sod of Welch Cemetery near Philippi.
Tillison outlived her by five years, and died at the age of 79 on Feb. 3, 1973 in the Broaddus Hospital. He was laid to rest in the Mayle Cemetery, following a funeral service led by Rev. Dr. J. Franklin Peoples of the Methodist Church on Chestnut Ridge.
Years later, when Rev. Peoples published his autobiography The Bright Side of the Mountain, he included Tillison's name in a list of "Funerals Preached in Barbour County" appearing in the back of the volume. During his 32-year tenure in Chestnut Ridge, from 1959 to 1991, Peoples recorded 320 deaths and preached at 168 funerals, including more than 35 of Tillison's extended Minerd-Minard-Miner-Minor family. Peoples also performed 550 marriages, 1,200 baptisms and 850 baby dedications in the community.
Copyright © 2004-2008, 2020, 2025 Mark A. Miner