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C. FERGUSON, who is prominently identified with the important business interests of eastern Ohio and West Virginia and acknowledged to be the largest individual oil operator in all this territory, maintains his business offices in the National Exchange Building, at Steubenville, O., but continues to reside at Holliday's Cove, W. Va., near which place he was born in 1852. His father, James Ferguson, spent his entire life there, dying in 1857. The early life of C. Ferguson was passed on a farm and later he went into the meat business at Wellsburg and from there moved to McDonald, where, in 1891, he first became interested in the oil industry, in which he has been so large a factor for many years. From successful operating at McDonald and Scio, he turned his attention to the promising territory at Holliday's Cove and opened up the rich field there and then became interested in the Follansbee field and subsequently became the owner of the latter. At the present time of writing (1910) he has 125 producing wells at Holliday's Cove and fifteen pulled out, and in other territory forty-six producing wells and four pulled out, making him the most extensive operator in this section of the country. He has large additional interests, including the Verner Coal Company, the Suspension Bridge across the Ohio River, the Tri-State Traction Company and a directorate in the First National Bank at McDonald. In 1875 Mr. Ferguson was married to Miss Mary Smith, a daughter of Alexander Smith, of Eldersville, and they have six children, three sons and three daughters: Edwin A., who is a civil engineer, located at San Francisco; Nan, who married Boyce Rankin, who is in business at Corpus Christi, Tex.; Everett, who is interested in his father's enterprise; W.D. and Mary, who reside at home; and Frances, who is the wife of James Bowers. Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson and daughter Mary have but recently returned from an extended visit to Europe and the Orient. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Consistory and Shrine at Pittsburgh and to the Blue Lodge at McDonald, of which he was an officer for some years.  Return to Family Tales
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