Lee Kersey Ward    

Lee Kersey Ward of the Ward Printing Company of Washington, general printers and dealers in books and stationery, and for years prominently identified with the general commercial and industrial interests of the city, has been connected with printing since the days of his youth and is widely known in that trade throughout this section of the state. He was born in Washington, July 26, 1881, a son of Howard Frank and Jennie C. (Mayes) Ward, the latter of whom is a daughter of Morgan and Sarah Jane (Wilson) Hayes, and Jane Wilson Hayes was a daughter of William J. Wilson, a veteran of the Mexican war, whose wife was a Sprowl of the pioneer Sprowl family of the Finley townships. Morgan Hayes, who was for many years engaged in the manufacture of carriages in Washington, lived to be eighty-five years of age. His death occurred in 1905 at his home on South Franklin street, Washington, and his widow survived him but one day, both succumbing to influenza. She was seventy-seven years of age at the time of her death.

Morgan Hayes was born in Hartford, Connecticut, March 13, 1820, and was there reared, becoming a competent carriage-maker. When twenty-one years of age, in 1840. he came to Washington and in partnership with his brother and an uncle, who were at that time conducting a hotel in the borough, established a carriage factory on a site in the rear of the courthouse. Later the plant was transferred to the old Presbyterian church building on South Franklin street and still later to a site on North Franklin street, where he continued in business for many years. Morgan Hayes was for years an elder in the Second Presbyterian church and also took an active part in local civic affairs, long one of the leaders of the democratic party in this county. The Hayeses of this line in America are an old colonial family, dating back to 1680 when the first of the name to come to this country became a member of the Connecticut colony. Morgan Hayes’ father, Alpheus Hayes, was at one time a member of the Connecticut legislature. Morgan Hayes and his wife were survived by five children and the family is numerously represented in this county and throughout western Pennsylvania.

The late Howard Frank Ward, veteran printer and merchant in Washington, founder of the Ward Printing Company, and concerning whom further mention is made elsewhere in this work, also was a native Pennsylvanian and lived in this state all his life, a resident of Washington for many years. He was born in West Chester, a son of Levi Bailey and Maria (Vickers) Ward, the former of whom died in West Chester in 1877. In the early ‘80s Mrs. Maria (Vickers) Ward, widow of Levi Bailey Ward, came to Washington and thereafter lived in the home of her son Frank, who had become a resident of this city in 1875, and there her death occurred, in her eighty-seventh year. Mrs. Ward was a birthright member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and had distinguished connections in that society. Her mother’s father, Jesse Kersey, was in his generation regarded as one of the most influential members of that society in Pennsylvania and the Vickers family also took a prominent part in Quaker activities. Following the death of this venerable mother in Israel one of the local newspapers observed that “her bright mind and cheery disposition made for her many friends, by whom she was greatly beloved.”

Reared in Washington, Lee Kersey Ward grew up familiar with the details of the printing business, finished his schooling in Washington and Jefferson College and was for some time connected with the operations of his father’s printing establishment. In the early years of the present century he became attracted to the apparent possibilities then opening on the Pacific coast and took a trip out that way, presently engaging in the printing business in Spokane, Washington, where he remained until 1906, when he returned to Washington and became general superintendent and manager of his father’s print shop and in the spring of 1911 extended this business to include a general book and stationery stock, with a well equipped store at No. 20 North Main street, since then carrying on a retail business in that line as well as a general printing business, the mechanical department being carried on in the Smith Iron Hall building. In 1915 Mr. Ward formed a partnership with his father and the business since has been carried on under the corporate name of the Ward Printing Company.

During the time of this country’s participation in the World war Lee K. Ward rendered effective service as chairman of the committee having in hand the “putting over” of the second, third and fourth Liberty Loan drives. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and is one of the active members of the locally influential Rotary Club and the Bassett Club. He and his wife are republicans, are members of Trinity Episcopal church, of which he is a vestryman, and are also connected with the Washington Outing Club, the Washington County Golf and Country Club and the Nemacolin Country Club.

Mr. Ward is indebted to his western trip twenty years and more ago for his wife, for it was in Spokane that he formed the acquaintance of the lady who now graces his home, to marry whom he made a trip back to the coast after he had become established in business in Washington.

It was on June 30, 1909, in Spokane, Washington, that Lee K. Ward was united in marriage to Miss Mary Bradwardine Glendinning and they have three children, sons all, namely: James Glendinning, born June 28. 1910; Franklin Hayes, born September 3, 1916: and Arthur Kersey, born June 7, 1919.

Mrs. Ward was born in Salmon City. Idaho, May 13. 1886, and her schooling was completed at Brunot Hall in Spokane. She is a daughter of the late James and Margaret (Shoup) Glendinning, the latter of whom was born in Freeport, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania. and was a sister of the late General George Laird Shoup, noted Indian fighter and first governor and first United States senator from the state of Idaho. During the time of the Civil war General Shoup rendered distinguished and conspicuous service as the commander of a command of independent cavalry operating against both rebels and hostile Indians along the Platte. the Arkansas and the Canadian rivers.

It is of record that he always was victorious and was repeatedly commended in general orders for his energy, zeal, perseverance and self-denial. Upon the completion of his military service he became a pioneer of the Pike’s Peak country and in 1866 established himself in business in Salmon City, Idaho. For two sessions (1874-78) he was a member of the territorial legislature and in 1889 was appointed territorial governor. Following the admission of Idaho to statehood in the following summer (1890) he was elected governor of the new state and was thus serving when in the following December the legislature of that state elected him United States senator. Senator Shoup died in 1904.

Mrs. Glendinning was but a young girl when her parents moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois and her schooling was completed at Knox College. Galesburg, that state, where she Prepared herself for teaching service. She then rejoined her distinguished brother in Idaho and was for some time engaged in teaching school. James Glendinning was a Scotsman who had come to this country and who became a pioneer in ranching and merchandising in Salmon City, Idaho, where he was married to Margaret Shoup. He later engaged in the mercantile business in Salt Lake City. Utah, and the high standing he acquired in the estimation of the People of that Mormon city was attested when he was elected mayor of the city, an unprecedented distinction for a Gentile in that place. He and his wife spent their last days in Spokane, his death occurring there in 1902 and she passed away in 1917.

History of Washington County, Pennsylvania, 1926; Forrest, Earle Robert, Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., pages 237-239.  Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!  Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.