W. E. Wells

CHINAWARE MANUFACTURE IN WEST VIRGINIA. At Newell, the northernmost point in the Northern Panhandle, are located the main plant and executive offices of the Homer Laughlin China Company, the largest pottery plant in the world. In point of time the industry at Newell is a younger development of the old pottery center of the United States, at East Liverpool, Ohio.

The Homer Laughlin China Company was started in 1871 by Homer Laughlin and his brother, Shakespeare Laughlin, at East Liverpool. It was one of the first, if not the first, pottery erected in this country for the making of whiteware. There were only two kilns at the beginning. In 1876 the Laughlin Pottery received the highest award at the Centennial Exposition. After 1878 Homer Langhlin carried on the business alone until 1897, when the present corporation was formed. At that time the business consisted of only four kilns. The company during the next six years increased the number to thirty-two kilns, all located at Liverpool. In 1905 the company purchased a 500-acre tract just across the river from East Liverpool, and laid out the present town of Newell. A suspension bridge was built over the Ohio and a trolley line to connect the new with the old pottery center. At Newell the Homer Laughlin China Company built the largest single pottery unit in the world, consisting of thirty kilns under one roof. It is a six-story building, 660 by 450 feet This plant, together with the other units at East Liverpool, brought the total number of kilns up to sixty-two, but as a result of the heavy demand put upon the business through foreign competition during the World war the number of kilns was increased to seventy-eight, and the production rose to two and one half times as great as the next largest pottery in the world. In 1921 the business of this company was nearly eight million dollars, and figured approximately as one tenth of the total pottery production in the world.

The directing and managing head of this great industry is W. E. Wells, the genius of pottery manufacture and the biggest man in the pottery trade of the world. He is secretary and treasurer of the company, but has in reality been everything from office boy to president.

Moreover, he represents an old family of the West Virginia Panhandle. He was born in Brooke County, December 29, 1863. It was in 1776 that Richard Wells received a grant of 640 acres lying along the state line east of Steubenville, part of which is still in the family. He rode on horseback from Baltimore, when his son James was a child.

Nathaniel, son of James, established and operated the ferry and owned land up and down the river for three miles. The four and one half miles of railroad from the Pennsylvania line to the river bridge at Steubenville was built by him in company with Jesse Edginton in 1849. This was done to get around the state law prohibiting outside capital from making such improvement. Later the law was modified so as to permit the sale of this short line to the Pennsylvania Railroad. This four and one half mile stretch crossing the Panhandle gave what is still retained as the name of one of the largest divisions of the Pennsylvania system, the Panhandle Division. Nathaniel Wells was a very prominent man not only in business, but in public affairs, was a member of the Virginia Legislature of 1849-50 and attended the first Wheeling Convention. He had been a slave holder in earlier life, but he set his slaves free and was an ardent supporter of the new state. He died in 1884, at the age of seventy-five.

Nathaniel Wells married Mary Atkinson, daughter of William Atkinson, and granddaughter of John Atkinson, who settled in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1772. William Atkinson was born in Brooke County in 1791, served aa a soldier in the War of 1812, and died in 1873, on part of the farm settled in 1790.

Lewis Wells, father of W. E. Wells, was an infant when his mother died, and he was reared by his maternal grandfather, William Atkinson. He married Rose McCord, of Utica, New York. In 1884 he removed to Steubenville, and lived there until his death in 1915, at the age of seventy-five.

W. E. Wells attended the public schools, was for several years bookkeeper in a bank and in a wholesale drug house at Stenbenville. In 1889 he entered the office of the Laughlin Company and soon after was put in temporary charge of the entire plant, then comparatively small. He was manager of the East Liverpool plant when the corporation was formed in 1897, and he has been the responsible executive head during the great development and expansion of the business since that time.

Mr. Wells has served as chairman of the Republican State Convention, and was a member of the commission for the settlement of the West Virginia-Virginia debt, and some of his suggestions effected a saving to the state of many thousand dollars. He married Elizabeth Mahan, daughter of the late William B. Mahan, of Follansbee.

They had three sons, Joseph M., W. E., Jr., and Arthur Atkinson, and also five grandchildren.

Among business men and men of affairs generally Mr. Wells is widely known not only as a great business executive, but as a very fluent speaker and with a wonderful command of language fitted to the expressions of his ideas.

His masterpiece is entitled "My Garden," which has been widely quoted and published. The ideas for this gem of literature were derived from the pursuit of his favorite recreation and hobby, working in his garden at his home.

His residence stands on an eminence overlooking the town of Newell and commands a view of the Ohio Valley for many miles.

Source: The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 584-585 Hancock
Provided by Julie Vincent