West Jefferson in Days Gone By - series 134 by Charlie Miller
Miscellaneous Businesses that have been in West Jeff
(some of these may have been mentioned earlier)
D. W. Bliss, grocer. (Daniel Webster Bliss, born in Vermont on April 23, 1834. He came to West Jefferson in 1846. He was the first telegraph operator in Jeff and served as a freight and ticket agent for 15 years. He opened his grocery in 1880 and sold out to Hoe & Martin in 1881.)
Quinn Bradley had a drugstore. (Quinn was born in 1843. He served in Co. D, 8th O. V. I. and Co. C, 2nd Ohio Cavalry. He had registered for the draft in June of 1863. He was a farmer until 1876, when he came to Jeff and opened a drug store in 1878. He served as Clerk and Treasurer of First Baptist Church. He died in 1920 and is buried in the mausoleum at Pleasant Hill Cemetery.)
There were stockyards north of the railroad on N. Depot St.
There was broom corn grown on N. Depot on land owned by John Chenos, also a broom factory.
The home of Dr. Jefferson T. Colliver was at the southeast corner of W. Main St. and West St. There was a well in front of the house at the curb on Main Street. (Dr. Colliver was born in 1841 in Kentucky. He came to West Jefferson in 1862 and set up his practice. In 1864, he graduated from the Eclectic College in Cincinnati. He had served as Treasurer of Madison Lodge #221 F&AM and as a Trustee in the First Baptist Church, West Jefferson. He moved to San Bernardino, California, in the mid-1880s and died in Los Angeles on March 14, 1912.)
Alex Swanston built the building on the northwest corner of Main and Walnut Streets (The building still stands there today. At one time, the upstairs served as the Gregg Opera House. He was born May 19, 1829 in Scotland. He immigrated in 1851 and settled in West Jefferson, where he was a boot/shoemaker. He served as Captain in Co. C 154th O. V. I. Around 1880, he moved to Urbana, where he died on December 31, 1904, and is buried there.
The home of W. W. Fellows, on the southwest corner of Fellows and Frey Ave., was built around 1871 and used as a hostelry and for entertaining.
Gaines Simpkins lived in a house on the corner of Main and Bridge Streets. (He was a saddle and harness maker. He was born in London, Ohio, in July of 1815 and came to Jefferson in 1836 with his father, John Simpkins. John Simpkins was the first Mayor of Jefferson, he had settled in Columbus prior to the War of 1812 as a Hatter. When Gen. Harrison came through Columbus he made his headquarters in Simpkins' factory. The General appointed Simpkins as a Commissary, and he served until the end of the War. John Simpkins died in 1861, and Gaines on June 28, 1891.