Lee C. Paull
Insurance underwriter
-- from History of West Virginia. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1923 (v. 2, p. 25)
LEE C. PAULL. As an underwiter of insurance in virtually all lines except that of life, Mr. Paull owns and controls what is undoubtedly the most important agency of its kind in his native city of Wheeling, his insurance business having been so expanded that it now extends into sixteen different states of the Union, and its general offices occupy the entire building at 1136-38-40 Chapline Street.
Mr. Paull was born at Wheeling on the 12th of May, 1889, and is a son of Alfred and Lee (Singleton) Paull, both likewise natives of Wheeling, where the former was born October 17, 1854, and the latter in June, 1856. The Paull family has been one of prominence and influence for many years in what is now the State of West Virginia. James Paull, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born at Wheeling, became one of the most distinguished members of the bar of Virginia, of which West Virginia was still apart, and after the forming the new state he served many years as a judge of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The closing years of his life were passed at Wellsburg, Brooke County.
Alfred Paull has long been one of the leading insurance men in Wheeling, where he is now state agent for a number of the prominent fire-insurance companies of the country, with offices in the Court Theatre Building. He is a republican in politics, and he and his wife are honored members of the Vance Memorial Presbyterian Church, in which he is serving as an elder. Mr. Paull is affiliated with Masonic fraternity and is a citizen of prominence and influence in his native city, where he is vice president of the Bank of the Ohio Valley. Of the children of Alfred and Lee (Singleton) Paull the eldest is Mary I., wife of A. G. Hubbard, a retired manufacturer of Wheeling; Lyde is the wife of L. B. Kirkpatrick, a representative real-estate broker in the City of Rochester, New York; Alfred S. is associated with his father in the insurance business at Wheeling.
Lee C. Paull is indebted to the public schools and the Linsly Institute of Wheeling for his earlier education, which was continued in the Pennsylvania Military College, at Chester. After leaving the latter institution he was a student in Princeton University, New Jersey, until he had partially completed the work of his sophomore year. He left the university in 1907, and for one year thereafter was associated with his father's insurance business. He then became identified with the insurance business conducted by Maj. D. E. Stalnaker, and this alliance continued until the death of Major Stalnaker in July 1918, when he purchased the business of the deceased and assumed full control of the same. He has since continued and enterprise with unqualified success, with a large and representative clientage.
Mr. Paull takes loyal interest in all that concerns the civic and material well being of his native city, is a republican in politics and holds membership in the Vance Memorial Presbyterian Church. He is affiliated with Wheeling Lodge No. 28, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a member of the Fort Henry Club, of which he is a director. He is director also of the University Club and is a member of the Wheeling Country Club. In the realm of business he is a director of the Dollar Savings & Trust Company; is vice president of the Liberty Transit Company of Wheeling; is vice president of the Camden Coal Land Company of this city; a director of the Arizona Mossback Mines Company in the State of Arizona, and a director of the McClaskey Company, incorporated, of Wheeling. He owns his attractive residence property in the beautiful Highland Park District of Wheeling, and also the building in which is insurance offices are established.
April 6, 1910, recorded the marriage of Mr. Paull and Miss Mary Glessner, daughter of the late William L. Glessner, who was one of the principals of the Whitaker-Glessner Company of Wheeling. Mrs. Paull received excellent educational advantages, including those of the Campbell-Hagerman Seminary in the City of Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. and Mrs. Paull have two children: Lee C., Jr., who was born December 10, 1911, and William Glessner, who was born January 10, 1915.