Person:John Hager (4)

John McKinley Hager was shot and killed in some sort of dispute in 1904. My grandfather Robert Hager used to say that he carried a gun in case he ever caught up with the man that shot his father when he was only 4 years old. Known as 'Shug' he had a farm in Branchland, Lincoln County. I visited this farm in 1989 when my grandmother Ruth Cook Hager died in Lesage, WV. Allen Hager guided a convoy up into the backwoods. We drove up creek beds that doubled as roads. We were confronted by the local marijuana growers like my cousin had warned, but he had met them before and we were cool. The old farm house stood until the year before and had burned. Allen narrated and operated the video as we made our way up the hill to the old cemetery on the hill.

The old cemetery was over grown and all the headstones were nothing more than flat stones turned on end. There were several small monuments, but only one that had a readable name. I did not write it down but I think it was Betsy or Bessie Hager, or just Betsy, born and died in 1886 at age 6 months. I suspect this is one of John and Gertrude's children.

There looked to be at least a dozen and possibly two dozen graves. It was hard to tell since the trees were growing up through the graves and the stones had fallen flat. I know that at least three of my father's brothers and sisters are buried there. His twin brother Robert 'Bobby' Wallas age 18 months, Annus Fern age 7 and Guy McKinley age 11. They all died in a two-week period in October 1931 of scarlet fever. My father Billie was legally blind in one eye from the fever. That never affected his aim while shooting and playing pool. But it did prevent his service in WW II. He had passed his first physical and entrance requirements by lying about his age and peeking through his fingers while covering his good eye. The next physical they caught his blind eye and he could not serve. My father was well known for his hunting skills and would sell wild game. He told me one time his father gave him one 22 bullet, when he was ten, and he brought back two squirrels both from one shot.

Allen tells us that Mahala Toney Hager w/o Alfred Hager and John McKinley's mother is also buried there. I suspect that John McKinley himself is buried there.

Some notes by James Allen Hager s/o James Elbert and Irene (Fekete) Hager s/o Robert Ballard and Ruth Clara (Cook) Hager s/o John McKinley 'Shug' and Gertrude (Bias) Hager:

A visit to the Hager Cemetery on Shug Hager's Place, Allen Hager (me) has maps of area. Shug and wife and many children buried here also child of Robert and Ruth Elbert's Mom and Dad. My grandparents Alfred's wife Mahala has the only stone of manufacture all others have only rocks. Demple knows who's in which or he knows someone who knows.

The old structure of Shug Hager still stood when first seen by this author. But burnt before our second trip. A white frame box of a house with large timber floor joists a tin roof with stone steps and good water.

Note when I went to this farm in Lincoln County, West Virginia in 1989 the old house of Shug Hager was still standing. An overseer was caring for it what is left of it now is a pile of burnt out rubble. I feel the people who were to protect it burnt it, to deny us areas on for returning - but we have - for on the back side of the property is the Hager grave yard, 1 marker (Mahala's) then 20 stone markers. Great grandpa and grandma among them. One child of Robert and Ruth - grandparents. This property is owned by some doctors in Florida. 300 acres - they (want, at last we know, $25,000 for the property).

Some Hager's who are related to us have come back to their roots and own the old homesteads in Lincoln County.

1. ↑ Elma Henning & Merle Rummel, The Toney Family History (: Higginson Book Company, 1979)
   168.
2.   GenCircles.com: "Joel Hagers Research June 2006", Joel Hager online (http:/www.gencircles.com/users/hagerj/16)..