HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS, E. Polk Johnson, three volumes,
Lewis Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912. Common version, Vol. III,
pp. 1308-10.  Boyd County.

THOMAS H. BULLINGTON.  Among the representative citizens and business
men at Ashland, Kentucky, whose ultimate success in life is the outcome
of their own perseverance and well applied endeavors, Mr. Thomas Henry
Bullington holds a foremost place.  With absolutely nothing to start
life--not even a fair education--he has grappled with the various
obstacles and vicissitudes which have encumbered his path and eventually
made of success not an accident but a logical result.  He was born in
Kanawha county, West Virginia, on the 30th of June, 1856, and is a son
of David H. and Matilda E. (Roberts) Bullington, the former of whom was a
native of Spottsylvania [sic] county, Virginia, and the latter of Henry
county, Virginia.  When a lad of sixteen years of age, David H. Bullington
walked across the Blue Ridge mountains, carrying with him as a means of
protection an old flint-lock gun given him by his father, this heirloom
being now in the possession of him whose name introduces this sketch.
After crossing the mountains he located in what is now Kanawha county,
West Virginia, in Kanawha valley, where he secured work as a carpenter.
This was in the latter '30s, when the early salt industry in the Kanawha
valley was developing rapidly.  In that region was solemnized the marriage
of Mr. Bullington to Miss Matilda E. Roberts and there they engaged in
farming.  During the Civil war Mr. Bullington's sympathies were with the
cause of the Union and for that reason he was compelled to leave his
home in Kanawha county.  Accordingly the father with his family in 1863
set out for the state of Ohio, but on arriving at Mason City, West
Virginia, where the Federal forces had a recruiting station, the family
home was there maintained during the troublous days during and after
the war.  Mr. Bullington remained at Mason City, working at the
carpenter's trade until 1875, when he returned to Kanawha county, where
he passed the residue of his life, his death having occurred on the
2d of August, 1904, at the venerable age of eighty years.  His cherished
and devoted wife passed away on the 22d of March, 1904, at the age of
seventy-seven years.  She had located in West Virginia when a child,
having come hither with her parents.  Three brothers of David H.
Bullington were gallant soldiers in the Confederate army in the Civil
war and two of them sacrificed their lives for the cause of the South.
David and Matilda Bullington became the parents of six sons and four
daughters, eight of whom are living, Thomas H., of this review, having
been the fourth in order of birth.
     Thomas H. Bullington was a child of about eight years of age when
the family removed to Mason county, West Virginia, and he walked barefoot
across the mountains, driving a bob-tailed cow.  He was associated with
his father in the work of carpentering during the sojourn in that section,
and, while he learned a trade, he received absolutely no educational
training, having attained to his eighteenth year with no notion of
reading or writing.  The family was poor and the strenuous war times made
consistent schooling of any sort an utter impossibility.  Later, however,
he attended a private school and for a time was a student in a night
school.  Through hard application and extensive reading he gradually
managed to gain a practical education and today he is one of the best
posted men in this section of the fine old Blue Grass state.  When
eighteen years of age he severed the ties which bound him to home and
started out by himself down the Ohio river in a boat, finally locating
at Ashland, Kentucky, where he worked for several months at any odd jobs
he could find to do.  In the spring of 1876 he was employed to take a
load of hoop poles to New Orleans on a flat boat down the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers.  So successful was he in his first venture that he
was sent on another trip in the following autumn.  While in New Orleans
he secured a job working in the timber swamps in Louisiana and was
identified with that line of enterprise for the ensuing six months, at
the expiration of which he returned to his home in West Virginia.  The
result of this work was the first money he had ever saved and while at
home he presented his father with one hundred dollars of his earnings.
He was then twenty-one years old.  In 1877 he returned to Louisiana,
making his home at Centerville for several years, there working at his
trade and at building and contracting on a large scale, in which he
was very successful.  In 1878-9 an epidemic of yellow fever swept the
district where he resided but he managed to escape the same. In the spring
of 1880 he returned to Ashland, Kentucky, where he was engaged in the work
of carpentry for five years, at the expiration of which he went to Florida,
where he spent two years as master builder on the Jacksonville, Tampa &
Key West Railway, which was in process of construction at that time, and
in connection with which he built machine shops, round houses, bridges,
depots, etc.  He had about three hundred men under his management and
made a decided success of the work entrusted to his care.
     In 1877 Mr. Bullington returned to Ashland, where he continued
contracting and building until the panic of 1893, when all business
subsided.  During that period he built the First Presbyterian church,
the Masonic Temple, the Preston Block and some the finest residences in
the city.  In the meantime, in 1888, he had engaged in the undertaking
business, hiring a manager for his establishment.  After retiring from
the contracting and building business, however, he devoted his entire time
and attention to this new enterprise, building up one of the largest and
most profitable concerns of its kind in Boyd county.  In 1890 he
constructed a two-story brick block, where he conducts his business, and
later he erected a fine modern residence on the adjoining lots.  In
connection with his undertaking establishment he carries a large stock
of picture frames, mouldings and decorations and for many years he has
dealt in tents, awnings, etc.  He is also the owner of a baggage and
hack line in this city and he has extensive real-estate holdings which
are most valuable.
     In politics Mr. Bullington accords a staunch support to the
Republican party in national affairs but in local matters his is
non-partisan.  He is a man of broad-minded and public-spirited tendencies
and while he has never aspired for public office of any description he
has ever manifested a deep and sincere interest in all matters touching
the general welfare of the community.  Fraternally he is one of the most
prominent Masons in Kentucky, holding membership in Poage Blue Lodge, No.
325, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; Apperson Chapter, No. 81, Royal Arch
Masons; and Ashland Commandery, No. 28, Knights Templars, of which he is a
charter member.  He is also affiliated with the adjunct organization, the
Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, El Hasa Temple,
of which he is also a charter member.  He is a valued and appreciative
member of the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
and he and his wife are zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
     On the 15th of July, 1879, at Franklin, Louisiana, Mr. Bullington
was united in marriage to Miss Ida P. Chambless, who was born and reared
in Missouri and whom Mr. Bullington met while she was making a visit to
Louisiana.  She is a daughter of Grief Chambless, who was born in South
Carolina and who is now deceased.  Mr. and Mrs. Bullington have one son,
Henry Harrison, who was born at Ashland, to whose public and private
schools he is indebted for his preliminary educational training, which
was later supplemented with a course of four years in the Kentucky State
Military School at Louisville, in which excellent institution he was
graduated at the head of his class, May 25, 1910.  He was commissioned
on the 20th of July, 1910.

Bullington Roberts Chambless
=
Mason-WV Kanawha-WV OH Franklin-LA Spotsylvania-VA Henry-VA FL SC

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/boyd/bullington.th.txt