George Alfred Endly (1 March 1831–8 July 1912), entrepreneur, was born in Guernsey County, Ohio, and was the son of Mary Rabe Endly and Jacob Endly, a hotelier. He probably worked in his father's hotel before becoming a clerk at the new Guernsey County branch of the State Bank of Ohio. Endly rose to cashier before the bank closed about 1862, and then joined the German Trust and Savings Bank (incorporated in 1865 as the German National Bank), in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He married Abigail Narcissa Wilson on 14 January 1857 in Muskingum, Ohio. They had two daughters and one son.

In October 1868, when his wife's health required them to seek a warmer climate, Endly purchased a 1,325-acre estate in the community of Christiansville, in Mecklenburg County, and moved his family to Virginia. He contracted with the noted builder Jacob W. Holt to remodel Shadow Lawn, the house on the property, by adding three bays and a central passage, which made it the largest, most distinctive mansion in the area. Endly's wife died on 1 May 1869 and was buried in the town's Woodland Cemetery, which he had helped to found. On 21 October 1873 in Guernsey County, Ohio, Endly married Mary Jane McCurdy, daughter of the man he had worked for at the State Bank of Ohio. They had one son.

Endly quickly emerged as a man of consequence in Mecklenburg County. In 1869, in accordance with a federal law that required replacement of all Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas officials who had any recorded Confederate activity, the military commander of Virginia appointed him clerk of the circuit court, but Endly allowed the former clerk to manage the office. The following year Endly became clerk of the township. His brother-in-law John E. Boyd joined him in Mecklenburg County in 1869, and by 15 June they had formed Boyd and Endly Company, a real estate development partnership organized to entice other northerners to settle in and help rebuild that section of Virginia. The company sold hundreds of acres of land in the county and hired a surveyor to subdivide the Christiansville community. With the personal approval of Salmon P. Chase, a native of Ohio and then chief justice of the United States, they renamed the town Chase City and in April 1873 obtained a town charter from the General Assembly. In November 1873 Boyd and Endly sold two lots, probably the first of more than two dozen they conveyed to newcomers wanting to settle in the town. Endly was the town's first mayor, from 1873 to 1875.

In 1874 Endly served as vice president of the Mecklenburg County General Railroad Committee, which sought to secure rail service to Chase City. As president of the Richmond and Mecklenburg Railroad Company, incorporated in March 1875, he acquired the Roanoke Valley Railroad Company in June of that year. Although that line's road was graded to Chase City, construction problems delayed the arrival of the railroad there until June 1883. In anticipation of the railroad's completion, Endly established a general merchandise store that operated from late in the 1870s until late in the 1880s. During the latter decade he founded and served as president of the Bank of Chase City until 1904. In January 1905 he and a son-in-law chartered the First State Bank, of Chase City, which opened with two branches. Endly remained president through 1910, after which he served as vice president.

He was a strong supporter of education and in February 1876 signed a deed conveying a town lot to the Christiansville school board for the sum of $1 for the construction of a school for white children. For $250 on 24 July 1889 he sold approximately five acres of land to the trustees of a male academy for the establishment of a military school in Chase City. A devoutly religious man, Endly helped found the Chase City Presbyterian Church. He was elected the first ruling elder on 4 July 1869 and held that office until his death. With his neat penmanship, he also served as recording clerk for the church from its founding until 1907. Endly sold town lots for $1 each to Methodist and other Presbyterian congregations as well, and he entered restrictions on the all of the deeds that he executed for lots on the town's Main Street that no alcoholic beverages be sold on the premises.

Endly helped establish the Chase City Mineral Water and Development Company, chartered in October 1890 with himself as president. The company's mineral waters won a medal and certificate at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and a medal at the World's Fair in Saint Louis in 1904. In September of the latter year Endly became vice president of the Mecklenburg Mineral Springs Company, which merged with the Mecklenburg Minerals Springs Hotel and Sanitarium to form a first-class resort with 150 rooms, cottages, and recreational and medical facilities. Built at a cost of $150,000, the resort burned on 15 April 1909.

Although well known in southern Virginia for his economic developments in Mecklenburg County, Endly always identified himself to census takers as a farmer, and his improvements to his pastureland in the county received favorable notice in the September 1876 issue of the widely read Southern Planter and Farmer. George Alfred Endly died at his home in Chase City on 8 July 1912 and was buried in Woodland Cemetery.

Sources Consulted:
Douglas Summers Brown, Chase City and Its Environs: The Southside Virginia Experience, 1765–1975 (1975), esp. 93–102, with portrait following 209; Muskingum County Marriage Records, 1857, Zanesville, Ohio; Guernsey County Marriage Records, Vol. 2 (1870–1879), p. 247, Cambridge, Ohio; numerous references in Mecklenburg Co. Deed Books, vols. 37–75; business records, Chase City Presbyterian Church; Mecklenburg Co. Will Book, 28:239–241; birth and death dates and birthplace in Death Certificate, Mecklenburg Co., Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia; obituaries in Richmond Virginian, 10 July 1912, and Richmond Times-Dispatch, 13 July 1912.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by John Caknipe, Jr.

How to cite this page:
John Caknipe, Jr.,"George Alfred Endly (1831–1912)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2015 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Endly_George_Alfred, accessed [today's date]).

Return to the Dictionary of Virginia Biography Search page.