The beautiful wood trim from the Torner home shown above was used in a new home built by Norris Torner.  The new home is near the site of the original home.  Shown are William V. and Jennie Greene Torner with their sons Norris (born in 1900) and Harley (born in 1902). Upstairs bedroom of the Torner home.  The lower oil painting is of pansies and was made by Florence May Torner Adams.  It is now in the home of her grandson, Robert A. Adams.  It is assumed the other painting was also by Florence.  I am J.V.H.Torner.  The information below is furnished by me, a son of William Victor Torner; and Mrs. Joeanna Winings, a Granddaughter of Elvira Torner Dye. My father told me that in Sweden his father's name was Baron Lars Tifield Victor von Torner.  When he came to this country, he used Victor Torner as his full name. He was born in Stockholm, March 29, 1815. He died in Newport, Ohio, December 29, 1891. He was the son of a Swedish clergyman and was educated in the University of Sweden. He married Charlotte Gustavia Weiss.  We do not have the date. Charlotte Gustavia Weiss was born in Gottenberg, April 21, 1824. She died in Newport, Ohio, June15th 1890. There were three children: John Samuel Hugo Torner, the oldest.  Born in Sweden. Elvira Torner, the second child.  Born January 23rd, 1850, in Westergothland near Gottenberg or Vanesberg and Lidkoping. William Victor Torner, the third child, was born at Jacksonville, West Virginia, January 25th, 1860.*  He told me he was born about a year and a half after his parents came to this country.  They must have left Sweden during the summer of 1858.*  We have been told that Grandfather Torner was a Minister.  He did not do any preaching in this country.  I have been told by men that knew him when he was superintendent of an Oil Company at Cow Run, Ohio, that he was a very religious man and was never known to use any bad language. My father told me that, in Sweden, Grandfather was Superintendent of all the King's estates.  My father also told me that Grandfaher was one of seven brothers.  He did not correspond with them after coming to this country.  J.V.H. Torner, son of William Victor Torner, and grandson of Baron Lars Tifield Victor von Torner Note:  The actual year of birth for William Victor Torner was 1859.  This is shown in other documents.  J.V.H. Torner was born in 1884. The Torner Family Interview with Norris Torner, taken from FOOTPRINTS  by Eileen Thomas   Victor and Charlotte Torner came from Sweden in 1854.  Two of their children, Hugo and Elvira, came with them.  William was born in Lewis County, West Virginia, in 1859. Hugo married Lucy Dye and settled in Marietta.  Elvira married J.R. Dye.  William married Jenny Greene 20 Sept 1882.  William died at Newport, Sept. 1941.  They were the parents of seven children, Hugo, born April 24, 1884, settled in Iowa.  Florence, born May 10, 1886.  Elsie, born Lawrence Township, March 10, 1889.  Ruth, born March 20, 1892.  Glenn, born Oct, 8, 1896, settled in Iowa.  Norris, born March 3, 1900.  Harley, born Feb. 21, 1902.             During the 1884 flood, in February, their home washed away.  In 1890, a large two-story frame home was built on higher ground.  Norris inherited the home from his parents.  The home was torn down in 1959.  A smaller home was built on the lot, to which Norris and wife moved in the fall of 1959.             Victor was part owner in the Newport Mill Co.  Victor and son William were both millers by trade.  In 1889, William moved to Cow Run where he had an oil and land lease.  He spent a very short time there, returning to Newport in 1890.             William and son Norris built and operated a gas station in 1929, on route 7.  They operated this business together until the death of William in Sept., 1941.  When the gas was rationed during the war, Norris closed the station.  This was rented to Russell Vannoy, and Mike Vuick.  Later the building was a barber shop, renting it first to Lyle Beaver then to Leslie Kiggins.  In 1958, the property was sold to Main Star Oil Company.              Norris married Marjorie Nov. 6th, 1941.  They lived in Columbus for four years.  Norris worked in the Curtis Wright aircraft factory as a supervisor.  Mrs. Torner, a registered nurse, worked at the Columbus University Hospital.  At the end of World War II, they returned to Newport.  Norris worked as an electrician and school bus driver.  In the early twenties he carried mail by boat for seven years, as his father did before him. Andy Beaver built the last boat for them.*    The following is a collection of memoirs taken from various sources including numerous letters William (Bill)Victor Torner II has written to various relatives and to others.  Some of the information was given to Marlene Morris during numerous telephone conversations.  Many letters have been provided by Mary Burbach.  Bill was named for his grandfather, William Victor Torner, and is the son of James Victor Hugo Torner and Elsie Gertrude Stocking Torner.  He lived in Marietta and for awhile in Newport with his grandparents, William and Jennie Torner, and has very fond memories of Newport.  He spent his working years on the rivers of North America and also served as a Seabee in WWII.  Bill’s service memoir can be found through the World War II listing to the left.              At the time of this writing, Bill is 94 and makes his home in Tennessee.  He keeps current on all aspects of inland river events. We start with the history of the Torner family as told by Norris Torner to Eileen Thomas and included in Eileen’s publication of FOOTPRINTS.      J.S.H. Torner, from a family document               J.S.H. Torner, superintendent of the city water works, and an oil producer, of Marietta, Ohio, is one of the ablest business men of the city.  He was born January 6, 1853, at Stockholm, Sweden, and is a son of Victor Torner.              Victor Torner was born at Stockholm Sweden, and his wife, whose maiden name was Weiss, was born at Gothenburg, Sweden.  She was of a prominent Swedish family, and her brother, D.W. Weiss, who came to America when a young man, was one of the first presidents of the Lincoln Society of New York.  He was identified with the Ulster Iron Company, of New York, with offices at the corner of Broadway and Wall Streets.  Victor Torner was educated for the ministry, his father being a minister of the Lutheran Church, but instead of occupying the pulpit he became superintendent of the estate of the King of Sweden.  He brought his family to New York in 1855, but soon removed to Lewis County, (West Virginia), where he purchased a large tract of land and farmed for two seasons.  Not finding his farm as profitable as he anticipated, he moved to Parkersburg, West Virginia, and one year later, in 1861, located in Belpre, Washington County, Ohio.  He retained his West Virginia interests until 1884, when he disposed of them.  At Belpre, he engaged in the oil business, which he followed until near the time of his death, December 29, 1891.  He was also engaged in the milling business at Newport, Ohio, for some years.  Politically, he was an active Republican, having filed his declaration to become a citizen of the United States as soon as he arrived in this country.  His wife died June 15, 1890.  The reared three children, as follows:  Elvira, J. S. Hugo, the subject of the sketch; and William V.   Elvira Torner, who was born in January, 1850, married J. R. Dye, of Marietta, and died in July, 1890, leaving three children, viz: Lulu E., who was born in Washington County in 1872, and is the wife of R. J. Mechling, an oil producer, of Newport, Ohio; Victor Hugo, who attended Marietta College, is a graduate of the Baltimore Medical College, and is now practicing his profession; and Hilda W., aged 13 years, who is at school.  William V. Torner was born in January, 1859, and is in the milling business at Newport, Ohio.  His sketch and portrait appear elsewhere in this work.    [Bill wrote the following, date unknown:  “My dad insisted that his Swedish grandfather was Baron Lars Tifield Victor von Torner who raised horses for meat on the king’s estate like cattle are raised for meat in this country.  When he came to the United States, he dropped the royal nobility title and became a citizen as Victor Hugo Torner with his wife Charlotte Weiss Torner.  These are the names on their grave marker in Newport Cemetery.  “Uncle Norris said his grandfather was a Lutheran minister that came to this country as a missionary to establish churches.”]     Miscellaneous items from various conversations with Bill   As told by William (Bill) V. Torner, the grandson and namesake William V. Torner.  The following are excerpts of conversations between Bill and Marlene Morris over several years beginning in 2005:   When William V. Torner, the son of Victor and Charlotte Weiss Torner, lived in Belpre, they rented farm land on Blennerhassett Island from the owner.   They obtained a slab of wood from a saw mill and placed William on it to float him to the island while they swam to the island.    Jennie learned to cook in the James Brown Greene home.    Bill was allowed to use the skiff on Sundays when there was no mail delivery, but he was forbidden to swim in the Ohio River.  He’s sure they used the J. B. Greene binoculars to spy on him, but he found a spot hidden by trees from their view and swam there and dried out before returning home.  [These binoculars were used by J. B. Greene during the Civil War and remain in the family.]   He said the Torners were strict and that Grandma Jennie would hear the pantry door open and call, “William….”   Jennie used to go to Marietta to spend time at the Betsy Mills.   Harley Torner, son of William and Jennie, and Bill (William II) grew tomatoes which they sold to a produce outfit in Pittsburgh.  They were planted along the riverbank, and Harley used had a mule for planting and cultivating.  This would have been in the 1930s.   Grandfather William owned a gas station on Rt. 7.  There was a pot-bellied stove, and folks stopped by to loaf around, even the police stopped by.  The gas station was built in 1927 or 1928, and the Torners had a flour mill long prior to the gas station.    The Torners had a horse named “Dolly.”  It was said that Dolly would find her way back from Cow Run. The driver could fall asleep in the wagon and let Dolly take him back to Newport. The driver would be William Torner.    Sam Greenwood’s father, Bill, went to Iowa with Glenn Torner, but Bill returned to Ohio.  The DELTA QUEEN would land at the Greenwood property and allow Bill and Hazel Greenwood to come aboard for a ride.   Bill’s father was Hugo Torner.  He graduated from Newport High School and went to military school in Ada, OH and from there to Columbus to study electrical engineering.  Bill was born when his father worked in Chicago.  His hero was Thomas Edison.    Norris Torner had the cheese knife from the Kerr store.  Cheese was in a big block and was cut from that for the customer; it was not sold in plastic as it is now.  The Kerr store closed, and that’s when Norris acquired the knife.    Hugo was contacted for the television show “Here’s Your Life” for the taping of the show about Dr. Gale.  He provided information.    About Mary Gale who was deaf:  Jennie Torner knew one and two handed sign language and could talk with Mary Gale.  Bill used a slate to communicate with Mary.   Bill has had a lifelong love of the river and has a phenomenal knowledge of riverboats of all kinds.  The following is an excerpt from a letter written to Mary Burbach on February 15, 1989:    “Now nearly all the diesel towboats have high speed engines with a whine that is amplified by the superchargers.  No doubt more efficient, but certainly do not sound as pleasing as the old slow turning engines.  Some of those big old slow turning engines set up reverberating concussion exhaust waves that would rattle windows in houses along the river and sometimes even rattle the dishes in cupboards in the houses.  I know because I experienced those things in the Torner home in Newport.  Vaucluse Hill across the Ohio River from Newport would amplify and reflect the sounds of steamboats and diesel boats at their best.  With low and nearly level ground on each side of the river most of the good sounds would be lost.”   From History of Washington County 1890-91 The Extensive Plant of the Newport Flour Mills               The milling industry of the county is one of the most important factors in our industrial prosperity.             The best milling plant of Washington County is the Newport Roller Mills, built in the year 1878.  It is a three story and basement structure, 56 X 50 feet in dimension, a buhr [sic] mill when built but was in the year 1887 remodeled and the most modern improvements put in, in roller processes.             The plant is in the hands of a stock company, the individual members of which are Messrs. V. Torner, John Hadley, T. S. Hadley, Richard Rae, J. Johnston, and Dr. C.B. Gale.  The Newport Mill Company are both custom and merchant millers, and manufacture two fine grades of flour for both family and bakers’ use, the Electric Light and the Victor.  The Electric Light is a high grade, carefully milled flour, unexcelled for bread making qualities, and is in the true sense of the terms a high grade.             The Victor is also a high grade, carefully milled flour and is their leader.  It is in steady demand from not only local trade, but from distant points.             Another bread, the Globe, is a lower grade of four, but is as the others in great demand.             The Newport Milling Company has been since the date of its establishment, one of the representative features in the milling interests of Washington County.             Mr. T. S. Hadley, the head miller, and Victor Torner, upon whom the management of the mill mostly devolves, are both active business men.  The production of the plant is about 75 barrels per day, but the capacity of the plant is about 100 barrels per day.   [From a letter dated September 2, 2005:  “The flour mill the Torners had an interest in was between the Adkins house and the Newport landing at about Mile 155.7.  Steamboats made bank landings at the mill to load flour in bags and barrels.  I have scrounged around the mill site and the only evidence I found of the mill was an iron pulley from some piece of machinery.  Even the foundation stones were gone. ]   Torner gas station and snowy scene at Torner home               The small sign says, “Modern Rest Rooms” which was good news for customers as most small town gas stations only had backhouses.  I would like to know who took the pictures of the Torner home and when.  I have never seen that much snow in Newport; but do know that it has happened from what people have told me and seeing other pictures.     It is hard to believe the muddy mess at the foot of the stone steps is Ohio Rt. 7 before it as paved.  The steps were moved a few feet to the left and up so the bottom step would be at about the same level as the top step was.  The land clear across the yard where the steps were was taken to become right-of-way when the road was paved.    Letter from William V. Torner dated Sept. 2, 2005:               Enclosed is your copy of the narrative I have written about the James Brown Greene Farm home at Newport, Ohio, as I remember the house and farm….             You will notice that I do not use relationship titles such as uncle, aunt, and cousin.  I had to address everyone by title when I spoke to them or referred to them when I lived in Newport.  Also nicknames were strictly forbidden.  My Dad called me William or Son up until the last few years of his life, then he would sometimes call me Bill. I perhaps overused James Brown Greene or J. B. Greene and I had a reason for doing so.  There were other Greene families who owned property in the village of Newport.  I was writing about one family and their property in particular. What I wrote will be subject to editing if used in compiling information for the Green Family Reunion 2008, and I want any quotations from any part of my work to be identified with the James Brown Greene family and farm eliminating any confusion with the other Greene families and properties in Newport.    JAMES BROWN GREENE FAMILY HOME Newport, Ohio   James Brown Greene was born in 1832 and died in 1910.  He married Melissa Wood on March 27, 1856.  Melissa was born Dec. 21, 1832, and died Dec. 28, 1860.  They had two children, Alice M. Born Jan. 30, 1857, and Francis R. born June 8, 1859. James Brown Greene married Mary Rebecca Adkins on Dec. 4, 1861.  She was born May 31, 1840, and died Dec. 27, 1929.  They had seven children, Jane Amanda (Jennie) born Sept. 7, 1863, Perly A. born Oct. 24, 1865, Mary G. (May) Aug. 3, 1868, Harriet R. (Hattie) born Oct. 1, 1871, George C. born April 14, 1877, Ralph born May 7, 1879, and Carl B. born Jan. 22, 1882. Three sisters in one family who did not like their given names and changed them while retaining their initials.  Jennie married William Victor Torner, son of Victor Hugo Torner and Charlotte Weiss Torner.  William and Jennie’s first child was James Victor Hugo Torner born April 24, 1884, in the J. B. Greene home where Jennie was born in 1863. The 1884 Ohio River flood had driven William and Jennie out of their home, and they had to taken refuge in the Adkins home with Jennie’s grandparents Isaac and Sara Jane Adkins. The flood continued to rise, surrounding the Adkins house.  Jennie was pregnant and nearing the time to deliver her baby.  William put Jennie in a skiff and they rode the flood water down to the J. B. Greene home high enough to be above flood level on the west edge of Newport.  It was while the river was still above flood stage that Jennie delivered James Victor Hugo Torner. [It was in this home that Jennie was born on September 7, 1863.] The J. B. Greene home is a farm house on the land owned by J. B. Greene, extending north from the Ohio River over a high ridge.  On the east it adjoins the Greenwood farm which is part of the village of Newport. On the west side the property line is in the hilly land between the river and the ridge on the north side f the farm.  Near the southwest corner of the farm on the river bank is the Gordon Greene Light at Mile 157.2 Ohio River.  This light is part of the Aids to Navigation System on inland rivers.  The J. B. Greene house is built square with the compass and faces south.  There was a north/south line on the floor inside of the center of the front door. Outside was a slender pole on the grass directly in line with the line on the floor.  On sunny days with the door open when the shadow of the pole fell on the line on the floor the sun was exactly due south.  The clocks would be set at twelve o’clock, noon sun time.  In the kitchen was a huge stone fireplace and mantle.  In the fireplace were cranes on which iron kettles were hung for cooking and hot water.  A built-in oven on one side for baking.  A large backlog kept the fire burning continuously for a warm oven and slow cooking in kettles.  Jennie learned to cook in the open fireplace and in her lifetime she cooked on cast iron wood and coal fired ranges, kerosene stoves and electric stoves. The J. B. Greene farm was on mostly steep hillside land with a small flat area of land where Dana’s Run flows into the Ohio River.  The hillsides were not suitable for crop farming so James B. Greene was a gentleman farmer who did not till the land.  He was more interested in serving in the Ohio State Legislature and leasing his land to oil speculators on a royalty basis that produced income without physical involvement on his part.  In hill country most ravines have streams of water that are named for the land owners and sometimes for animals or other creatures of nature.  On the north slope of the ridge back of the farm were ravines with streams flowing north into the Little Muskingum River.  There was Bull Run, Cow Run, Calf Run and Duck Creek that found its way through a valley to the Ohio River.  In the bottom land where Cow Run flowed toward the Little Muskingum River gas bubbles could be seen in the water and would flare up when ignited.  Sometimes there was an oily sheen on the water of Cow Run.  Geological exploration revealed this was coming from oil and soon the Cow Run Oil Field was developed as wells were drilled to pump the crude oil from the stratum of sand underlying the area.  These same surveys showed that the Cow Run sand extended under the J. B. Greene farm, under the Ohio River and into areas of West Virginia.  Over the hill from the house was a small cave where Carl B. Greene and J. V. Hugo Torner played together when they were little boys.  As a young man Hugo worked as a tool dresser on some of the standard rig derricks drilling for oil on the Greene farm.  The last oil well drilled there was on the flat land beside Dana’s Run in 1931.  It turned out to be a dry hole and today there is no evidence there ever were any oil wells drilled on the J. B. Greene farm or at Cow Run.  Incidentally, the covered wooden Sitka Bridge at Cow Run has been replaced with a modern steel beam and concrete bridge.    This narrative written by William Victor Torner II, son of James Victor Hugo Torner and Elsie Gertrude Stocking Torner using information compiled from Greene and Torner family records by J. V. H. Torner and from having lived in Newport and knowing some of the people and places first hand.   [signed and dated] September 2, 2005 Wm. V. Torner     Carl B. Greene and Hugo Torner   Did you know that Carl B. Greene was only two years older than my Dad (Hugo) and was my Dad’s uncle?  One Fourth of July my Dad and I hiked all over the Greene farm so that he could show me where he and Carl played together as boys.  Dad and I had some fireworks with us and we fired them while sitting on the ground in the entrance to the cave.  That was the most memorable father and son day I ever had with my Dad.  He had a militaristic mind and whenever we walked together on the street it was always in step with a military marching cadence.  A handshake was as near as he would come to showing affection.  Never a hug and I don’t think the word “love” was in his vocabulary; but I know some of the things he did for me during his life were done because he loved me.  While on the subject of personalities and how different they could be within a family, Ralph Greene fled to Canada (Calgary) to stay out of the U. S. military.  His brother Carl lied about his age so he could enlist in the U. S. Navy for duty in the Spanish American War.  I have been to Cow Run and seen the oil well supplies storage building, the house the Torners lived in and have crossed the covered wooden Sitka Bridge.  I have been back to Cow Run and found the oil well supplies building and all the merchant store buildings gone.  I crossed the new steel beam and concrete bridge over the Little Muskingum River to Ohio Route 26 to Marietta.  About the Adkins house in Newport.  It is located on a high knoll on the bank of the Ohio River about Mile 155.4.  In flood time the water surrounds the house, isolating it from the village and [to] the best of my knowledge has never had flood water in the house. Newport public landing is at Mile 156.0 Ohio River. The flour mill the Torners had an interest in was between the Adkins house and the Newport landing at about Mile 155.7.   Steamboats made bank landings at the mill to load flour in bags and barrels.  I have scrounged around the mill site and the only evidence I found of the mill was an iron pulley from some piece of machinery.  Even the foundation stones were gone.  It was between the mill site and the Newport landing that Buck Reynolds moored his sternwheel gas boats RAINBOW and TORNADO.  Early in the morning he would take one of the boats across the river to the St. Marys, West Virginia, wharfboat in the mouth of the Middle Island Creek at Ohio River Mile 155.0 to load freight for his daily round trip to the Marietta wharfboat at Mile 171.9 at the Marietta public landing in front of the Lafayette Hotel at Front and Greene Streets. Buck lived in Newport and sometimes L. Glenn Torner would make the trip as deckhand for Buck. Capt. Gordon C. Greene founded Greene Line Steamers in 1890 at Newport, operating his first steamboat the H. K. BEDFORD from the Newport Warfboat. Capt. Tom Greene has landed the DELTA QUEEN at the landing and taken the passengers on a walking tour past the house where his father Gordon C. was born and to the Newport Cemetery where generations of Greenes are buried.  Other times when the DELTA QUEEN passed Newport, Captain Tom would blow a whistle salute.  Since Tom died the DELTA QUEEN passes Newport without recognition of the historical significance of the place to the boat.  Greene Line Steamers became the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and advertises “Since 1890” which is deliberately misleading. The DELTA QUEEN was built in 1925-1926 and went into service inn 1927.  In 1976 the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN came out new, and the AMERICAN QUEEN about 1995.  The three QUEENS that make up the Delta Queen Steamboat Company fleet are all in service in 2005 making 115 years of continuous steamboating attributable to the Captains Gordon C. Greene, Mary B. Greene, Christopher B. Greene and Thomas R. Greene. Sherrie, Pollie and I will be attending the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen annual meeting in September at the Lafayette Hotel in Marietta, Ohio.  This will keep us Torners in contact with steamboating, some of the Greene family and other river friends.  [Signed]Wm. V. Torner More on Carl Greene, from a letter dated July 13, 2007:               [Carl Greene] dressed well and more completely than was comfortable in hot humid days before air conditioning as a matter of cover up.  The ship tattoo on his chest was only one tattoo.  He was tattooed from his neck to his wrists and ankles and wore long sleeved shirts to hide the tattoos on his arms, work or dress clothing covering all other areas.   August 13, 2005 Letter from William V. Torner II, excerpts:   The information that Susy Wetz has given you about the James Brown Greene home in Newport, Ohio, is fine.  It was pleasant news to learn that the present occupants of the house have restored it, and I wonder how completely they have restored it other than opening the doors that had been plastered over.  Now about the captain’s chair that Uncle Norris had that went to John (Jarbo) Torner.  The only value of that chair is that it is a family heirloom.  It is just a plain stand chair with a low back that curves to make arms on each side.  It is the style known in the furniture business as a captain’s chair….Some of the Greene family in Warwick, Rhode Island, were seafaring people on sailing ships working the Atlantic Coast…seaport trade.  The captain’s chair now in the Torner family came from one of those sailing ships.  I do not know which one or if the captain of the ship ever used that chair.      From Bill’s letter dated May 10, 2005:   The original telephone office where your grandmother and her Torner sisters worked as operators was upstairs over a store building on the river bank at the top of the landing.  That building has been gone many floods ago. I knew Bill Greenwood and brief visits with him at various times when Uncle Norris and I would meet him on the river bank when we ferried the mail across the river to the B&O Railroad mail stop just below the mouth of Greene’s Run at Vaucluse, W. Va. I have visited your grandmother and dad when they lived on Ingram Ridge.  I also visited your grandmother with my wife Bernice, Uncle Glenn and Aunt Vina in Zanesville when we made a trip from Iowa to Newport.  Bernice and I were making the trip and invited Uncle Glenn and Aunt Vina to come along with us. When Grandpa William V. Torner died on Labor Day 1941 Pollie was holding Grandpa’s hand.  Your grandmother [Florence May Torner Adams] was in Newport taking care of Grandpa William the last days of his life. Bernice is buried next to Grandpa William, and I will be buried on the other side of her putting her between the two William Victor Torners.  [in the Newport Cemetery]   Bill’s letter of March 26, 2007:   You said in you [letter] that Susy Wetz saw a plaque in the Newport Baptist Church with Uncle Norris’s name on it for his donation to buy windows.  You asked if the Torners were Baptists. The short answer is yes regarding the William V. Torner family in Newport.  [Bill remarked at one time that the Torners were strict Baptists.]  You said records show the Torners were Lutherans in Sweden and that is correct.  Uncle Norris told me that Victor Hugo Torner, the father of our Grandpa, was a Lutheran Missionary who came to this country to establish Lutheran Churches.  What happened and why there was not a Lutheran Church in Newport I do not know, but do know that Grandpa, Grandma and all of the children were very strict Baptists.  Norris is the only one I know of that remained Baptist and was the only one who stayed in Newport.  Grandpa’s brother James Samuel Hugo Torner was born in Sweden and would have been Lutheran.  He lived in Marietta and raised his family there; but I do not know their church affiliation.  I agree with you that Florence, your Grandmother, probably became Methodist when she married Arnold Adams.  My dad, James Victor Hugo Torner married Elsie Gertrude Stocking and became Presbyterian.   Elsie Lois Torner married Amiel Harry Chrest, religion not known to me.  Ruth Charlotte Torner married William Gillespie Hutchison, religion not known to me.  Lawrence Glenn Torner married Vina Burge and became Roman Catholic.  Norris Greene Torner married Marjorie Christie and remained Baptist. William Harley Torner married Hazel Terry, religion not known to me.  Considering deaths, divorces and remarriages many different religions have become part of the Torner family history too diverse and complicated for me to document. I was baptized a Presbyterian and I married Bernice Agnes Sloan a Roman Catholic.  We each kept our own religion.  Later I became Lutheran and that is when Uncle Norris told me my great-grandfather Victor Hugo Torner would have been proud of me and about him being a Lutheran Missionary from Sweden.  Today, I am a member of the Metropolitan Community Church of Knoxville, Tenn.  The paper about Old Distilleries and liquor being legal tender and a social status symbol is very interesting.  It mentioned names familiar to Newport and that heavy drinking was customary until it got out of hand and finally stopped being made and sold in Newport.  Grandpa Torner was on the Newport Board of Commissioners and as long as he lived there was no wine or liquor sold in Newport. After his death a man opened a wine shop across the street (Ohio 7) from the Torner home.  About the flood of February 14, 1884, and flood damage in Newport as reported in the Marietta Weekly Leader.  The Wm. Torner house was completely demolished at a loss of $800 and the Newport Mill Company damage of $1,000.00.  That accounts for why the Torners were living over a store building when the second flood hit Newport in April forcing William and Jennie to go to the Adkins house until it was surrounded by flood water and from there by skiff to the J. B. Greene home where Jennie gave birth to James Victor Hugo Torner on April 24, 1884. I agree with you about some of the people in the four pictures of the Greene family and will speculate about the two men in picture number four.  I think they are Ralph Greene and George C. Greene.  Ralph standing next to Carl is the one who fled to Canada to keep from serving in the United States armed forces and lived in Calgary.  There were three brothers in the J. B. Greene family and they are all in picture number four.  Is the child in picture two Mary Alice Greene, daughter of Carl B. Greene?  Carl lied about his age as a boy to enlist in the U. S. Navy so he could serve in the Spanish American war in Cuba.  In the 1930s Carl was an armature winder working on electric motors on street cars operated by the Monongahela West Penn Power Company in Parkersburg, West Virginia.  I lived about two blocks from where he and Mary Alice lived.  —Letter from William V. Torner dated March 26, 2007 Carl Greene   Over the hill from the house was a small cave where Carl B. Greene and J. V. Hugo Torner played together when they were little boys.  As a young man, Hugo worked as a tool dresser on some of the standard rig derricks drilling for oil on the Greene farm.  The last oil well drilled there was on the flat land beside Dana’s Run in 1931.  It turned out to be a dry hole and today there is no evidence there ever were any oil wells drilled on the J. B. Greene farm or at Cow Run.  Incidentally, the covered wooden Sitka Bridge at Cow Run has been replaced with a modern steel beam and concrete bridge.  —From a writing  by William V. Torner, son of Hugo Torner, entitled “James Brown Greene Family Home, Newport, Ohio” —Letter from William V. Torner dated Sept. 2, 2005   The following excerpts from letters written by William V. Torner II were provided by Mary Burbach:   Undated About the Willow Island Locks:   I watched the building of the Willow Island Locks and Dam each time I made a trip to the Torner famly home at Newport.  One of the trips was to bury my dad in Newport Cemetery.  Watching the construction of such a project as Willow Island Locks and Dam is of special interest to those of us who have lived in places like Newport, or have worked on the river and used the locks and dams.  When I was on the steam sternwheel towboat RELIANCE of the Union Barge Line, I went thru all of the locks between Pittsburgh and Parkersburg, W. Va., many times.  Since then I have had the pleasure of locking thru Willow Island Locks and Dam on the…Valley Gem.     August 8, 1996:   One of the businesses on Greene Street in Newport was the Brick Store owned and operated by J. E. W. Greene.  On the second floor was the local telephone office.  Some of or possibly all of the Torner sisters were telephone operators in that office.  I do not know how many oil wells were drilled on the Greene farm or if Grandpa Greene had interests in any wells off of the farm. When a well was contracted for, a single owner had 100 percent responsibility for drilling costs and received 100 percent of the profits, if any.  The common practice was for joint owners to share such as half and half, quarters, eighths and even sixteenths.  If the well was a good producer, the owners’ profits were also shared in the same percent as they had been invested.  The best oil producing rock strata in the Newport area was the Cow Run sand.  It is at the surface near Vaucluse, W. Va., and on a long descending plane [that] goes under the Ohio River, the Greene farm, the hills behind Newport known as Pine Ridge, then continues on under some bottom land between the Pine Ridge hills and the Little Muskingum River.  How far and how deep the Cow Run sand goes beyond the Little Muskingum River I do now know.  Running across the bottom land, just mentioned, is a little stream known as Cow Run, and this is where the Cow Run sand gets its name. This became the first oil field in the State of Ohio, and the Torners developed “oil fever” there; but they never got rich to the best of my knowledge.  During the boom days of the oil production it was a common sight to see oil derricks in the yards and gardens of many homes in Sistersville, W. Va., and eighteen miles up the Oho River from Newport.  I have seen some of these derricks in the 1930s.   May 12, 1999, sent to Kim Klemp, Purser, PSSOA, The Delta Queen Steamboat Co.:               Now back to ferrying the mail across the Ohio River between Newport, Ohio, and the Vaucluse mail stop on the B&O railroad on the West Virginia side of the river.  That required one Beaver-built skiff, a pair of oars, one pike-pole and two wheel barrows.              Five round trips a day six days a week in any kind of weather and all river conditions.  Always being aware of the time and if extra time was needed due to high water and/or ice in the river. The train would not wait if the mail was not there; but the mail had to wait when the train was late.             A wheel barrow to haul the mail from the post office in Newport to the boat landing, and a wheel barrow at Vaucluse to transport the mail between the railroad mail stop and the boat.               Vaucluse was the western terminus of a stagecoach line between Baltimore, Maryland, and the Ohio River when what is now West Virginia was still Virginia and before the Baltimore&Ohio Railroad, Ohio River division came into being. There were hotels at Vaucluse and Newport for travelers using the stagecoaches and steamboats.  All traces of Vaucluse have long disappeared.              The Beaver-biult skiff was sixteen feet long and had one pair of oars. When there was ice on the river it required two persons in the skiff.   One in the bow with the pike-pole to push the ice away and one in the stern sculling with one oar.  Under normal conditions one person rowing with two oars did very well.  This developed good arm, shoulder and back muscles.              Beaver and Racine skiffs were considered to be of equal quality and the best skiffs on the Ohio River.  They were heavy with flat bottoms and handled well making them ideal work boats. Steamboat crews referred to skiffs as yawls, and lucky was the towboat that had a Beaver or Racine yawl in her deckroom.              Beaver skiffs were hand made at Beavertown, Ohio, near Lock and Dam No. 16, mile 146.5.  Racine skiffs were made at Racine, Ohio, mile 241.6.  At the time the Torner mail skiff was purchased the price of a Beaver skiff was three dollars a foot, so it cost forty-eight dollars.  A major investment in those days.             On Sundays in fair weather the Torner skiff became my pleasure boat.  I could have the skiff to myself and row as far and long as I wanted.  Being on a boat and in control of the boat is pure joy to me, then and yet today.  The skiff gave me free access to towboats at the Sterling Oil Co., dock at St. Marys, W. Va., a mile up river from the Newport landing;.  One of the towboats as the sternwheel Tu-Endi-We. She was a steamboat that had been converted to diesel when the transition from steam to diesel began in the 1930s, and I was curious as to how it was done.             The crew welcomed me aboard and showed me the big heavy slow diesel engine that was where the boilers had been.  The drive shaft thru the deckroom to the differential in the engine room. The steam engines had been removed and the paddlewheel was turned with a chain and sprocket system.    [This skiff is on display at the Morgan County Historical Society Museum in McConnelsville. It should be noted that three generations of Torners used the skiff to ferry mail across the Ohio River—Grandfather William, his son Norris, and his grandson Bill, who lived with his grandparents and uncle in 1931 and 1932.]    While the grandfather and uncle contracted for the mail ferry service, they “gladly” let Bill “furnish the muscle power.”  This was the start of Bill’s life on the river.                  The transcript that follows is of a letter sent by Glenn Torner to his mother, Jennie Torner.   This is courtesy of Mary Burbach, daughter of Glenn Torner.     Camp Meade, Md. January 16, 1918     My dear Mother,             I have been assigned to Truck Co. No. 4 and think [I] will move to some other place near here very soon.  Perhaps tomorrow.  My mail will follow me but it will be slow perhaps, so perhaps you hadn’t better write anymore until you hear from me again with my new address which I’ll send you at the first minute I have what it will be.                The weather here is fine today warm and pleasant, an army overcoat is really a burden.  Kern and I got separated; he got 3 and just before they came to my name the company was filled up, so I got 4 but will likely go to the same camp, which will likely be Laurel, Md., about 25 miles from here, a town of about 5000.  I’ve heard from some of the drivers who took troop[s] there a couple of days ago.  They are taking all the engineers out of here to make room for some more drafted follows here.  Laurel will be headquarters. Just back from mess (noon) so you can readily see I feel different now than when I started to write. It’s nearly time for drill so must close.    My love, Glenn     Letter dated June 4, 2002, to Mary and Kenny Burbach:   One year my dad rode the DQ during the race and had dinner at the captain’s table as the guest of Letha Greene, and that was a year the DQ won the race.  In 1998 Sherrie [Torner, Bill’s niece] and I were on the DQ as passengers on the Memphis to Cincinnati Cruise, and the DQ lost the race.  The race was lost before the DQ arrived in Louisville.  During the night the antlers had been removed from the pilothouse so they would be ready to be handed to the captain of the BELLE when the race was over.  …[The] races were manipulated.  There is one thing that [is] permanently fixed, and that is the fact that the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE is the oldest operating steamboat in the U.S., and the DELTA QUEEN is the second oldest steamboat operating in the U. S.