Identification: Jacob Isaac VAN BEBBER and Christina Isaac Jacob VAN BEBBER and Veronica SCHUMACKER Peter VAN BEBBER and Ann Isaac VAN BIBBER, I., and Sarah DAVIS James VAN BEBBER and Hannah HOOVER Isaac Hoover VAN BEBBER and Hannah LONG George VANBEVERS and Mary Elizabeth TINLY William VANBEVER and Emily HOWARD Robert VANBEVER

Persistency and determination are salient traits in the character of Robert VANBEVER, who is the present efficient incumbent of the office of sheriff of BELL County, Kentucky. He maintains his home at Pineville, the judicial center of the county, and here he is recognized as a
man of unusual business ability and as one whose deep and sincere interest in all htat affects the general welfare is characterized by loyalty and public spirit.
A native son of BELL County, Kentucky, Robert VANBEVER has here resided
during practically his entire life-time thus far. He was born on Yellow
Creek, on the 7th of February 1870, and is a son of William and Emily
(HOWARD) VANBEVER, both of whom were born in BELL County, thr former in
1838. George VAN BEVER, the paternal grandfather of him of Tennessee and as a young man he came to Kentucky, locating on Yellow Creek, in BELL County, where he became a prominent and influential farmer. William VANBEVER was reared under the invigorating influence of the farm on which he was born and he was a gallant and faithful soldier in the Union army in the Civil war, serving with all of valor during the last two years of that sanguinary struggle. He passed his entire life on the farm which he and his Father cleared, and he was summoned to eternal rest in 1878, at the comparatively young age of forty years. His wife was a daughter of Larkin and Catherine (ELY) HOWARD.
The third in order of birth in a family of six children, Robert
VANBEVER was a child of but eight years of age the time of his father's
death. He was then taken into the home of an uncle, Sam KING, who lived
near Barbourville, and who cared for him during the ensuing three years.
The youthful Robert attended school for a period of six months and when
eleven years of age he returned to BELL County, where he resumed the active responsibilities of live by working, first on railroad construction, and later in a saw mill. In 1896 he was elected to the office of chief of police of Pineville, and he served in that capacity for two years, when he resigned in order to enlist as a soldier in the Fourth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, for service in the Spanish-American war. He served for nine months, at the expiration of which he received his honorable discharge and was mustered out of the army in Alabama. After his return to Pineville, he was deputy of sheriff for a period of four years. He was then, in 1902, elected jailor of BELL County, and after remaining in tenure of that office for two terms he was elected, in the fall of 1909, to the office of sheriff of BELL County. He asumed the responsibilities of the last-mentioned position in January, 1910, and in connection therewith he is giving a most distinguished and capable administration. In addition to his participation in public affairs he is interested in a number of important business enterprises in this section, and at the present time is vice president of the Straight Creek Coal Mining Company. On the 24th of December, 1902, was recorded the marriage of Mr. VANBEVER To Miss Bertha BAILEY, who was born in BELL County, Kentucky, on the 20th of June, 1881, and who is a daughter of C.H. and Eliza (RICE) BAILEY, the former of whom was born in LEE County, Virginia, in 1852, and who is now living at Blanche, Kentucky. Mrs. BAILEY is a native of HARLAN County, Kentucky, where her birth occurred in 1859, and she is still living in 1911. Mr. BAILEY came to Kentucky from the Old Dominion commonwealth in the ante-bellum days, his fatehr locating a tract of farming land in what was the HARLAN County. To Mr. and Mrs. VANBEVER have been born two children, namely: Clara and Robert, Jr.
A staunch Republican in his political proclivities, Mr. VANBEVER has
long been an active factor in connection with public affairs in BELL County. He has ever manifested a whole-souled interest in all matters tending to advance the civic and material welfare of this county and he has acquitted himself with all of honor and credit in the various offices to which he has been elected. He is prominent in fraternal circles, holding membership in BELL Lodge, No. 691, F. & A. M., of Pineville; in Middlesboro Lodge, No. 1041, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; in the Order of Owls at Middlesboro; and in the Pineville lodges of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Knights of the Maccabees. In their religious adherency he and his wife are devout members of the Methodist and Baptist churches, and they are accorded the unqualified confidence and esteem of their fellow-cititens.

ROBERT VANBEVER