James Hays Willock

James Hays Willock
September 11, 1853 - ?

James Hays Willock was Cashier of the Second National Bank, and so much more.

Indeed, he was elected President of that bank in 1888, the year before the Johnstown Flood, and he held that position through 1903 and perhaps longer. Along with Club member Moses B. Suydam he served as a director of the Second National Bank of Pittsburgh, located at Ninth and Liberty, which had been founded in 1859.

Mr. James H. Willock, the President of the bank, was born in the city of Allegheny, September 11, 1853, the son of Capt. John Scott Willock of the Hays Coal Company, who owned the Hazlewood land that would become the site of the Jones and Laughlin Steel plant. (Source for date of birth is: “A Century of Banking in Pittsburgh” by Edward White, Pittsburgh, Pa. Index Co., 1903).

James Hays Willock was vice president of the Firth-Sterling Steel Co. founded in 1897; this was a merger between two firms, one in Pittsburgh and the other in England, for the consolidation of precision steel tool manufacturing.

As were so many of the S F F & H C members, Willock was a member of Pittsburgh's Duquesne Club. He served as the financial secretary of the Americus Republican Club to which many other S F F & H C members and other prominent Pittsburghers also belonged.

In the years 1898-1906 Willock served as a director of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.

He was a shareholder in the Guarantee Company of North America along with S F F & C H member J. M. Schoomaker, as well as Elizabeth R. and William Minor Thaw.

In 1897 he served as a director of the Western Pennsylvania Hospital. He served as a delegate to the 1904 Republican National Convention, from Sewickley, PA., according to the Political Graveyard website.

Frank Scott Willock is a brother of James Hays Willock; see the various Blue Books from Pittsburgh. Frank Scott Willock married Lucy Haskell Christy, a daughter of George H. Christy, also a SFF&CH member. Additional Willock prominent Pittsburgh family connections include the Benjamin Franklin Jones family, the Durban Horne and C. B. Shea families, and the Larimers through which they were connected to the Carnegies.

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James Hays Willock was 35 at the time of the Johnstown Flood.

An illustrious Allegheny and then Sewickley family, the Willocks count among their descendants residents of Syosset, Long Island, and are as far flung as California and the Carolinas. I have been in touch with some family members. If you are one of them I would like to hear from you, as well. Please post a comment here saying how I can contact you.