Dr. Martin and his home are mentioned in this 2002 article from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph about his grandson, John Nash. William "Bill" Archer, senior writer, also wrote a song about John Nash. Since picking up the 'Project Duo' album at Princeton's Welcome Fall Y'all Festival, members of the Martin house project have been rocking out to the tune while they work...
Wednesday January 2, 2002
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, A-1 to A-6
Birthplace of 'A Beautiful Mind' - Dr. John F. Nash Jr. and family leave enduring mark on Bluefield's history
by Bill Archer
of the Bluefield Daily Tele
graph Staff Bluefield -- The excitement surrounding the release of "A Beautiful Mind," the story of Bluefield native Dr. John Forbes Nash Jr., will ultimately bring at least some measure of renewed interest to the city where he was born and spent his first 17-plus years.
Although Nash left Bluefield to work in his chosen field of mathematics, his family left an important stamp on the history of the city that may well outlive the signs at the entrances to the city proclaiming that Bluefield is Nash's birthplace.
However, his ancestors before him also made equally important contributions to the city.
Nash's maternal grandfather, Dr. James Everett Martin, was one of the pioneer settlers of the city. Martin was born in North Carolina, and studied medicine at the University of Maryland. He was married to Emma Virginia Baker Martin, also of North Carolina, in 1894, and moved to Bluefield to practice medicine.
"Dr. Martin was active in all public matters, especially in the early history of Bluefield," the composer of his obituary wrote after his Jan. 30, 1924 death. "He was elected mayor and served with distinction and later became postmaster. He was also a member of the Mercer County court, and for a number of terms was president of the county health boards."
Martin served as Bluefield's sixth mayor, and was in office from Feb. 1, 1896 to Feb. 1, 1897 at a time when the city was experiencing dynamic growth. During the quarter-century between his term as mayor and his death at age 66, Martin would become one of the city's best known businessmen
.
"He was president of the pension board at the time of his death," his obituary writer wrote. "He engaged in a number of business enterprises and accumulated considerable property. For the past few years, he was not actively engaged in the practice of medicine, but devoted his time to the management of business interests."
"He was a Republican in politics and took part in the early political conflicts in this city and section, and was highly esteeemed by all, even those who differed with him," according to his obituary. "Dr. Martin helped to build this city. He took an early part in the program of building and advancing the city's interests.
"He was widely known and had many strong and true friends," the obituary concluded. "He was regarded as a skillful physician and a man of strong intellectual ability." He resided in a home on Duhring Street that still stands across the street from Bluefield's Christ Episcopal Church.
During his early years in the city, Martin was a contemporary of Charles Landon Knight, an attorney and sometimes newspaperman. Knight's son, John S. Knight, was born at the Knight home on Ramsey Street on Oct. 26, 1894. The younger Knight would go onto found the Knight-Ridder Newspaper Chain and receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for editorial writing.
Martin and another Bluefield couple had traveled to Florida as part of an "automobile party." They had been in Deland, Fla., and on Saturday Jan. 30, 1924, drove to Miami where Martin suffered a "stroke of apoplexy," a sudden paralysis caused by the breaking or obstruction of a blood vessel in the brain.
Martin's widow and his eldest daughter, Virginia (Nash's mother) left immediately for Miami, but didn't arrive until two hours after Martin's death. His remains were returned to Bluefield, and he was buried at Maple Park Cemetery at the corner of Bland and Union streets in Bluefield. Mrs. Martin passed away on June 2, 1946.
Nash's father, John Forbes Nash Sr., came to Bluefield in 1920 and accepted a position as an engineer with (then) Appalachian Power, now American Electric Power. Nash was a graduate of Texas A&M College and had served as a supply officer with the 144th infantry during World War I.
When John Sr. and Virginia Martin Nash first married, they resided in Apt. 9, of the old Fairview Apartments at 1524 1/2 Bland St., in the building that presently houses Goodykoontz Pharmacy. The family moved from Bland Street to a residence located at 1016 Highland Ave., sometime in 1928 prior to Nash's birth at the Bluefield Sanitarium on June 13, 1928.
It is interesting to note that another rather prominent individual, Ruth Bowman, mother to General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, was born just a few short blocks from Nash's first home in a residence at 501 Highland Avenue in 1900. Miss Bowman left Bluefield in 1918, and became a nurse in Trenton, N.J., where she met and married the senior General Schwarzkopf in 1928. "Stormin' Norman" came along in 1934.
By late 1939, John Nash Sr., had completed building a unique home at 1405 Whitehorn Street, directly across the street from the dean of southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia newsmen, H. Edward "Eddie" Steele. The elder Nash build the home out of fly ash by-product from the AEP power plant at Glen Lyn, Va.
The younger Nash attended his first three years of public schools at Wade Elementary School, completed his elementary education at Whitehorn Elementary School, went to Fairview Junior High School, and finished his public school at Beaver High in 1945.
During his last two years at Beaver, he traveled daily to Bluefield College with the late Tony Lotito, who was then coaching football at both Beaver and BC. During those two years, Nash completed his first 18 hours of college credit. The late Tony Lotito is the man for whom Lotito Park is named.
On Feb. 23, 1945, the senior and junior John F. Nashes combined forces for a joint paper they presented to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. In the paper, John F. Nash is listed as an electrical engineer for Appalachian Power, and John F. Nash Jr., is listed as a student at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.
By 1948, Nash had earned both his undergraduate and master's degree at Carnegie Tech., and in 1950, he would complete his doctorate at Princeton University and author his doctoral thesis on game theory that would win him a one-third share of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1994.
The Nash family left Bluefield on April 1, 1952, when John Nash Sr., was appointed AEP's system supervising distribution engineer in Roanoke, Va. He died Sept. 12, 1956, at the age of 64. He had become ill after returning from a business trip in New York. His widow lived out her days in Roanoke, as well as his daughter, Martha Nash Legg who still resides in Roanoke with her husband Charlie.
The movie, "A Beautiful Mind" takes off somewhere after there. Although Nash did not participate with Sylvia Nasar in the biography of the same name, he did work with producer/directors Brian Grazer and Ron Howard as well as screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to develop the movie project.
Russell Crowe spent at least five months researching the character he would play before filming started on March 26, 2001. The movie is due out nationwide on Jan. 4.
