Diss Debar was hired in 1846 by John Peter Dumas of Paris as agent for a 10,000-acre tract on Cove Creek in newly created Doddridge County, Virginia. In 1847 Diss Debar married Clara at Marietta, Ohio. He was 27, she 17. On April 29, 1849, she died in childbirth, survived by a son, Joseph Henry Diss Debar Jr. Her parents, the Levassors, took charge of the baby, raising him in Cincinnati. Now a widower, Diss Debar moved to Doddridge County himself, where he bought a tract where he settled a German-Swiss colony near the village of Leopold. He called his settlement Saint Clara for his late wife. In 1859, Diss Debar married a second time, to a local woman, Amelia Cain, who bore him five children. He did surveying and continued acting as agent for the land company.
The State Seal
In 1863, West Virginia became a state and the brand new state legislature appointed Diss Debar to make preliminary drawings for a state seal and coat-of-arms. His design was adopted in September of that year. At this time Diss Debar began to be quite prominent in state politics. The seal devised by Diss Debar is 2.5 inches in diameter and bears the motto Montani Semper Liberi. The images are symbolic representations of the state, its people and industries. The two figures standing on either side of the rock marking the state's date of foundation indicate the people and their occupations. The plow-handles and the axe indicate the cultivation after clearing of the original forests. Mineral wealth is indicated by the miner, his pick, and the lumps of coal at his feet. The crossed rifles with liberty cap in the foreground represent liberty maintained by force of arms.
Later years
appointed Diss Debar commissioner of immigration in 1864 in which capacity he recruited labor and landowners from abroad until the end of his term in 1871. He was a member of the House of Delegates representing Doddridge in 1864 and he prepared, compiled and published the first The West Virginia Hand-Book and Immigrant's Guide. Politically, he supported the Liberal Republicans in their efforts to come to terms with ex-Confederates in ending Radical Reconstruction within the state by 1872. During his 29 years living in what is now West Virginia, he produced numerous sketches of the people and places of the era. The elderly Diss Debar left West Virginia and moved to Pennsylvania. He died in Pittsburgh in 1905 and is buried in Philadelphia.
Personal
Diss Debar is said to have been fluent in French, German and English, semi-fluent in Spanish and Italian, and able to translate Latin and Greek. His characteristic Van Dyke beard, cloak and high silk hat, and the habitual twirling of his cane are said to have made him instantly recognizable. A notorious medium and fraudster — Swami Laura Horos — falsely claimed for a time to have been married to Diss Debar. Madam "O'Della Diss Debar" was known to have visited the Diss Debar home in Parkersburg many times and outwardly appeared to be a relative or family friend, but the relationship remains obscure.
Works
For the Benefit of the Catholic Hospital and Orphan Asylum of Wheeling, Virginia, Distribution of Farm Lots in St. Clara Colony, Doddridge County, Virginia, A Chance of a Home for One Dollar, Wheeling, Virginia, n.d.
"Two Men; Old John Brown and Stonewall Jackson of World-Wide Fame, Some Interesting Reminiscences by a Man Who Knew Both", Clarksburg, Clarksburg Telegraph, 1874.
The West Virginia Handbook and Immigrant's Guide. A Sketch of the State of West Virginia, Parkersburg, Gibbens Bros., 1870.
Prohibition; its Relation to Temperance, Good Moral and Sound Government, Cincinnati, 1910.
