Born in Elkins in 1911, he attended Washington and Lee University and the West Virginia University College of Law. He took office at a particularly difficult moment in West Virginia history, when declining employment in the coalfields and a historic population loss were reshaping the state. Money moved through corporations outside West VirginiaThe government’s case concerned an alleged system in which money associated with West Virginia state contracts flowed through corporations in Ohio and Florida. According to the indictment, Schroath and Brown established corporations that received money from companies doing business with West Virginia state government, and prosecutors contended that the payments were effectively kickbacks. A trial unlike any West Virginia had seenEven before the jury-bribery scandal emerged, contemporary observers understood that Barron’s trial represented something exceptional.