USA > Maryland > Annual report of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, 13th-14th, Vol. II > Part 10
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The very first German immigration to the wild and roman- tic valleys of the Alleghanies occurred about the middle of the last century. The oppression of the English High Church and large land owners had driven them from their homesteads in Pennsylvania and Eastern Virginia. Separated from the civilized world, exposed to the attacks of the treacherous In- dians, they became a hardy, independent and even rough people. In the first part of this history it is stated that the
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counties Hardy and Pendleton were settled by a part of the early German immigration to the Shenandoah valley, and part of the following reports has also been previously men- tioned. In what is now JJefferson county, Robert Harper, a German, located in 1734, and his name is given in Harper's Ferry. Jacob Hite founded Legtown and Thomas Shepherd became the founder of Mecklenburg, now Shepherdstown. In Berkeley county the Waggeners and Faulkners, who distin- guished themselves during the French and Indian War and the War of Independence, counted to the pioneer settlers. The two brothers Andrew and Edward Waggener came from Culpeper. to Berkeley in 1750 and settled at Bunker's Hill, and later on General Adam Stephan (Stephens) and Colonel W. Darke also made Berkeley their home. With the first white inhabitants of Morgan county Thomas Hite, van Swear- inger and others are numbered, and still more numerous were the German pioneers in Hampshire county. Among the founders of Watson Town in 1787 were Jacob Hoover, V. Swisher, R. Bumgardner, Isaac Zahn and other Germans. During the French and Indian War the German settlers of this section had to fight for their homes and families. Bow- ers and Furman were killed and H. Newkirk wounded. In Pendleton county the horrible massacre at Fort Seybert by the Indians in May 1758 tells of the early settlement of Ger-
mans. Among the first white inhabitants of Pocahontas county were Peter Lightner, H. Harper, W. Hartman and J. Wolfenbarger, the Jordans, Tallmans, etc. The name "Knapp's Creek" reminds of the German pioneers. In 1754 David Ty- gar and Files came to Randolph county. The nationality of these pioneers is not known, but in 1790, on the land of Jacob Westfall, the county-seat Beverly was laid out and the Germans J. Westfall, Th. Phillips, H. Rosecrouts and V. Stalmaker were appointed trustees. Tucker county was set- tled by Germans in 1776, but all pioneer colonists were mur- dered by the savages. In 1758 Thomas Decker was the first white man who entered the territory of Preston and Monon- galia counties. Ile established a settlement on Decker's creek, but he and his comrades were also slain by the Delaware and Mingoe Indians. The same evil fate in 1779 befell an-
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other German settlement on Dunkurt's creek. At the time when the county of Preston was formed by a division of Monongalia, the following Germans were among the first county officers: F. Hara, W. Sigler, Jacob Funk, etc. The counties Grant, Mineral, Marion, Harrison, Barbour, Lewis, Upshur, Webster, Braxton, Gilmor, Ritchie, Doddridge, Tay- lor, Tyler, Pleasants, Calhoun, Rean, Logan, Mason, Putnam, Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln, Wyoming, McDowell, Mercer, Raleigh and Boone are of later creation and are but little populated, but in all of them the German clement is more or less rep- resented. The historian V. A. Lewis relates as a remarkable circumstance : "A Mr. Gordon, an American-German, had had by two wives twenty-eight children." - Weston or formerly Flesherville, the county-seat of Lewis county, was laid out on the land of David Stringer; the same land had in 1784 be- longed to Henry Flesher. Hacker's creek also derives its name from a German settler. The German element of Wirt county can boast of several well-known men, as: A. G. Stringer, first County Clerk; W. E. Lockhart, Commissioner in Chancery ; Arthur L. Boreman, first Governor of the new State and later U. S. Senator ; John G. Stringer, State Attorney, etc. In the counties Wetzel, Marshall, Ohio, Brook and Hancock, form- ing a long and narrow strip of land, the so-called "Panhan- dle," and which are situated between Pennsylvania and Ohio, the first attempts at a settlement were principally made by Germans. William Boner came to Burke county in 1774, Moses Decker about 1787, etc., but the settlements in Brooke and Hancock counties suffered heavily from the savages, and the last white men killed by the Indians in that part of the Panhandle were the Germans Captain von Buskirk and John Decker. No less endangered were the lives of the German colonists in Ohio county and their courageous tenacity de- serves exemplary credit. - West Liberty was established by legislative enactment November 29th, 1787, on the lands of R. Foreman and others, and in 1793 Wheeling was first laid out in town lots by Colonel Ebenezer Zane .- Marshall county, formerly part of the county of Ohio, was first settled in 1769 by John Wetzel and family, who were soon followed by the Siverts and Earlywines. In 1777 Nathan Master (Meister),
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James and Jonathan Riggs found homes within the limits of Marshall county. During the struggles with the Indians Captain Foreman (1777), Captain John Baker (1778), and Colonel Beeler (1780) fought with distinction; they and their men and also the Tusch family were slain by the savages. The counties Wood, Jackson and Mason near the Ohio river also owe their present flourishing condition to German dili- gence. The German Christopher Gist or Geist, whom the historian of West Virginia, V. A. Lewis, erroneously repre- sents to have been an Englishman, was in 1750 by order of the Ohio Land Company the first explorer of this region. George Washington, George Muse, Andrew Waggener and others were donated by the English government with exten- sive land tracts in Mason county in recognition of their emi- nent services during the French and Indian War, and they desired, as has been previously mentioned, to draw German
farmers to their estates. Traces of an early German immi- gration are found to this day in the counties of Kanawha, Fayette, Greenbrier, Sumers, Monroe and Nicholas. With the first white men who reached this part of the country came the Hugharts, Rader, Moss, Hyde, Carpenter or Zimmermann, Strickland, etc., and the last victims of Indian treachery were a German family by name of Straud (Stroud) as pre- viously stated, who lived near the junction of Gauley and Kanawha rivers, respectively the Gauley and New river.
With the enlarged settlement of the country the man- ners of the mountaineers were gradually refined, but they retained their independent and energetic character. Within the first half of the present century the Germans participated in several demonstrations against the infringement on vital in- terests and fair claims of Western Virginia on part of the State government and against the unequal representation of the two great sections of the State - the West and the East -- in the General Assembly. The unjust representation gave to the East virtual sovereignty and rendered the western sec- tion almost powerless in all matters of State legislation.
224.) "History of West Virginia," by Virgil A. Lewis, pp. 320-321, Philadelphia, Pa., 1889.
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" in the Assembly in 1820231) the former had one hun- dred and twenty-four members, while the latter had but eighty. The result was that the East secured to itself nearly everything in the character of internal improvements. The public buildings, with a single exception, the 'Western Lu- matic Asylum at Staunton,' were all cast of the Blue Ridge. But that which produced .the greatest dissatisfaction and caused deepest displeasure was the restriction of the right of suffrage. Its exercise depended on a property qualification and was restricted exclusively to the freeholders of the State. The doctrine: 'that all men are born free and independent,' was declared in the first clause of the 'Bill of Rights,' but while it was claimed to be true in theory, it was declared to be dangerous in application.
The system of taxation233) was also unequal, discriminat- ing against the free mountain section, taxing lightly those interests which the West did not possess, while expensive in- ternal improvements, adding greatly to real property values, were only undertaken in the East. Railroads of greatest feasi- bility and utility, surveyed and brought into notice by pub- lic-spirited individuals, were procrastinated and killed by the same determination to override the interests of this region.
The eminent value of this country was intentionally or un- intentionally ignored by the oligarchy of the southeast of Vir- ginia. For the variety and fertility of its soil, mineral and for- est resources, abundant waterpower, numerous mineral springs possessed of sanitive character, a delightful and healthful cli- mate, etc., invited immigration, but the slave-owners of the East feared the influx of an intelligent and progressive popu- lation, as is generally concentrated in industrial districts, and they endeavored to reduce to a minimum the means of communication and traffic, like railroads, canals and good roads, necessary to the development of the rich resources of Western Virginia. Before the War of Secession the road sys-
235.) "West Virginia," by J. R. Dodge, U. S. Agricultural Report, 1863, page 45. Washington, 1863.
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tem of West Virginia consisted only of the stage-road front Guyandotte and Charlestown, by way of Gauley Bridge and White Sulphur Springs, to Jackson River Depot, now Clifton Forge, which was at that time the terminus of the Virginia Central Railroad, now the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and of the turnpike route from Parkersburg to Staunton and Winchester. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the only railroad that touched West Virginia. Thus the interests of East and West Virginia seriously conflicted; but the most potent cause of the ill-feeling between the two sections was the institution of Slavery. Statistical reports estimate the number of slaves in the West, as stated previously, at seven per cent. of the entire population, and in the East at more than fifty per cent. Especially in the northern counties of the present State of West Virginia slavery and slave-labor were discredited. Free labor was valued more profitable and honorable than servile, yielding more comely social results and sweeter moral fruit, and more successfully advancing the national well-being and the progress of intellect. The Ger- mans of the lower Shenandoah valley in the counties of Jef- ferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy and Pendleton and of the "Panhandle" joined in these humane aspirations. They were in constant commercial and social intercourse with the people of the adjoining northern colonies or free States, and it is but natural that they adopted their views and man- ners. .
" It was evident," says Virgil A. Lewis, 236) "that a redress of grievances never could be secured under the existing consti- tution, and as early as 1815 the question of a constitutional convention to revise that instrument began to be agitated."
In 1828 the people's vote was taken in regard to the call of a convention and the proposition was carried by 21,896 assent- ing against 16,646 dissenting votes, showing that even in the East many voters recognized the necessity of reforms. In 1829 and again in 1850 conventions were held at Richmond to revise the constitution in favor of West Virginia, but none of the re-
236.) "History of Virginia," by Virgil A. Lewis, p. 322. Philadelphia, Pa., 1889.
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forms sought were secured in 1829. Among the members of the convention of 1850 several western delegates bear German names. A redress of many grievances was secured ; the right . of suffrage was extended, taxation rendered more equitable and the basis of representation so remodeled as to secure to the West greater equality in the halls of legislature. But the Civil War again created disharmony between the two sections; the East favored secession, while the West remained faithful to the Union.
On May 13th, 1861, or twenty-four days after the Richmond convention had passed the ordinance of Secession, the delegates of twenty-five western counties assembled at Wheeling and de- clared unqualified opposition to Secession and that in the event of the ratification of the ordinance of Secession by the people the counties represented would separate from the castern part of the State and form a government of their own, and a general convention should meet on June 11th at Wheeling.
A list of the members of the " First Wheeling Convention " contains the following German names :
Hancock county. - Wm. B. Freeman, J. L. Freeman, R. Breneman, Sam. Freeman.
Brooke county. - Adam Kuhn, Joseph Gist, John G. Jacob.
Ohio county. - J. R. Stefel, G. L. Cramner, A. F. Ross, John Stiner, J. M. Bickel, J. Paull, John C. Hoffman, Jacob Berger, J. C. Orr.
Marshall county. - II. (. Kemple, Dr. Marshman, J. W. Boner, Ch. Snediker, J. S. Riggs, Alex. Kemple.
Wetzel county. - A. W. Lauck, B. T. Bowers, Geo. W. Bier, W. D. Welker.
Tyler county. -- W. B. Kerr.
Harrison county. - S. S. Fleming, Felix S. Sturm.
Pleasants county. - R. A. Cramer.
Wood county. - S. I .. . 1. Burche, W. Vroman, J. Burche. Peter Dils, H. Rider.
Monongalia. - L. Kramer, H. Deering, E. D. Fogle, J. D. Hess, ('h. II. Burgess, J. T. M. Bly, J. Miller.
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Preston county. - D. A. Letzinger, W. B. Zinn.
Jackson county. - A. Flesher, G. Leonard.
Marion county. - J. Holman, John Chisler.
Mason county. - W. E. Wetzel, L. Harpold, W. W. Harper, Wm. Harpold, Sam. Yeager, C'h. H. Bumgarten, Ch. B. Wag- gener.
Wirt county. - II. Neuman.
Hampshire county. - George W. Sheets, G. W. Rizer.
Berkeley county. - . J. S. Bowers.
Roane county. - I. C. Stump.
and many others of doubtful origin like Smith, Young, Win- ters, Conrad, Brown, King, Fish, Hunter, Baker, Snyder, Cook, Walker, Marshall, etc. Wm. B. Zinn of Preston county was made temporary president and C'h. B. Waggener was one of the secretaries.
On the 23d of May the vote on the ordinance of Secession was taken and while the eastern portion of Virginia was almost unanimously in favor of Secession, in the western counties of the 44,000 votes cast 40,000 were against the ordinance.
On the 4th of June the delegates to the "Second Wheeling Convention " were chosen and assembled with the senators and representatives elected in May at the general election to mem- bership of the General Assembly of Virginia on June 11th at Wheeling. The German element was again largely represented in this memorable assemblage in which forty counties of the old mother State took action. The convention resolved?" 7): "We, the delegates here assembled in convention to devise such measures and take such action as the safety and welfare of the loval citizens of Virginia may demand, have maturely consid- ered the premises, and viewing with great concern the deplor- able condition to which this once happy commonwealth must be reduced unless some regular adequate measure is speedily adopted, and appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do hereby, in the name and
237.) Compare "A Declaration of the People of Virginia represented in Convention at the ('ity of Wheeling, Thursday, June 13th, 1861."
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on behalf of the good people of Virginia, solemnly declare that the preservation of their dearest rights and liberties, and their security in person and property, imperatively demand the reor- ganization of the Government of the Commonwealth, and that all the acts of said convention (that is, the Richmond conven- tion which passed the ordinance of Secession) and executive tending to separate this Commonwealth from the United States, or to levy and carry on war against them, are without authority and void; and that the offices of all who adhere to said con- vention and executive, whether legislative, executive or judicial, are vacated."
Thus the Wheeling convention had proclaimed an inter- regnum in the State government and already the following day began the work of reorganization. Arthur J. Boreman of Wood county was president of the convention and G. L. Cramner sec- retary. The new government of Virginia was acknowledged by the United States authorities as the legal government of Vir- ginia. On the first day of July the General Assembly organized at Wheeling and elected senators and representatives to the National Congress at Washington, who were admitted to seats in the respective houses.
"Having reorganized the government23%) and elected a chief executive officer, Francis II. Pierpont of Marion county, Governor of Virginia, and provided for the election of all other officers, civil and military, the labors of the convention were evidently drawing to a close. Nothing had been done that ap- peared to directly inaugurate the popular movement for the formation of a new State. In reality however the true theory had been adopted and the only legitimate mode of arriving at the most desirable result had been conceived and acted upon by the convention. If the government, thus restored, was acknow- ledged by the Federal authorities as the only government. in Virginia, then the legislative branch of it could give its assent to the formation of a new State, as provided for by the Consti- tution of the United States." Angust 6th, 1861, the convention reassembled at Wheeling and adopted an ordinance to provide for the formation of a new State, and on the 24th of October the
238.) J. H. Hagan's First West Virginia Report, p. 63.
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people of the respective counties sanctioned this resolution. On the 26th of November a Constitutional Convention assembled again at Wheeling, the first capital of the new State, to frame the first Constitution of West Virginia. The following German names are among those of the delegates who performed this im- portant labor : R. W. Lauck of Wetzel county, Rob't Hager of Borne, Heury Dering of Monongalia, Harmon Sinsel of Taylor, J. A. Dille of Preston, G. W. Sheets of Hampshire, Louis Ruff- ner of Kanawha, etc. On the 3d day of May, 1862, the Consti- tution was confirmed by a general vote of the people, and on the 9th of the same month a State convention assembled at Par- kersburg elected the German-Virginian Arthur L. Boreman Governor of West Virginia, while Governor Pierpont of Vir- ginia moved the archives of the restored government to Alex- andria, which continued to be the rallying centre of Unionism in Virginia until the 25th of May, 1865, when the Pierpont government removed to Richmond.
In the meanwhile Federal and Confederate armies had en- tered the mountain region of Old Virginia and on the 7th of July, 1861, the first blood was shed in the battle at Scary creek. General Henry A. Wise, in command of the Confederate forces sent into the Kanawha valley, was victorious in this first en- gagement, but the Federals under General Cox being in strong force, the C'onfederates were in danger of being cut off and re- treated to Meadow Bluff, north of Lewisburg, Greenbrier county. "The disaster at Rich mountain, the surrender of Pegram's force, and the retreat northward of Garnett's army," says A. Pollard, 239) " had withdrawn all support from the right flank and indeed from the rear of General Wise."
The campaign of the Confederate troops in West Virginia, thus quite unsuccessful, the Legislature of Old Virginia on the 13th of May, 1862. proposed to acknowledge the formation of the new State of West Virginia, but only within the jurisdiction of Virginia. The waves of the conflict rolled over this attempt to bring about a reconciliation, and on December 31st, 1862. President Lincoln confirmed the resolution of the United States
239.) "The Lost Cause," by Edw. A, Pollard, p. 169, New York, 1866,
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Congress to admit West Virginia as a State in the Union, with fifty counties of 24,000 square miles and 376,68S inhabitants.
There was a feeling of relief among the friends of the I'nion as from an irksome and heavy burden in the separation from the Old Dominion, the influence of which had long rested like a nightmare upon the western section; but there were still many adherents to the old Government in the new State. The Germans and German descendants were mostly Union men. For instance, in Preston county the German citizens.demon- strated and agitated already in January 1861 against the seces- sion movement.2+0) "A county convention appointed a com- mittee of which S. W. Snider, J. Wolf, I. Startzman, G. Hilden- berger, Ch. Bischoff, etc., were members, and elected delegates to the ' People's Convention,' to assemble at Richmond, Va., the 13th of February, 1861. On the same day about 150 citizens of the German settlement met, electing Ch. Hooton chairman and G. H. Schaffer secretary, and the meeting passed resolutions disapproving the course of the extreme southern States and deprecating the doctrine of secession. Other meetings were held at the Gladesville schoolhouse and at Pleasant Valley church ; patriotic songs were sung and even the women ex- pressed their attachment to the Union."
When the crisis came and war broke out, the German de- scendants promptly responded to the call for troops to join the Federal army. Preston county for example showed on its mus- ter-rolls the German names of the following officers: Sam'l Snyder, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 16th West Virginia Regi- ment; Captain W. M. Paul, 15th West Virginia Regiment : Captain M. M. Snyder, 17th West Virginia Regiment ; Captain D. A. Letzinger, 3d Regiment West Virginia Cavalry ; Captain J. S. Hyde, 3d Regiment West Virginia Infantry ; Captain W. A. Falkenstine, joined 3d Maryland Volunteers : Jacob Stemple, Major of Militia; Captain Peter Zinn, etc. The number of Germans from West Virginia on the Confederate side was com- paratively small. The census of 1860, which does not consider the older German immigration, but simply anglicizes it, num-
240.) "History of Preston county, W. Va.," by S. T. Wiley, p. 96, Kingswood, W. Va., 1882.
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bers the German population of the new State at 10,512 and states : that 869 engaged in the war. However these figures are much too low. According to the report of the Adjutant-General of the State for the year 1865 it appears, that West Virginia fur- nished in all 36,530 troops to the Federal army, and in propor- tion to the strength of the German element - Germans and their descendants - it must at least have supplied one-third, or 12,200 men. No official data exist to show the number, that went from West Virginia into the Confederate army. The his- torian Virgil A. Lewis241) estimates the number at about 7,000, and the author, who was an officer of General Jenkin's Cavalry Brigade, which was principally recruited in West Virginia, from his observations would appraise the Germans and German descendants among them at not more than 3,000-4,000. Of Confederate officers from West Virginia and of German descent Colonel J. S. Witcher, 3d Virginia Cavalry ; Captain Wm. H. Haffner, Company E, Edgar's Battalion ; Captain Wm. Keiter, who commanded a Tennessee Artillery Company ; Lieutenant Hawer, Company D, 14th Virginia Cavalry ; Chaplain Brillkart, 8th Virginia Cavalry; Lieutenant Henry A. Wolf, 3d Virginia Cavalry, and Captain Peter Carpenter are known. "Shriver (Schreiber ?) Greys," a handful of exiles from Wheeling, only thirty strong, are mentioned in Confederate reports as a gallant band.242)
During the late war the German districts of the new State had chiefly suffered, especially the lower Shenandoah valley and the counties on Greenbrier, New and Kanawha rivers, but by the energy and industry of the population they soon regained their former wealth. The development of West Virginia since its separation from Old Virginia is surprising and is a concil- iating moment of the dismemberment of the Mother-State of the Union. Astonishing activity has characterized the con- struction of railroads; the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers were made navigable for steamboats ; a thorough and stringent law was enacted relative to the construction and working of
241.) "History of West Virginia," by Virgil A. Lewis, p. 423. Philadelphia, 1889. 242.) "The Life of Stonewall Jackson," by a Virginian, p. 78. Ayres & Wade, Richmond, Va., 1863.
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roads; the hidden treasures of the earth : coal, iron, lead, cop- per, silver, antimony, nickel, borax, soda, alum, salt, lime, pe- troleum, etc., have been mined and developed; the mineral springs of remarkable variety and of high reputation are rapidly attaining celebrity among the most noted and elegant watering places of the northern States and even of the Old World; agriculture and rural enterprise, fruit growing, wine making, dairying, and the production of wool are progressive and the value of real estate is constantly advancing. In conse- quence of the last named progress many German farmers have gained great wealth. Before, during and after the late war sey- eral Germans have been entrusted with surveying the land and with exploring and analyzing the mineral resources. The first topographical map of the two Virginias was drawn, as already mentioned, by order of Gov. Henry A. Wise, by Capt. v. Buch- holtz, a native of Wuertemberg and a resident of Richmond ; Oswald Heinrich, a Saxon, explored the mineral wealth of the Alleghanies by order of the Confederate government and he has drawn the first geological map of West and East Virginia ; General L. Ruffner, a member of the well known Ruffner family originating from the kingdom of Hannover, was the superinten- dent of the celebrated Kanawha Salines,-and Dr. Heinrich Froehling, chemist of Richmond, collected and analyzed sam- ples of ore, etc.
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