USA > Virginia > Highland County > Highland County > A history of Highland County, Virginia > Part 2
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To the above named point the Cowpasture is a shorter and smaller river. It is properly a tributary, although below the confluence it retains the name of the united waters. Above, the Cowpasture has no tributaries of any length, save Shaw's Fork and Benson's Run.
In times of prolonged dryness some streams fail for a dis- tance below the source, and a few, as in the case of Dry Branch, pursue, in places, an underground course in dry weather. These disappearing waters are due to the presence of limestone strata. Yet in general the streams of Highland are very per- manent. They are also very clear, showing with distinctness the rocks and ledges below the surface and the finny inhabi-
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History of Highland County
tants darting hither and thither. The streams are rapid and show an almost continuous rippling, yet there are no abrupt falls of any note. Deep waters exhibit a well-marked tinge of green.
Small springs are very frequent, except in the limestone regions, and many a farmhouse has no need of a well. The waters are usually freestone or limestone, according to the nature of the rocks they issue from. Some springs are of great volume and are never-failing. A stream crossing the Bullpasture road two miles above Williamsville very much requires its footlog bridge, and yet is wholly the outflow of a spring within a hundred yards of the road. Blue Spring, on the farm of John H. Swope, has never yet been sounded. It is so named because of the bluish tint of its waters. Along the base of Bullpasture Mountain are several mammoth springs which give vent to the waters sinking into the limestone cav- erns above. A spring at Clover Creek has been turning a millwheel almost constantly for 160 years. A spring a mile above the turnpike ford on the Cowpasture formerly supplied a mill, and in a very dry time it becomes the real source of the river. Another spring, some distance below, proves fatal to the eyeless cave fish by bringing them in contact with the sun-illumined waters of the open river.
Alum, sulphur, and chalybeate springs occur in several localities, especially in the Bullpasture and Cowpasture val- leys. Some of these are of much local repute. Their waters are cool, since they do not rise from a great depth. But the zone of thermal springs which gives a name and a wide repu- tation to Bath County reaches into Highland. The geological formation of this district is that of a fissure, along which the surface waters sink to a vast depth. Now it is a well-known fact that below a short distance from the surface the tempera- ture of the earth rises. In mines 2,000 feet deep it is almost too hot for human endurance. At twice that depth water reaches the boiling point. In coming back to the surface from its distant higher source, the water not only retains much of its warmth but has exercised a dissolving action which when cold it could not possess. Filtered from organic matter in
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History of Highland County
passing downward, it rises again as mineral water, its proper- ties depending on the rocks it passes through. It thus becomes charged with gases as well as solids. If, for instance, the heated water rises through slate containing iron pyrites (fool's gold), sulphate of iron and sulphate of alumina are produced and sulphur and alum springs are the result.
The rocks of Highland are of the kind called stratified. They are limestones, sandstones, and shales, and were depos- ited by the action of water. They were formed on a large scale very much as we see river bars being formed on a small scale. The sandstones were once sand, either fine or coarse. The shales were once mud, and where they are reddish or maroon they were colored by iron. The blue, massive limestone, 50 to 60 feet deep, was formed in deep water, either by chemical action or from the tiny shells of almost microscopic animals. The coarser limestone with its shellcasts was formed in shal- low water near the shore line. The iron ore was formed as iron ore is being formed to-day. Iron is present in nearly every kind of soil. Where it is most plentiful it appears in springs as a reddish scum which either builds up a deposit of brick-red earth or else finally solidifies into bog iron ore.
The river formations which grow under our own eyes are deposited nearly on a level. But in the watergaps, where the fact is most readily observed, we find the layers of hard sand- stone, hard or rotten shale, and flaky slate bent into almost any angle between the horizontal and the vertical. It is plain enough that the rocks have been twisted by a tremendous force.
Highland was once quite level. To find what crumpled a plain into a mountain region we must look back a long way. Geology demonstrates to us that our earth was once intensely hot. Being a fluid mass the surface was smooth. In the pro- cess of cooling a time came when one ocean covered the entire globe. The crust below the ocean was now firm, because it had to be cool enough to permit water to exist in a liquid form. But in cooling everything contracts except water. In roasting an apple remains plump, but in cooling the shrunken pulp causes the tough skin to become wrinkled. Our earth neces-
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History of Highland County
sarily began to cool on the surface. After a firm crust had appeared the cooling and shrinking still went on and wrinkles began to show themselves above the waves. The first dry land in the United States was a ridge lying a little east of the Alle- ghany system but preserving the same general direction. Its eastern border is marked by what is known as the Fall Line in the James, the Potomac, and other rivers. The cities of Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond are on this Fall Line. With neither forests nor clear-cut ravines it would have been a strange-looking mountain. But the storms of millions of years finally wore it down to the base level. Nothing of it remains except the beds of granite and other hard primordial rocks which cause the rapids at Washington and Richmond.
As the old mountain wore away new land grew up around it. Life appeared on the globe, and plants and animals in great variety took a hand in the work of soil formation. Layer after layer of gravel, sand, or fine mud was laid down in the waters bordering the old mountain, and these differing layers were interspersed with limy deposits composed of the shells of minute marine animals. The leaves and stems of plants and shells and skeletons of large animals became entangled in the rock formations, and these are known to us as fossils. Heat and the overlying pressure hardened one after another of the beds of sand, mud, and marl into sandstone, shale, and lime- stone. The new land crept steadily westward. Beyond the central line of where are now the Alleghanies was a vast swamp covered with a jungle of strange vegetation. Thus were formed the coal beds of West Virginia.
But new wrinkles appeared in the earth's crust, and one of these was the Appalachian Highland. As compared with the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, the Appalachians are them- selves very old. Old mountains are comparatively low, be- cause they have been worn down from a much greater height. New mountains are high because there has not been enough time to wear them down greatly. The Appalachians were once of majestic height. But in the long-continued wearing down they have been furrowed into a complicated network of narrow ridges and narrow valleys. The watergaps tell a story of their
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History of Highland County
own. We read of the "everlasting hills," yet rivers may be older than hills. When we see a river forsaking one valley to wander through another, it is because the intervening ridge has been upheaved too slowly to prevent the river from keep- ing its channel open.
It is not a matter of chance that we see a ridge here and a valley there. In passing through a watergap in Highland, or in following with the eye the crest of a ridge, we are likely to see a thick layer of flinty sandstone tilted to a very high angle. This forms the core of the mountain and it holds up the softer materials which form the slopes. If, as is usually the case, the sandstone core tips toward the west, it is a per- fectly natural consequence that the mountain is steeper on that side. A valley means that the space between the two bordering ridges was composed of materials more or less soft and soluble, and that the scooping out is due to the furrowing of the stream that got a foothold between the mountains.
Neither is it a matter of chance that Bullpasture Mountain has a different form and character from the other ridges of Highland. Shenandoah Mountain to the east and Jack Moun- tain to the west are unbroken forests. Except in the low-lying coves, the surface is sterile and heavily burdened with rock. Furthermore, either mountain has well-defined crest and slopes, while the Bullpasture is less a true mountain than a belt of broken table-land. The explanation is simple. The Bullpasture plateau is a limestone belt, while the other two ranges are held up by their cores of sandstone. Hence the absence of clearings on them in contrast with the bluegrass meadows on the Bullpasture.
Mountains are not merely objects of landscape beauty, or places where people may go to escape the heat of midsummer. A mountain region includes much land that is seemingly waste, yet even the rockiest slopes of the Alleghanies can and should be a forest reserve. Their summits arrest the clouds and increase the rainfall within their spheres of influence. The wear and tear of their slopes renews the fertility of the lands below, while within the rocky framework is usually a store of mineral wealth.
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History of Highland County
Water will readily wear away soil already formed, yet its unaided action on hard rock is inconceivable slow. More rapid is the scouring effect of the sand, pebbles, and boulders that it rolls along. The crumpling of rocks in the process of their upheaval and the jarring of earthquakes fill them with in- numerable cracks. Into these cracks water finds its way, freezes, and pries the rock masses apart. Other blocks are pried loose by the roots of trees. And when a monarch of the forest falls down it is liable to dislocate several hundredweight of earth and rock. The heating of rocks turned toward the sun, especially in the case of shale, blisters the surface. Mosses and other humble plants cling to any rock, and their tiny roots crumble the surface. Rainwater charged with vegetable acid works into and widens the seams in an underlying bed of limestone. Immense caverns are in this way formed. As the cavern grows the roof weakens, and here and there it falls, leaving on the surface funnel-shaped sink-holes. The surface waters drain into these caverns and at a lower level they re- appear in great springs.
If nature is so slow in forming soil, she teaches that man- kind should guard against its undue waste. A naked surface, especially when robbed of its spongy vegetable mould, wears away with vastly more rapidity than when screened by a for- est or carpeted with grass.
The soils of Highland vary, as a matter of course, with the rocks from which they are derived. The darker and stronger soils are those of the limestone belts and the river bottoms. These are of marked fertility. Elsewhere, there is a looser and lighter-colored mould, often verging into a sandy, yellow- ish loam. Rocks, either tight or loose, and in very varying quantity, are found everywhere, and a considerable share of the surface is of very slight value for any other use than graz- ing or forestry. With all deductions, however, the agricul- tural capacity of Highland is quite considerable as well as largely undeveloped.
The mineral resources do not appear to have been thor- oughly prospected. Iron ore occurs, probably in considerable amount. As to coal, little more can be said than that it is
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History of Highland County
merely present. The geologic age of our rocks is not such as to warrant the expectation of hidden seams of commercial importance. On the other hand, the materials for lime, brick, and cement are abundant.
Ever since the coming of the white hunter there have been legends of lost lead mines in this and many other nearby counties among the Alleghanies. We are told of huntsmen who knew the secret path to where any desired quantity of pure lead could be hacked out with a hatchet. We are also told of persons who claim to have seen the hunters melt their chunks of lead. Yet in every instance these "mines" defy rediscovery. And well they may. How could the hunter threading an unbroken wilderness possess either the skill or the luck to come upon such valuable deposits, whereas in the century and a half of civilized occupancy, no person, skilled or unskilled, has been able to locate any of these spots? But we are told the hunters derived this knowledge from the Indians. Against this is the fact that the Indians did not mine metals and even less had they a knowledge of smelting. It had not been thirty years since they had come in touch with the whites. Until then they had no firearms, and could have found no practical use for a soft metal like lead. How could they suddenly develop the skill to find what before was of no use and what no one else has since been able to find? Then again, lead does not occur in a pure state but in ore. These ores do not give up the metal over an open fire. The legends we find in so many counties are all alike. They are one of those fond delusions which take possession of people in a credulous age and are handed down at face value to their offspring. The "lost lead mine" of the hunter is as mythical as the hoopsnake, an animal often spoken of but never seen. A serpent can no more take its tail into its mouth and roll over and over like a wagon tire than a man can lie on the ground, take his feet by his hands, and proceed to roll in the manner ascribed to the reptile. The alleged feat is not only absurd but a physical impossibility.
In the absence of local weather records, one may not speak with precision as to the climate of Highland. Because of the
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History of Highland County
elevation it is cool, yet there are noticeable differences within the county. The altitude rises from about 1,700 feet where the Cowpasture leaves the county to 2,000 feet at Clover Creek, 2,400 at McDowell, 2,900 at Doe Hill, 3,100 at Monterey, 3,200 at Hightown, and over 3,500 feet on Laurel Fork. There are farm houses at still greater altitudes. But making due allow- ance for the position and altitude of the nearest available weather stations, it may be affirmed that at McDowell the mean yearly temperature is 50 degrees, that of winter being 30 and that of summer 68. The rainfall is 40 to 45 inches in- cluding a snowfall of 25 inches, 12 inches of dry snow being equal to one inch of water. McDowell is a fair average for the Bullpasture and Cowpasture valleys. In going toward the Alleghany the air becomes more humid and the season less early. At Hightown the mean yearly temperature will not exceed 48 degrees. On Laurel Fork the growing season is too short and cool for corn to succeed.
The winters of Highland are long rather than severe, in- tense cold being infrequent. Yet some of the mountain roads are often blockaded with snow for weeks at a time. Trees come into full leaf about May 25th, but do not assume their fall colors much earlier than in the lowlands. The summer of Highland is a fine season. There is a large proportion of bright, sunny days, and ordinarily the maximum temperature is not above 90 degrees. A blanket at night is nearly always needed. The air is somewhat humid, as is seen in the morning river fogs, so common during the warmer half of the year. Yet the humidity is lower than on the other side of the Alleghany Front, and there is a higher proportion of sunshine. Tornadoes are exceedingly rare, and it is seldom that a local draft blow- ing down a valley gathers enough power to cause damage. The clearing of the valley lands has had some effect upon the climate and streams. The lower levels in Crabbottom and Back Creek valleys were once too damp and frosty for corn to succeed, but this is no longer the case. As to the streams, they are less constant in volume.
With perfect drainage, pure, invigorating air, and a free- dom from malaria, the healthfulness of Highland is above the
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History of Highland County
average for the United States. Longevity is common and men and women remain hale and hearty to an advanced age. Yet the cool, humid air predisposes to rheumatism and to ailments of the respiratory organs. And as the long and cloudy winter does not tempt to an outdoor life at that season, colds and other infectious disorders are somewhat frequent. Typhoid fever occurs every year, sometimes in a severe form. These qualifying remarks do but emphasize the truth that a reason- able observance of hygienic law will almost insure good health even under unfavorable conditions. In other words a large amount of illness is avoidable.
Until 1870 or later, the woods of Highland sheltered a good deal of game. The buffalo and the elk disappeared very soon after the settlement. The last buffalo on the Bullpasture was seen about 1765. But deer remained numerous, and it is only within a recent date that they have practically become extinct. The puma, or panther, is gone, and so, happily, is the wolf, although the wildcat and the fox remain, as well as a few bears. Other mammals still present are raccoons, skunks, weasels, mink, opossums, woodchucks, cotton-tailed rabbits, gray and striped squirrels, and bats.
Of birds there are turkeys, ducks, pheasants, eagles, owls, hawks, crows, and snowbirds, with, of course, the English sparrow. The following migrants have also been observed: the partridge, robin, thrush, catbird, whippoorwill, blackbird, pigeon, jay, wren, sparrow, raincrow, woodcock, swallow, martin, woodpecker, sapsucker, bluebird, lark, tomtit, bullbat, and redbird. Of reptiles, mud turtles, lizards, newts, frogs, and toads are common, as well as blacksnakes, water- snakes, and gartersnakes. The rattlesnake and copperhead are not infrequent in their favorite haunts, though less common than in former years. The clear streams still contain a few trout, perch, bass, suckers, eels, pike, and catfish. Insect life is in about its usual evidence and includes some of the farmer's enemies. Perhaps the greatest insect damage was the destruc- tion of the standing pine in the early 90's. The song of the mosquito is scarcely ever heard, particularly in the open.
The cool upland climate with its well-distributed rainfall
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History of Highland County
and its heavy dews is highly favorable to forest and meadow. Land once cleared will quickly return to wood if let alone, while on the other hand, the growth of grass on open ground is spontaneous. In its wild state Highland was an unbroken primeval forest, except that in some degree the river bottoms appear to have been natural meadows.
The trees and shrubs present much variety, and inter- mingled with them are many herbs and flowering plants. The following trees have been recognized in this region: aspen, ash, birch, black gum, box elder, white beech, red beech, red cedar, white cedar, chestnut, cooperwood, cucumber, dogwood, red elm, white elm, red, white, and shellbark hickory, iron- wood, juniper, linden, white, yellow, and honey locust, red maple, sugar maple, mulberry, persimmon, yellow poplar, white poplar, sycamore, sassafras, yellow willow, weeping willow, wild cherry, May cherry, water ash, white walnut, black wal- nut. In addition to the above are eight varieties of oak and six of pine.
The oaks are the dominant forest trees, pine occurring. mainly on the dry, slaty lands. The walnut is of very common occurrence, but the trees of merchantable size have been felled, and the same is true of the cherry. In former years great quantities of fine walnut were burned in log piles, and fence rails of this valuable wood are still in service. There was once an abundance of white pine, whole forests having been de- stroyed to clear the land for crops. What was left was killed some years since by an insect, as was also the yellow pine, and only young trees are to be found at present. But there is yet a considerable amount of white and red oak, ash, birch, poplar, hickory, and chestnut.
Among the shrubs are the crabapple, witch hazel, hazlenut, rhododendron, sumach, elder, redbud, chinquapin, pussy wil- low, ninebark, wild rose, bearwood, spicewood, choke-cherry, haw, sloe, buckberry, reddrop, dogrose, and honeysuckle. Of wild fruits, the grape, huckleberry, blackberry, teaberry, and common and mountain raspberries are of frequent occurrence, and large quantities of blackberries and huckleberries are gathered.
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History of Highland County
Appalachian America has unusual landscape beauty and Highland comes in for an ample share. There is an absence of monotony. The view changes at every point. The not too humid atmosphere imparts a vividness to the hue of fresh vegetation, and a bright, sunny day in June sets it off to ad- mirable effect. The mountain ranges being almost wholly uncleared, they stand forth in primeval garb and form a pleas- ing background to the belt of open land which follows every valley. The irregular outlines of the pastures, meadows, and tilled fields are in harmony with the contour of the hills and valleys.
Allusion has been made to the strata of hard sandstone which form the core of the less fertile ridges. These may come into view along the crest, as in the case of Lantz Mountain, or they may stand out from the hillside, particularly in a watergap. Instances of this sort are the ledges in Bolar Gap and on the bank of Crab Run. Very near the Blue Spring al- ready mentioned, two parallel strata of little thickness stand out from the very steep end of a foothill in Bullpasture Moun- tain. This pair of ledges is known as the Devil's Racecourse. A still more striking outcrop, named the Devil's Backbone, is seen on the north side of Crabbottom Gap. The thick seam of Tuscarora quartzite rises at such a sharp angle that on the upper or eastern side no soil can adhere for some distance be- low the ragged crest, and the precipice would tax the nimble feet of a goat to overcome.
We have thus far been describing Highland with particular reference to its wilderness condition. A word is in order as to the suitability of these valleys to the people who came to sub- due the wilderness. The settlers were from the British Isles and from Germany. Those countries have a cool, moist cli- mate quite free from extremes of heat or cold. They possess wooded hills and turf-carpeted fields. The soil is not free from rock and the streams ripple through their valleys. Coming from such a homeland, these European stocks found some difficulty in adapting themselves to the hot, malarious, un- grassed lowlands of the South. At the present day the Amer- icanized branches of the same stocks find difficulty in making
X
CRABBOTTOM GAP
Phot'd by A. C. Sudaarth
Portion of village in middle distance. Devil's Backbone at the left
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History of Highland County
themselves quite at home on the monotonous levels of the Far West with their cloudless skies and their absence of forest.
But to those immigrants, Highland must have seemed like a virgin corner of their native Europe. The temperature of these hills was the same as that of the homeland. The air was almost as soft. There was scarcely any acclimation to under- go. The forest trees were of the same types as they were ac- customed to see, and where there was no wood there was a grassy sod, without which the new land would have been a desert in their eyes. They could grow the same staples to which they were accustomed, and there was no new method of farming to learn. Save for the temporary struggle with wild man and wild nature, the newcomer could feel quite at home from the start. It is very evident that with respect to physiographic conditions the European stocks have not in the least deteriorated in Appalachian America.
As a matter of habit and necessity, the pioneers proceeded to give names to the topographic features of the region, even inclusive of the springs and the cleared fields. The English settlers of the seaboard retained very many of the Indian names. The Scotch-Irish and German settlers of the interior did not follow this practice. Only two of the native designa- tions appear to have come down to us. The red men called the South Branch the Wappacomac, or "River of Wild Geese." They called the Bullpasture-Cowpasture the Wallawhatoola, which means, "The River that Bends." It would have been better had we kept these names as a memento of the earlier inhabitants. They are entirely easy to pronounce, quite as much so as the Indian words Shenandoah and Rappahannock, which we have no trouble in mouthing.
It is to the credit of the hard-headed Scotch-Irishman that he adopted few European names. He preferred to use terms suggested by local circumstance. Why the Calfpasture, Cow- pasture, and Bullpasture received their peculiar names is not clearly known. The legend that some hunters killed a buffalo calf on the first stream, a cow on the second, and a bull on the third, sounds too much like an afterthought; like an offhand explanation of a forgotten fact. The district watered by these
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