USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 22
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Nearly in front of the Squires house, and about where the stone walk now crosses Main street, is a chestnut tree bearing a "finger- board." Here the road forks, the branch to the right closely following the present course of the Morgantown Pike. Up this road and on or close to the present property of Leroy Shaw, is a small log house ocupied by Thomas Locke, a laboring man. Returning to the chestnut tree, we find in the angle between the roads the blacksmith shop of Squires. The index-board tells us the left hand road goes to Beverly in Randolph county, and from this circumstance the hill against the horizon has ever since been known as Beverly Hill. In 1832 this road took a straight course to where the colored schoolhouse now stands.
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It first plunged down a short descent, then went through a belt of swamp in the rear of the present jail, and next made the ascent or Beverly Hill by a very rough and rocky course. There was but one house on this road, and it stood on the left side not far from the index board. This dwelling belonged to Charles Byrne.
Returning once more to Shaffer's, we pass up the scarcely used crossroad to High street, and on the corner at the right is the home of George Rumsay, a carpenter and cabinet maker. Beyond, and near the site of the Bishop mansion is the house of Hiram Hanshaw, a shoemaker. On the Monroe property is P. T. Lashley, a physician and "New Light" preacher. With one exception the remaining houses on this street are on the south side. Where a few years ago stood the Gordon House, was then a one-storied brick building about fifteen feet square. It was the second brick structure in Preston, the first being the store of Harrison Hagans in Brandonville. A lawyer of Morgan- town is making some use of this building as an office. On the lot where stands the shoe-shop of James W. O'Hara, was then the frame dwelling of William G. Brown, an attorney. A little farther westward is William K. Hall, a carpenter, and a brother-in-law to Mr. Brown, where since was built the Methodist parsonage we find an old house occupied a little after our visit by Isaac W. Cobun, a shoemaker, and still later by David C. Miles, a sheriff. A little earlier it was tenanted by Hanshaw. The remaining house on this street has just been built. It stands on what is now the lawn in front of the residence of the late M. H. Murdock. It is built after a German model, the spaces between the upright timbers being filled with stones and mortar, and a coating of stucco laid over the outside. The occupant is George W. Knisell, a wheelwright.
We are not quite done with the list of townsmen. John Hooton is the jailer, and the jail stands behind the courthouse. Gustavus J. P. Cresap, a tanner and later an attorney, is living in town but is not yet married. Charles Hooton is still another resident. There are in all 29 households, the deficiency between this number and the number enum- erated being made up of renters.
We have found but one brick building. The only stone buildings are the courthouse, the jail, and the Johnson Hotel. The dwellings of Brown, Samuel Byrne, Carroll, Hall, Sears, Sigler, and Shaffer are frame. All other houses with the exception of Knisell's are log. Paint is scarcely more in evidence than is fencing of boards and sawed
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pickets, rails being generally in use. The area of lawns and planted trees is still in the future. Looking in any direction toward the country, there is more timber in sight than in our day, and the open ground is usually dotted with stumps. Beverly Hill is crowned with wood, and from its base forward to Squire's shop is a field in tillage.
The three taverns would appear to enjoy considerable patronage, even if it does not include our modern drummer with his armor-plated trunks. They all sell ardent spirits and not in small amount. Cards and dice also become visible, whenever there are guests of gaming proclivities.
There is neither church nor schoolhouse inside the town, the nearest buildings for these special purposes being those we passed a mile before coming in. But religious services are held every fourth Sunday at Sigler's and sometimes in the courthouse.
Only a minority of the citizens appear to be natives of Preston, although probably a majority have long been resident therein. Perhaps the only townsman of foreign birth is Knisell, who is of Alsatian stock and fought under Napoleon at Waterloo. We do not find any leisure class. No one is at all wealthy, unless by the very limited standard of the time and locality. All the townspeople are in active employment. Most of them are following the manual trades of tanning, carpentering, and blacksmithing, and the making of wagons, clothing, shoes, and hats. The other citizens not holding office under the county are merchants or tavern-keepers, except Brown, the lawyer, and Baldwin, the post- master and land agent. It is also worthy of remark that very few of the people seem to be above middle age.
Like every other place, Kingwood has what are very correctly termed its leading citizens. Among them is Colonel William Price, now about seventy years of age, and probably the oldest man in town. Baldwin, a native of Connecticut and a man of wide information, has been living here five years. Sigler, who has been living here at least twenty years, is a man of affairs. During his time he served as member of legislature, justice, colonel of militia, and commissioner of the revener. He is a staunch Methodist, and his house is a home for ministers of his faith. William G. Brown is a young lawyer with an active and conspicuous career of more than fifty years before him. Major Byrne, as clerk of both courts, is almost necessarily an influential personage. John S. Murdock, a man useful in his county and town, is destined to live into the present century.
Herndon, the tavern man, is a character in his way. In the cookroom
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oi his hostelry we may see a ten-gallon kettle. Toward meal time the long fireplace is full of pots and skillets, propped up with logs to hold them in place. The proprietor went to war in 1812, and he very judiciously invested his pension money in land near town, buying it at forty-two cents an acre. As a final result he became wealthy. In person, he is broad-shouldered and stout. He is shrewd, observant, and well-informed. While leaning on his knees he will utter such maxims as the following: "Don't loan-you'll get cussed; don't take one's word-there's a lie in it; don't go security-you'll have it to pay." It must be added that he is a good customer at his own bar, and this circumstance may help to explain a somewhat pugnacious disposition. The Herndon spring, below his place, might be termed a duelling ground. Men of lacerated sensibilities use it as a resort where they fight out their differences with naked fists, and the host himself figures in some of these frays.
Of Andrew Love a quite practical joke is related. He found that his woodpile was being pilfered from by a neighbor, and he loaded a stick with a charge of powder. The explosion took effect in the neighbor's fireplace.
Having now finished our survey of Kingwood as it was in 1832, we will now outline its subsequent history.
The Rev. Joel Stoneroad, a Presbyterian home missionary, preached occasionally in the courthouse and was followed by the Rev. C. B. Bristol of Fairmont. Baptist services were occasionally held here also. The Methodists built a brick church in 1842 and the present structure in 1879. The Presbyterian organization was effected in 1837 and its present church edifice dates from 1877. The Baptist organization did not take place until 1881. Each white society has a church building oi its own. The colored Methodists use their schoolhouse.
Local schools were held in various houses until the building of the Preston Academy in 1841.
The first society for intellectual inprovement seems to have been the Philomathean, which arose in 1840 and included in its membership the more conspicuous men of the town. Yet the inclination which prompts and maintains such praiseworthy efforts does not appear to have kept par with the continued growth of the county seat.
The bank of Kingwood, the pioneer among the Preston banks, wa .. organized in 1865 with a paid-up capital of $100,000, and it began work with William G. Brown as president and James C. McGrew as cashier.
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Until 1861, the growth of the town was almost inappreciable, since the population in that year was only 161. But in a material way, the improvement was very pronounced. The log houses were steadily supplanted by good dwellings of brick or frame, and civic improve- ments were supplemented. There has been no general conflagration, although the fire fiend has now and then taken a building. The hotels appear to have suffered the worst. The Brandon house was burned in 1867, the Union in 1883, the Loar and the Exchange in 1886, and the Gordon in 1907. A few stores and other business buildings have also been destroyed.
Although the courthouse lies within rifleshot of the geographic center of the county, the commercial position of Kingwood has not been such as to permit it to hold an allround lead among the towns of Preston, such as is held by Morgantown, Fairmont, Clarksburg, and Grafton in their respective counties. This lack of the unifying influence of an unquestioned metropolis has led to efforts to divide the county on the line of the Cheat, and also to remove the seat of county govern- ment to some other point. One of these crises arse in 1856, when the stone courthouse was felt to be inconveniently small. There was a movement to transfer the county seat to Albright or Burchinal Town. The county court was not in a mood to appropriate mre than $8,000 for a new building on the old site. The lowest bid on the specifications furnished was $16,000, and the court declined to raise its appropriation. James C. McGrew, a member of the supervisory committee obtained the consent of his associates that he go forward on his own initiative. He at once raised a force of workmen, making himself one of the number. Winter was about to set in. Trees were felled and sawed into lumber and bricks were burned. In the spring construction was begun. While Mr. McGrew was absent in Baltimore a storm blew in the unfinished walls. A telegram quickly brought him back and work was immediately resumed. The building would have been completed inside of the limit of $8,000, but for the extra cost of $1500 imposed by the storm. For this additional sum Mr. McGrew was reimbursed.
About ten years ago there was a quite active movement to relocate the county seat at Tunnelton. A still more vigorous attempt was made in 1910 by the enterprising town of Terra Alta. After a hard fought campaign culminating in a popular vote, Kingwood retained the prize though by a narrow margin.
From 1870 to 1890, Kingwood doubled its population, and from 1870 to 1910, it more than trebled it. The situation of the town is
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exceptionally pleasant and healthful. It lies on the plateau between Morgan's and Green's runs and while it is sheltered on the west by a ridge rising 400 feet above the town level, it is itself lifted well above the fogs which may be seen in the summer mornings rising from the deep gorge of the Cheat. The landscape view from Beverly Hill is unusually attractive and is rarely equaled elsewhere in West Virginia. From the same eminence the abundance of apple bloom seen all about the town in the month of May is suggestive of a great orchard. The verdure of the street borders and the house lots and the trimness of the dwellings lend to Kingwood something of the air of a New England village of the older type. On the other hand it is in the county seat alone among the towns of Preston that the planter element of the Old Dominion established a noticeable impress. This impress, together with the presence of a leisure class, accounts for a certain restful quality in the life of the town, and there is not the same atmosphere of bustle which is characteristic of commercial centers. By situation, Kingwood is in fact designed as a residential point and as such it is scarcely surpassed in general attractiveness by any town of its size in the state.
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CHAPTER XXV
THE PRESTON PEOPLE OF TODAY.
At the end of the half-century between the arrival of the first pioneer and the organization of Preston as a distinct county, 3000 inhabitants had gathered within our confines. In the 42 subsequent years which carry us forward to 1860, the population doubled itself twice. In the 50 years since then, it has doubled itself once.
This slowing up in the rate of growth means that the volume of immigration into this county has progressively slackened. Incidentally, it means in a vast majority of cases, that the Prestonian of today is a native of the soil, and that his parentage, on at least one side, is native also.
The Preston people now on the stage of action are of a type fashioned among these hills. The one whose forefather managed slaves on a tobacco plantation in the land of the Tuckahoe would indeed be a stranger among strangers were he to flit suddenly to the ancestral home and try to adapt himself to the local environment. The one whose forefather came here from the Quaker section of Pennsylvania would likewise be a stranger in a strange land, were he to hie himself to a Quaker neighborhood in that staid, old-fashioned region. The native whose ancestry is largely or perhaps wholly German, is quite different in manner, in action, and even in physiognomy from the immigrant born and reared in Germany. In a large degree there is no difference between him and the other Prestonian whose ancestry is mainly or wholly British.
To present these facts from a somewhat broader angle, the German came from the Fatherland with its centuries of absolute rule and religious war; the Ulster-Scotch from the mist-crowned hills of flax- growing Ireland; the Cavalier from the lonely plantation of leve! Eastern Virginia; the Puritan from the village civilization of New England ; the Quaker with his life shaped by his peculiar creed; and the man from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Valley of Virginia, impelled hither by a lack of purchaseable land at the old home.
Here in the wilderness a composite type began at once to take form ; a form neither British nor German, neither Celtic nor French, nor yet Cavalier or Puritan. It was to be an American type of new and
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original pattern, peculiar to the great interior basin of the continent. Despite the fact that a hundred years ago only one-tenth as many people were dwelling among these hills as is the case today, and that this amount of time is a short period for the evolution of a new stock, the progress toward a complete fusion of the immigrant types into the new is remarkable. The blending by blood is not indeed complete though nearly so. But the social blending through the formative power of common customs is singularly complete.
The pioneers, whithersoever they came, were lifted out of the crystallizing tendency of the old home, and were placed on a common level in the virgin wilderness. The traditions of the localities out of which they had gone, appeared now in the guise of rather burdensome luggage. What was esteemed as least essential was cast aside. In a large degree they were thrown back on the elementary resources of the human mind and were ruled by a simplicity of motive. Their daily lite was less influenced by the example of what other persons had been accustomed to do. It was influenced more by the seeming require- ments of the present hour. They set up rough and ready standards of behavior. But though they felt lightly bound by the usages of the old home, they did not cast aside the ingrained British respect for order. In short their customs and institutions remained fluid, while the transplanted elements of the new society were finding comfortable adjustments.
In every settlement among the Preston hills the conditions of the new life were practically the same. There was the same sort of hillside to clear, the same sort of house to build, the same sort of cloth to weave, the same styles of wooden tools and utensils to make. the same need of cooperative assistance. The working of the wilderness environment was like that of the free school. Wherever the latter institution has a full and fair chance it takes in the foreign child as a foreigner, but sends him forth as a young American. The formative influence of the frontier was so pervading and so persistent as to break down the differences of the component stocks and develop an almost uniform type of its own. An almost complete identity of manners and customs is therefore to be found from one end of Preston to the other.
The new American type which evolved in these hills was democratic, because it had well-nigh shaken off what little caste feeling it had horne across the mountains. Because it was democratic, and also
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because of the need of mutual help, it was fraternal. Because it was fraternal it was hospitable and therefore ready to feed and shelter the newcomer. Because the essentials of the new life were simple, there was a plainness of living and a spontaneity of manner.
The dawn of this new century still found the sign manual of the formative pioneer age deeply imprinted on the posterity of the settlers. The habits of thought of that age had acquired an inherited vigor which propelled forward an observance of its customs in a form not very deeply modified. There was a localism of feeling which tended to overshadow the interest of the Prestonian in concerns which seemed to belong outside of his own borders.
It has been of much import to the Prestonians that their county lies athwart a great natural highway of travel and commerce. Men progress very little so long as they keep out of easy elbow touch with one another. Social contact provides a stimulus without which society retrogrades. In the more secluded nooks of the Alleghany highland, the people scarcely continued to mark time. They stagnated in their almost inacessible valleys until they became known as "our contem- porary ancestors."
But fortunately for the pioneer of Preston, he was not stranded in a region remote from the avenues of commerce. The best highways America could build were soon coming toward him. He was thus kept within a good degree of contact with the busier life without. Having the will and the spirit to improve his general condition, he forsook his round-log cabin in favor of the more commodious hewed-log house, and at length put that aside to move into a tasteful modern dwelling. Improvements of a more public nature kept step with this advance in individual progress.
In one of the first chapters of this book, we took occasion to remark that in area and population, Preston is an average American county. It may here be added that it is not under the average with respect to the general standard of American civilization. In point of wealth, social culture, public education, and some other matters, there are communities which surpass it, while on the other hand there are communities which rank decidedly below it.
Furthermore, in consequence of our position at the old crossing of the lines between North and South and East and West, the type of American which has developed among the valleys of this county is a very fair average of the typical American. It is somewhat of a balance between the traits of Northerner and Southerner. But as between the
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people of the seaboard and those of the interior, the Preston man classifies with the latter. His customs are Western, although he has not the accentuated push, so observable as one nears the Mississippi. On the other hand he has not enveloped himself in the staid atmosphere which clings to the communities on the Atlantic like the ivy of their colonial churches. He may be said to represent th mean of American citizenship with regard to native intelligence, acquired information, and his inclination to observe the proprieties expected by law and established usage. He has the static qualities that go with the rural type of the American, rather than the somewhat hysterical qualities that go with the urban type.
To speak in more particular terms, the Prestonian is simple in his living and in his philosophy of social usage. The spirit of caste has as yet made little impression upon him. He is frank and hospitable, and is easy to get acquainted with. He is rather unemotional and undemonstrative. He is not swift to come to a decision in matters of private concern, and is not much inclined to speak in public. He is somewhat conservative. and does not move rapidly in the direction of abrupt political and social change. He has much local patriotism, and takes a keen interest in the affairs of his native county. Toward matters which lie outside, his interest and his sympathies are but moderate. This feeling is sometimes manifested in a measure of prejudice toward the stranger, especially if the latter has political aspirations. But this lingering narrowness of outlook is a heritage of pioneer and sub-pioneer conditions, when there was no travel except through necessity, and when the old field school afforded no practical knowledge of the outer world. Under present conditions it is waning.
In no decade has there been a loss in population. Only twice has the rate of increase fallen below ten percent. Nevertheless, there has been a constant and very considerable stream of emigration. Had no resident ever been permitted to go out of the county and stay out, the number of inhabitants, other conditions remaining the same, would be at least four times larger than what it is.
Where this emigration has gone is itself an interesting subject of study. For a long time its direction was exclusively westward, toward a supply of more level and fertile land that seemed almost without limit. But for some time the Indians were very hostile and the movement was slow and hesitating. The state of Ohio, which Lafayette in 1824 called the eighth wonder of the world, was definitely revealed by the soldiers returning from the war of 1812. Whole town-
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ships in that state were settled largely by Prestonians. Apparently because of slavery, the movement into and beyond Ohio seems to have been very much greater than the movement into the states south of the Ohio river. About 1850 there was quite a migration into the "Hughes' River County," as the then undeveloped valley of the Little Kanawha was termed.
As territory after territory, and then state after state arose to the westward, the land-hunters from Preston were found among the settlers of these new lands of promise. Preston men were among the very first to join in the rush to California that followed the discovery of gold. Within recent years, the rapidly growing state of Washington has attracted a number of our people. And there is probably no state west of the Mississippi in which Preston is not represented.
But in recent years Prestonians have scattered out in other directions also. The westward movement has by no means ceased, and it has reached into the Canadian Northwest, if not into Old Mexico as well. But the mammoth proportions of American industrialism have tended to produce an equilibrium of material advantage between the East and the West. The mining and manufacturing region of which Pittsburgh is the center has drawn many young people from Preston, particularly from the northern districts. Others have gone into the growing towns of West Virginia that lie in the Monongahela valley. The altered conditions in the states of the seaboard have attracted some of our people, and in nearly all of these may be found an occasional migrant. This is particularly the case with Florida, because of its climatic advantages.
In this general outward movement, not even the detached posses- sions of the United States have been overlooked. Prestonians have lived or sojourned in Alaska, in the Philippines, in Porto Rico, and at Panama. Nor, as we have seen, has Canada been ignored. And Mr. T. N. Calvert, who went to the Philippines as a soldier, has been around the world.
Wherever the outgoing Prestonians have settled, they appear to have acquitted themselves with credit, whether engaging in agriculture, in the industries, or in professional life.
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CHAPTER XXVI
THE PRESTON OF TOMORROW.
The Persistence of the Pioneer Element - The Primary of Towns and Industries - The Readjustment of Local Agriculture - Forest Conservation - Changes in Social Life.
The more clearly we comprehend what has been done, the more ยท correctly we may interpret what is now being done. And the more clearly we understand the tendencies of the time in which we live, the more accurately may we forecast what will take place in the years yet to come. The future grows out of the present in like manner as the present grows out of the past.
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