USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 24
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From St. Peter's it is no great distance to a new Methodist church near the Pennsylvania line. A quarter of a mile north of the boundary is the very humble dwelling which for more than twenty years was the home of the eccentric teacher-historian, Samuel T. Wiley. The inter- state boundary is readily indicated by the pipe line which runs exactly parallel and only a few paces to the north. The path of the pipe line is shown by its row of telegraph wires. One might suppose so very precise a boundary as the Mason and Dixon would be shown quite clearly by the lines between farms. Yet the pipe line is the only sure means of recognizing the landmark. Roads elbow in and out, and fences run near the line but not on it.
A few moments walk south of the line, the Big Sandy, even here a considerable stream, is crossed by a bridge. Little more than a mile south is another bridge, and here is the village of Clifton Mills, with its three stories, its gristmill, and its half dozen houses, the whole thoroughly suggestive of a hamlet in Pennsylvania rather than West Virginia. The place, known locally is "Slabtown," began in 1869 with the building of a mill and dwelling by Samuel Morton. A postoffice came in 1874 and a Union church in 1879. In 1875 there were more than forty cases of smallpox and several deaths.
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Above Clifton and on the high ground east of the creek is the land once owned by James Clark, by long repute the first actual settler in Preston. Clark was buried on his farm in 1808, but his widow and all the children but one went to Indiana. A neighbor to Clark was James McCollum, whose substantially built house is yet standing on the Jacob Sliger farm. Other neighbors were some of the Judys, and also the Moores, so many of the latter once living toward St. Peter's as to give the locality the name of the Moore settlement. Yet all these names have long since totally disappeared.
Still continuing east through a rolling, well peopled upland we pass through the Thomas settlement with its Salem church of the German Baptist denomination, and come at length to the Twin Churches, or Glade Farms postoffice. We are now more than eight miles northeast of the Collins Knob, our original point of observation. The corner of the county and state is two miles beyond us.
Glade Farms is not even a hamlet. The two churches, Lutheran and Methodist, face one another in a grove. Nearby is a combined dwelling, store, and postoffice. The country around lies high, yet is no more than gently rolling. Looking toward the corner of the county the surface presents merely a gentle upward slope. There is no appear- ance of a mountain whatever. As the name implies, there are patches of glade in the neighborhood and some of these spots are marshy. In others are trenches where rock has been taken out to burn for lines.
In a glade a quarter of a mile southwest is the site of the Morris fort. No vestige of the stockade remains and the spot is known only by tradition. But so long as necessity required its continuance, it was the nucleus of the Sandy Creek settlement. It seems to have been put up in 1774, and thither flocked the families from a considerable radius, whenever there was an Indian scare. As soon as immediate danger seemed to be over, the men went back to their homes, the women and children remaining in the little stockade. Like other frontier fortifications of the period, the wall was of logs set in a vertical position and sunk about three feet into the soft black earth. Within was at least one log cabin. From considerations of health, the spot was objectionable. It was low and damp, and the "forters" were made ill by drinking the impure water of the mucky glade. The site was probably chosen because of the circumstance that Richard Morris was credited with forty acres of cleared land. This would prevent a savage foe from getting within good range. Yet we are not to suppose Morris
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had been felling forty acres of solid woodland. These glades were already open ground.
With the exception of the Spurgeons, the earlier settlers all moved away, and their places were taken by the Glovers, the Spahrs, the Beer- bowers, and the Cuppett. Frederick Spahr was well remembered by the late James C. McGrew. He was a frontier doctor, and acquired some of his medical lore from the red men of the forest. His son-in-law, John Cuppett, kept tavern in a stone house that stood a half mile east of the postoffice. It had the name of being infested with ghosts, and it is related that these wierd visitants disturbed the slumbers of the guests in a most inconsiderate manner.
Three miles directly south of Glade Farms is Hazelton, a hamlet rather than village and lying partly in Pleasant. As we come in this direction, a low mountain ridge assumes form at our left. Its lower slope is generally wooded. Above is a broad hogback, well-settled and mostly in tillage. Just half a century ago, 100 acres of this land was offered for sale at $50, while the well-kept farm of the Rev. Joseph Guthrie was once traded for a horse worth about $30.
At Hazelton, which lies at the foot of the ridge, Mill Run a branch of the Little Sandy, forms the district line. We find a saw and grist mill and store, owned and operated a long while by W. D. Arthur, whose dwelling is a stone house. Another store and a few houses are near by. A half mile below the mill is a Methodist church and up on the moun- tain ridge is another. A few miles below Hazelton, near the north bank of the Sandy, is a brick Lutheran church, quite remarkable for standing alone in a large wood, and approached only by a long path. This church, named Mount Zion, was built about sixty years ago. It is a small plain structure without eaves.
Returning to Glade Farms, we turn down the "mud pike," built to connect Brandonville with the National Road. It is quite straight, commands a good outlook on either side, and traverses one of the most attractive portions of the district.
Near the Willett burying ground, about two miles east of Brandon- ville, stood the only Quaker church ever built in Preston. It was a substantial log structure and for some time served a strong congre- gation. But the descendants of the Quaker pioneers fell away from the early faith, the simple services were discontinued, and after being used some years as a school building, it was torn down in 1867. There still remain a very few old people who in their childhood were accustomed to use the Quaker specch. The original Quakers themselves settled
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in the heart of Grant district and owned a large amount of its choicest lands.
We pass across the head of a broad, shallow basin, notice the old building where David Frankhouser kept store in the palmy days of the road, mount a low hill and find Brandonville below and before us, occupying a spot of level upland. The pike, which forms the only street, is straight and fairly broad, and the village is well laid out, the lots being rectangles and backed by alleys. There are some fine shade trees. The houses,a number of which are brick or stone, often stand directly on the street line and at short distances from one another. The church, standing well back in its lot, is so large as to be suggestive of a courthouse. There are two stores, a hotel or two, a one-roomed school, and about 100 people. The situation, about 250 feet above the Sandy flowing only a half-mile away, is very pleasant, and commands a good outlook.
Yet there is an air of decrepitude which impresses the stranger. It would be in evidence, even were it not for the vacant or little used buildings which are slowly sinking into a ruinous condition. There is an appearance of much greater age than the village actually possesses. There is a challenge to the observer to learn the story of this evident decay. When the the tale is unraveled, it is found replete with interest.
The village site was the solitary home for over thirty years of Col. Jonathan Brandon, a prominent citizen in his time. His log dwelling stood to the north of the present street. It was probably the same which one George Mcclellan kept as a hostelry in 1799. When in 1818 Brandon was joined by George Hagans and family, he had a large clearing reaching up the hill we descended, but the highway, such as it was, ran a little to the south of its present course. Hagans was a newcomer of Connecticut birth and well endowed with New England energy, resourcefulness, and business instinct. The National Road was just now open, and scarcely more than ten miles away. He and his enterprising son Harrison saw an opportunity to create a town, and they threw themselves into the work with ardor. Brandon entered into the plan, and the town was laid out. Hagans opened a store in Brandon's house, but soon bought a lot and built a small stone house, moving his store into one of its rooms. Harrison, who succeeded his father, tore down the original house about 1831, and built the massive stone residence now occupied by J. P. Barnes. For his mercantile business he put up a brick building, perhaps the first of its kind in the county.
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The village was laid out March 27, 1827, and designated as a town by Act of Assembly, in October of the same pear. The first recorded step in this direction we find in a petition signed by 38 men. It states that
Whereas Jonathan Brandon hath laid out on his own land in Preston County, Va., & sold 22 Lots of ground, the most of which are improved by build- ings, & also 40 more unsold Lots in connection with those above mentioned, therefore your Petitioners beg that your honorable body may pass an act legalizing the said Lots & Town by the name of Brandonville.
The trustees appointed by the act were Jonathan Brandon, Harrison Hagans, Samuel Rodeheaver, James McGrew, and William Connor.
The mud pike was built to give better communication with the National Road, and was extended to Evansville to connect with the Northwestern Pike. Largely through the directive leadership of Harrison Hagans, Brandonville soon became a busy place, attracting craftsmen and mechanics from abroad. By 1833 it was the metropolis of Preston, and continued to be such for at least twenty years. During its high tide of prosperity it had from two to three times its present population. There were two tanneries, two resident physicians, two tailors, and a potter. A line of stages and a great deal of travel passed over the mud pike, thirty to forty horses often being quartered over night in the tavern stables. A foundry was opened, stoves and grates were made, and at length a steam saw and grist mill was making compe- tition severe for the water mills around. On Saturdays there was a throng of country people, and on muster days and other special occa- sions, the long street was dense with bystanders.
But in 1853 the pikes were ruined by the railroad, travel and trade adjusted themselves to the new mode of transportation, and a blight settled upon the commercial points dependent solely on the pikes. Brandonville by 1867 had sunk into what seemed almost hopeless decay. Its industries closed their doors one by one, the steam mill falling a prey to an incendiary's match. As it dropped into the position of an ordinary inland village, its radius of trade narrowed, rival merchants in nearby villages and hamlets competing with it on even terms. No more houses were built, the old ones fell out of repair, and as the shade trees grew into stately dimensions they imparted a venerable look to the quiet street.
Harrison Hagans labored for a railroad which should enter Preston as a branch of the line between Cumberland and Pittsburgh. Surveys
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were in fact made. But when Hagans was buried in the Brandonville cemetery in 1867, a neighbor significantly remarked, "There goes our railroad."
When a town falls into what seems irretrievable ruin, the more ambitious and energetic of the people forsake it as rats swim away from a sinking ship. Those who remain accustom themselves to the stagnation, and as they can still make a living, the place becomes unprogressive and is content with things as they are. Yet there is hope that Brandonville may be rehabilitated ; not indeed as an industrial town of the bygone type, for under modern conditions this is impos- sible; but as a residential town, for which it is so well adapted by its fine situation. This, it is true cannot come without a means of ready access. But in the form of an electric road, traversing the Ligonier and Cheat valleys, the hope of Harrison Hagans may be realized, and Brandonville may thus be enabled to shake off her somnolent condition and put on new life.
Half a mile south, on the pike to Terra Alta is a relic of the early time in the form of a well-built and still serviceable log house, the former home of Colonel James McGrew. It was completed in 1814, and is therefore older than the village above. The yawning fireplace will receive a log seven feet in length, and the door hinges, doubtless forged by the owner himself, reach nearly across the entrance. In another half mile on the same road, and on a commanding site, we find a log house ten years older yet and still in use as a dwelling. It is historically noteworthy as being the house wherein three-fourths of a century ago, the first printing press in this county was set up and successfully operated. With fine taste the owners of the press named their farm "Mount Pleasant." A short mile north of Brandonville and beyond Mason Run is a stone house rivalling the Hagans house in size and solidity. In fact, the dwellings of brick and stone that are scattered over Grant district are an index to the ideas of domestic comfort held by its people. Of perhaps the earliest stone house in Preston, a gable may be seen at the Willett place near the site of the Quaker church. This building was begun in 1810.
A mile, partly on a level and partly down a hillside, brings us to the village of Bruceton Mills. Villages or hamlets in pairs are a peculiarity of Preston. Portland has Albright and St. Joe, a little more than a half mile apart. Union has Aurora and Carmel, which are still nearer. Reno has Fellowsville and Evansville, three miles apart.
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Lyon has Newburg and Independence, one mile apart, while Valley has Masontown and Reedsville, separated by three miles.
Here on the Big Sandy, where later was to be the junction of the pikes leading to Morgantown and Fellowsville, Samuel Morton built in 1791 a gristmill of very primitive pattern. For some time the locality was known as Morton's Mill. Later, it was styled Milford, but in 1848 it was incorporated as Bruceton. This name was given by John M. Hoffman in honor of his stepfather, George Bruce, who is said to have been a lineal descendant of Robert Bruce, the famous king of Scotland. In April, 1789, Samuel Morton and John Connor, Sr., adver- tised a ferry and it was authorized by legislative act in 1791. The toll was four cents for a man or a horse. In 1814, a wooden bridge, the predecessor of the present steel structure, was built by Colonel Price. By 1830 the hamlet contained a gristmill, a carding mill, a tannery, and three or four dwelling houses.
A woolen mill was built by Hagans and Connor, and in 1849 was purchased and operated by Charles Kantner. For a long while it has been standing idle. The first gristmill burned, and was followed on the same spot by three others, each better than the last. The Mortons were followed by Hoffman, he by Emmanuel Beeghley, and the latter by a corporate company that has installed a modern equipment. By 1855 there were sixteen houses. Since then the growth has been very slow, the census of 1910 giving the place 115 people. There are Lutheran, Disciples and Methodist churches, three stores, a bank, and a 'hotel. The place is laid out with fair regularity, and presents a rather compact appearance. The shade trees along the main street add much to its appearance.
Because of its roads, its central position, and its mail routes, Bruce- ton has the lead over the other centers of population in the north. There is much smooth ground on the right bank of the Sandy, and so far as natural conditions are concerned, no place in Preston is so well suited for the building of a large town. It is the misfortune rather than the fault of Bruceton that it has not been thrown in the path of an important line of railroad. But with the development that is destined to penetrate this district, new life will come to the village.
Brandonville and Bruceton have always been rivals. The former is superior as a residential point, while the other with its position on a large stream, has the advantage from a commercial point of view and has withstood the decay which overtook the village on the highland.
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Bruceton was the first to incorporate, its rival not doing so until 1858. Either is a very small place to maintain municipal government.
We now pass out of Grant district. We have given it a large share of attention, for it is exceptional in its measure of historic interest.
In Pleasant we may station ourselves on the DeBerry Knob near Zar. It is conical, abrupt, and bald, and we may gain a fairly compre- hensive view of the district, although we are east of the center. Toward the rising sun is a six mile section of the same mountain wall that forms the eastern border of Grant. Though it seems a little higher and more wooded, it has the same characteristics. But the streams issuing from it are more conspicuous. From near the center of the distance, Beaver Creek flows northwestward to join the Little Sandy, which with the Big Sandy forms the northern line of the district. Near the southeast corner Muddy Creek comes from its distant source in the Cranesville Knot and breaks through a pass in the nearer mountain ridge. Behind the latter peers the rounded summit of Pine- swamp Knob with its grove and flagstaff at the top.
Otherwise, there is a difference between Grant and Pleasant. The latter is not a valley but a tableland which preserves a fairly uniform general level from the foot of the mountain to the very brink of the river hill. Yet as a matter of fact the plain is far from smooth. For considerable distances its roads are free from heavy grades, and are bordered by glades or by gently sloping hillsides. But the streams in general have cut for themselves deep channels in the plain, and there are localities where the surface is very broken in consequence. South of us at a short distance is the Smith Knob, similar to the one from which we are taking observations. More to the westward are much broader uplifts, such as that which lies toward Valley Point. But the largest of these is Beech Run Hill in the southwestern angle of the district.
The principal roads cross Pleasant from north to south. The most westerly of these enters at Rockville, climbs a heavy bluff, and then crosses a rather smooth upland on its way past the Nebo Baptist and Harmony Grove Methodist churches. Here was a favored spot of early settlement, and here located the Jenkins, Graham, Gibson, Cale, Liston and Metheny families. Near Nebo church and a little to the east of our road is the Hudson store and postoffice on Sovereign's Run. Thus far the stream does not flow in a particularly depressed channel, and to this extent it is exceptional among the watercourses of Pleasant. Here is the spot where some of the early Grahams and Jenkins
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operated the only powder mill in the county. The building was about eighteen feet square, and the powder was unglazed.
In appearance, the plateau stretches westward indefinitely. Yet if we leave the road and go about a mile in that direction, we find ourselves looking into the canyon of the Cheat. The edge of the river- hill forms a waterparting, and as the towering bluff is not interrupted by long lateral gorges, it appears even more abrupt than at Pisgah. From near Hudson a newly opened road winds down the bluff to the mouth of the Big Sandy. Here is being established a bridge. There is already a boat, and if a ferryman can be found in the hills above, he will unfasten it and put the wayfarer across. But Valley has been slow to reciprocate the action of Pleasant, and the road is but just coming into use. There is an acre or so of low ground in the angle between the streams. Yet no one has ben tempted to dwell in a spot where the days are short at all times of the year, and whence a neighbor may be reached only by climbing as it were into the skies.
From Hudson it is five miles eastward through a not very broken region to Valley Point. We are again in the basin of Sovereign's Run. Northward, between us and the Little Sandy is a flat-topped divide whic includes several hundred acres of the most level land in the county. Pleasant has hamlets but no true village. At Valley Point we merely find two stores and scarcely a half dozen dwellings, one or two of which are also hotels. The nearest church is a mile southward. But the hamlet is on the direct road from Bruceton to Albright and is a center of much trade. Toward Bruceton the road winds gradually downward through a rolling district, passing Sugar Grove church and schoolhouse and crossing the Little Sandy, a very considerable stream. Just beyond the bridge was once a frame store where John Scott was a merchant in the middle years of the last century.
Valley Point is in the midst of an expanse of tableland wherein settled pioneers of the name of Martin, Sterling, Falkenstine, Miller, Zweyer, Greathouse, Groves, and Smith. Two miles southward, the road leaves the upland and winds down a ravine very appropriately named Deep Hollow. Here it meets the road from Rockville and then pursues the valley of the lower Muddy, to its mouth a mile below Albright. The Muddy is not true to name. It is one of the clearest of Preston streams and is an almost continuous cascade, for in its crooked course from the Cranesville Knot it falls about 1400 feet. Its name is said to be derived from the local muddiness occasioned by a
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beaver dam. Only a little of its potential strength is brought into use. We pass one gristmill, the Metheny, which is run by an overshot wheel. At another point we see between the roadway and the skirling waters what looks like a very massive yet not very tall chimney. On its sum- mit may be seen some moss, grass, and herbs. This relic is all that is left of the Josephine iron furnace, which was begun in 1852, and was operated until 1880. Its output had to be hauled over Briery Mountain to the railroad at Terra Alta. Along this reach of the Muddy and the hollows opening into it are tall, arrow-like spruces which give a some- what gloomy aspect to the more shady portions of the road. In the hollows are also thickets of rhododendron, resplendent in the season of bloom with an alluring display of white or pinkish-white flowers.
In the broad angle between the ower Muddy and the Cheat is the high, rolling plateau of Beech Run hill. From its northern border one may look down upon the lower plateau around Valley Point. This Upland is well settled and the good soil attracted the pioneer Crane, who secured a very large tract. Hither came also the Titchnells, Sypolts, and Mays. It was likewise the home of the Hagans family for three years, and a brother of Harrison is buried in one of its ceme- teries. On the plateau are two churches, and there is a building long since used as a store by one of the Cranes.
Reversing our course and keeping up the Muddy from Deep Hollow, we come in two miles to the hamlet of Guseman. This is unique among the inland places of Preston in being strictly industrial. In the earlier half of the last century Jacob Guseman built a store. In 1844 John W. Rigg put up a little log building and installed in it two hand looms, and a 50-spindle jenny. His weaving business grew and he enlarged his plant. In 1869 a large new builling was occupied. The removal of Rigg to Terra Alta made no difference, and the business has been continued by John W. Englehart. A few years ago the mill burned, but was replaced by a still better one under corporate owner- ship, Mr. Englehart being still the manager. Though at some distance from a railroad, certain items of expense could be avoided. Besides, a number of people in the vicinage were dependent on the mill for employ- ment. Hence there was little hesitation in rebuilding on the same spot.
From Guseman we turn to the right, ascend a broad cultivated ridge, an offset of Briery Mountain, and find the hamlet of Lenox, smaller than Valley Point, but containing two store buildings. It is on the line between Pleasant and Portland. Near by is a Lutheran
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church built during the civil war, although the organization dates back to about 1815. The interments in its cemetery are numerous.
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