USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 25
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From Lenox it is about three miles to Cuzzart or to Centenary, either road having to cross the deep valley of the Muddy. At Cuzzart we find church, store, and schoolhouse, and a well settled neighborhood .- Hazelton is about six miles further by a hilly road, Dry Ridge being near by our right and the Smith and DeBerry Knobs on our left.
Hazelton, of which we have already spoken, is mostly in Pleasant. The site was first owned by Anthony Worley, who built a corn-cracker in 1784. A better mill was built in 1818 by Samuel Hazlett, whose name finally became attached to the place. Until then, it had been called Mill Run. Not long after the civil war there was an attempt to establish a village on the upland about a mile to the southwest. But the local supremacy could not be wrenched away from the waterpower. and the few houses built at Fairview have long since been removed.
A rather level road from Cuzzart brings us to the Centenary Meth- odist church built in 1869. On our way we pass where an old church formerly stood. Close by was the home of Conrad Ringer, a local preacher who often officiated at the church and who united in matri- monial bonds a large number of couples. At Centenary begins a considerable area of level ground occupying a basin between the valleys of the Little Sandy and the Muddy and between rising ground to the east and the west. This is Morgan's Glade, so named by Joseph N. Miller from an early patent by one of the Morgans. On this glade was the home for many years of Jehu Jenkins, who was much in office as justice of the peace and county commissioner, and whose familiarity with local history was exceptional.
Around Morgan's Glade settled the Wolfe brothers, whose descend- ants are now so thoroughly scattered over the county. A little to the east came the Kellys and DeBerrys. In this neighborhood lived John Wolfe, better known as "Wobby," on account of his awkward gait. He was a blacksmith and a well-known bell-maker. Many dozens of his clear-toned, copper-glazed bells came into use in the country around. In the days when cattle roamed over large areas of woodland, it was desirable to know where they might be found without having to search too closely.
George Wolfe, a brother to John, acquired about 1835 the nickname of "Paddy" from the following circumstance. He was bent on going to an evening "frolic," although his wife entreated him to stay home and help take care of their sick child. But the man had been uncorking
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his jug and was the more headstrong in consequence. He declared in language more emphatic than polite that he would go to the frolic even if he met the prince of darkness on his way. So he set out, and in a path near where Centenary church now stands he encountered a black object standing erect and very much alive. Considerations of prudence if not etiquette impelled the would-be-frolicker to give the apparition the right of way. Two attempts to pass were frustrated by the object still placing itself before him. Wolfe's German temper now broke loose. He pulled off his coat and declared he would see who was the better man. But though he had hitherto been champion in trials of strength, his hard fists were outclassed by the briery paws and greater weight of the black bear. He was not seriously hurt, but his clothing was reduced to the condition of carpet rags. He did not go on to the frolic but returned home in a more sober condition, firmly believing he had been worsted in a personal bout with the devil. Report states that he was never afterward so fond of being out after dark. His neighbors gave him the nickname of "Paddy," because he had found a load, or paddy, that was too much for him to master.
Pleasant has had a stationary population ever since the civil war. Being at the foot of the list among the eight districts with respect to village centers, and having no railroads to swell the taxable valuation, it formerly had the unfortunate distinction of paying its teachers the lowest salaries in the whole county. Roomy houses of brick, stone, or unpainted frame are decidedly fewer thon in Grant, and those of the inferior types are somewhat more common. But Pleasant is also a coalfield and is likely to be penetrated sooner than Grant by a railroad. The church organizations show an overwhelming predominance of the Methodist faith.
If Pleasant can less satisfactorily be viewed from a single eminence than Grant, the remark is still more true of Portland, notwithstanding its possession of higher mountain summits.
Beginning a little east of Cuzzart, we follow several miles of lonely road and enter the mountains. In the watergap through which the upper Muddy flows we find the Chidester gristmill. At the head of this pass we are close to Pineswamp Knob. Along the northwestern base of the latter is a thick outcrop of limestone, from which large amounts are quarried. The farmers of Pleasant come here, especially in sledding weather, for a supply of the rock to burn into lime. The mountain slope above is generally open and is carpeted with a much
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more luxuriant sward than we find on the lower levels of Preston. The knob is so far detached from the rest of the mountain range that there is a road all the way around. The semicircular basin which separates it from the heights to the west is occupied by a belt of good farms, especially on the north and south. In the latter direction is a quite dense settlement which includes the hamlet of Orr with its store, postoffice, and grist and saw mills.
Taking the northward road we pass over a saddle connecting the knob with the heights to our left. The summit of Pineswamp is not over an eighth of a mile to our right, and from the grove which crowns it there looms upward a signal tower placed there during a topograph- ical survey by the Federal government. Just west of the grove and not many yards below the summit are the rotting timbers of the house which Jacob Wilhelm once occupied. He could doubtless say he lived higher than anybody else in Preston. At all events the position was airy in the extreme, and was completely open to the blasts from the northwest. There is no higher ground in that quarter until the Rocky Mountain region is reached.
The descent on the eastern side is quite abrupt. Before us and particularly to the right is a plain sweeping beyond the Maryland line and seemingly very level. In full view and within a mile is the village of Cranesville. Looking to the north of east we bebold Nettle Ridge, a bold conical hill almost wholly covered with fine pasturage. Like Pineswamp Knob, it is encompassed by a roadway and is even more detached from the mountain chain in the rear. Though somewhat lower than Pineswamp, the prospect from the top is more interesting. The view from the latter is unsatisfactory, because of the interference caused by the range toward the west.
The houses of Cranesville lie mostly along the main street, and the upper end of the village touches the foot of Nettle Ridge. In size the place compares with Bruceton, with which it agrees in having three churches. The village was named for John. Crane and the first house was built in 1854. It is a center of trade for a radius that includes some Maryland territory. In fact Cranesville lies in the narrow zone over which the two states were so long in dispute.
The region around Cranesville is known as the Pineswamp country from its level character and the heavy original growth of pine and hemlock. There is no better soil in Preston, especially on the slope of the limestone hills. It produces large yields of corn, grain, and hay, besides potatoes, turnips, and cabbages of exceptional size and quality.
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The fields are little infested with blackberry briers, yet to the west of Pineswamp Knob may be seen an occasional specimen of the so-called thornless blackberry. The thorns are not entirely absent, yet they are few. Until 1840, the Pineswamp was little else than a dense forest, the haunt of bears and panthers. A century ago, however, a man named Houseman had a small clearing just east of the village site. Jacob Wolfe, the brother-in-law of Lewis Wetzel, cleared some ground in 1812 at the north foot of Pineswamp and spent his last days there.
Lying outside the coal region, the interest of Cranesville will center in its agriculture and its residential attractions. Its water is of the purest and its air will rarely be surcharged with the exhalations of coke ovens. The winters are cold, yet the winter air is pure and comparatively dry. The reign of slush and mud is briefer than where the snow is less likely to fall in powdery flakes. The writer was once snowbound here for a week, and because of his comfortable quarters it was one of the least unpleasant of his experiences. The charm of the locality caused the late Samuel T. Wiley to express himself as follows:
"Why should not Cranesville become the Syracuse of Preston county? Here are pretty lawns and gentle meandering streams fringed with whispering pines. Here are cool and inviting shades, as classic as ever Greek strooled through inter silvas Academicae; groves grand and solemn as any that ever witnessed Druid rites and incantations; grand as any that ever wafted heavenward the fatherland songs of Christians collected together in camp-meeting, buzzed with the harmless revelry of the jocund harvest-home, or echoed the boisterous hilarity of a basket picnic."
From Cranesville two roads lead to Terra Alta, ten miles distant. The eastern, by way of Pleasant Hill postoffice, keeps near the Mary- land line and preserves a nearly uniform altitude. It likewise lies to the east of Brushy Ridge. The western, by way of Afton, passes a few miles through a level upland, partly open and partly wooded, and marked in places with a showing of gravel, the result of the decay of conglomerate rock. It then passes over the brow of Gregg's Knob, which lies midway between Cranesville and Terra Alta.
Gregg's Knob is 3III feet above sea and is the highest peak fairly within the Preston limits. It commands an extnsive prospect, yet the soil of no other states than Maryland and Pennsylvania can be seen from the gently rounded summit. An old gentleman once became indignant with the writer, when told he was in error in believing he had viewed Ohio from Greeg's Knob. But mathematical truth was
T
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against him. The mountain would have to be rather more than twice as high as it is, and Chestnut Ridge would have to be leveled to its base before the bluffs on the farther side of the Ohio river would come into view.
Conclusions are often jumped at without inquiring into their credi- bility, and a mere surmise is often handed down by local tradition as veritable fact. The writer has been told of the recess in a ledge where the skins of the Indians killed by David Morgan were tanned. Yet the Indians were killed in Monongalia, and the tanning was done there. He has been told of the sword of General Wolfe of Quebec fame as having been preserved by one of the Wolfe connection of Preston, the conclusion being accepted that the general was the father of the Preston pioneers of that name. Yet those pioneers were of German-born parents, whereas General Wolfe was an Englishman and a young bachelor. One other illustration may be found in the "lost" lead mines said to exist in Preston and in many other counties in the Appalachian belt. Yet after much more than a century of civilized occupation, these "mines" defy rediscovery. And well they may, because they never had an existence. The Indians had no knowledge of mining, and until they began to meet the whites, shortly before the settlement of the mountain country began, they had no knowledge of firearms and no practical use for a soft metal like lead. Then again, lead does not occur in a pure form but in ore, and the ore does not give up the metal under the heat of an open fire.
Looking directly west from Gregg's Knob, we gaze into the almost funnel-shaped basin of the upper course of Dority Run. The stream escapes through a cleft in Briery mountain to its mouth at Albright. Northwestward, we look down another break in the same chain, caused by the valley of Roaring Creek, which begins near Afton. These interesting vistas through the passes of Briery Mountain carry :he field of vision to the farther side of the county.
The Terra Alta and Brandonville pike crosses the Dority hollow at a lower elevation by 900 feet than the summit of the knob from which we are looking. Northward, it crosses the divide between the waters of Dority Run and those of Roaring Creek. On the level summit and south of the road is the almost obliterated site of the Lewis cabin, which is said to have suffered from an Indian attack. The road then descends into the deep valley of Roaring Creek, passes the decaying remnants of the once important Annan tannery, and skirting the base of a moun- tain wall it follows to Lenox the valley of Lick Run, which contains
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glade land and is open toward the west. In the Roaring Creek valley is a crevice in a ledge of rock, once better known than now as Chipps's cave. Here John Chipps, whose reputation was anything but good, is alleged to have concealed stolen horses. He was also suspected of murdering a negro. From above the Annan tannery one may take a road which will lead up the valley past the Engle neighborhood to Afton. And he may turn aside from this road, and discover to the north an elevated stony valley, almost hidden within the mountain range, yet containing several homes.
Southward from the Dority hollow the highway traverses an open, elevated, well-settled region, occupying a short section of the divide between the basins of the Cheat and the Youghiogheny. Eastward, and between us and Brushy Ridge is the upper basin of Snowy Creek. It is at once elevated and shallow. We catch a glimpse of the artificial Lake Terra Alta. The 50 acres of this expanse form an admirable counterfeit of a natural lake. Usually, the broad lower edge of the artificial pond with its straight water-line above and the conspicuous dam below render the origin so evident as almost to destroy interest in the sheet of water. But in this instance, a short unobtrusive dam thrown across a gorge impounds a long, winding lake with an occa- sional bay of very natural appearance. The shores are low and glady, though on the north a wooded yet fire-scarred mountain slope comes quite close to the shore. There is a hotel on the bank, and the shores are used for summering and picnicking.
The upland traversed by the Brandonville road is very broken, yet has a soil much above the average for Preston. Until the advent of the railroad there was scarcely a "stick of timber missing." . It is now ocupied by good farms conducted by prospering farmers. They have a surplus of hay for export, and are large producers of buckwheat.
Facts of physical geography predetermined the town of Terra Alta. The railroad, when building in 1851, could scarcely avoid using the pass which nature had placed here between the basins of Snowy Creek and Salt Lick. Then the configuration of the Highland of this county is such as to make this point the most suitable one for its main hign- ways to come together. The first wagon road through the center of the Highland found it as necessary to use this pass as did the locomo- tive.
The locality was first known as the Green Glades, the level space at the eastern end of town being once a moist glade covered with grass and alder, the herbage being mingled with cranberry vines.
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Taverns by William Ashby and Abner Messenger were kept a mile east and a mile west respectively. The first settler directly on the townsite was perhaps a Gibbs, although a Jeffers and a Freeland were living snug by when the traveler Martin was murdered by his slave in 1836. However, the first house in the business quarter of the town is said to have been a log cabin put up about 1840.
The railroad named its station Cranberry Summit. The first post- office, named Salt Lick Falls, was established before the coming of the railroad. Not long afterward it was changed to Cranberry to correspond with the railroad title. About 1858 lumbermen from Maine made this point the center of a large business in shooks, and in honor of their own metropolis they named the village Portland, the designation still adhering to the district. But because of the confusion caused by the several other Portlands in the Union, the name was changed back to Cranberry by act of legislature in 1882. Several years later yet, the Latin term Terra Alta, meaning "High Land," was adopted. In the opinion of the writer, the last change is unfortunate. A short town name is always better than a long or double name. Cranberry, as a name, is of distinct local significance. To one unacquainted with the Latin, Terra Alta is an expression entirely arbitrary. A better alternative would have been the adoption of its plain English equivalent, "Highland," a term every person would understand and appreciate. Besides, the term Terra Alta is very often mispronounced.
The first postmaster was James C. McGrew, who also was the first merchant, his store being on the site of the station-house. The first station agent was James W. Brown, the first physician was W. H. Ravenscraft, and the first tavernkeeper was Joshua Gibbs.
Among the citizens long and actively identified with Terra Alta may be named John P. Jones, M. S. Scott, R. R. Frey, Charles W. Jackson, M. F. Stuck, John W. Watson, Charles and John W. Mayer, Thornton, Lewis P, and William T. White, William A. McGinnis, John M. Free- land, Elisha J. Miller, E. D. Benson, James S. Lakin, Parley DeBerry, John D. Rigg, Jacob P. Shafer, and J. H. Rodeheaver.
Incorporation was effected in 1860. The "Mountain Mills", one of the best flouring mills in the state, was built in 1881, and the woolen mill of J. W. Rigg and Son not long afterward. Among the larger mercantile concerns are the department stores of Offutt and Lakin and Ringer and Son, and the furniture store of J. H. Rodeheaver. Of church organiza- tions the Methodist dates from 1853, the Baptist from 1859, the Presby- ierian and the Catholic from 1869.
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For thirty years the growth of Terra Alta was not rapid, the census of 1880 giving it 363 inhabitants. Since then the speed has been more swift, the recent census giving it the primacy among the Preston towns with a population of 1126. The business establishments are more numer- ous and have a larger trade than those of any other point. The town has always been an important mart for timber products, and its mills export large quantities of buckwheat flour. Terra Alta is preeminently a business town, and its citizens are conspicuous for their enterprise and energy. Their active civic spirit is shown in their possession of the best churches and the best schoolhouse in the country, and in their frequent municipal improvements. Since 1869, the town has aspired to be the county seat and it has proved itself Kingwood's most formidable competitor.,
As a point of summer interest, Terra Alta is worthy of note. Its bracing air, its comparative freedom from fog, its pleasure ground at the nearby lake, and the far-reaching and beautiful landscape view toward the southwest have given the town no little repute as a summer resort.
In 1863 Terra Alta had a very unappreciated Sunday visit by the Confederate cavalry under Colonel Harman. The stores of Nutter and Jones and Benjamin Shaw were entered and much damage was done to the goods.
Eastward the railroad carries us four miles among timber-crowned hills and along the winding course of the clear, rippling Snowy to the glade next the Maryland line on which is the village of Corinth. This place was founded in the 80's to develop the small coal field hereabouts, and for the manufacturing of brick. At Terra Alta itself begins the Eleven Mile grade, which carries the railroad at the rate of a little more than one hundred feet to the mile down through a labyrinth of steep, mountainous hills to the bank of the Cheat. On the way we pass the railroad hamlets of Rodamer's and Amblersburg. The hill at the short Rodamer tunnel was used until the recent demolition of the latter as an overhead crossing by a wagon road.
A mile northwest of Terra Alta is a fork in the highway leading to Albright. Here are a church, a schoolhouse, a few dwellings, and a vacant store building, the collection looking as though an effort had been made to put up a rival to the town which was styled by John P. Jones the "Commercial Center." The road to the right leads to the crest of Burke's hill, where winter drifts are liable to place an embargo on the traveler's progress. It then turns down the narrow, lonely, and very
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deep valley of Elsey's Run. High, forested mountains loom skyward on either hand and help to shade the waters of the hurrying stream. Befitting the gloom of the wooded chasm is the story of the murdered pedler, whose corpse was found in 1879 in a clearing at the left of the road, but the name of whose slayer was never brought to light. At length the road crosses a broad spur and descends into the valley of Dority Run at the mouth of which stands the hamlet of St. Joe.
This group of a half dozen houses derives its name from Joseph H. Gibson and Joseph G. and Joseph B. Cressler, who in 1871 put up a sawmill and several dwellings. The Cresslers, father and son, were from Pennsylvania. Twenty years later, the younger man was laboring to perfect a flying machine. The road on the farther side of the run would bring us to a high, broad terrace reaching from the edge of the river-hill above Albright back to the foot of Briery Mountain proper. On this terrace is much open land comprising several good farms. This is Elliot's Ridge, first settled by John Dougherty and afterward the home of the Elliots and Cranes. From this terrace a road leads northward into the Brandonville and Terra Alta pike.
It is a long half mile from St. Joe to Albright, but the rapid growth of the latter, since it secured a railroad, is causing the two places to coalesce. On the way we pass close by the Snake Den, a precipice the very foot of which is laved by the current of the Cheat. Albright, formerly Albrightsville, stands on a hemispherical tract of bottom. Until the railroad came it was a modest collection of white houses, being similar to Bruceton and Cranesville in size. Its position at the junction of important roads and at the only wagon bridge over the Cheat save three, cause much travel and some business to come its way. The rail- road is now causing it to expand into a place of still more importance, even though the station is on the other side of the river.
For a mile below Albright there is a narrow bottom flanked on the right by a river-hill, steep, lofty, and forest-covered. Along the more open brow of the river-hill opposite, we see the elevated grade of the new Morgantown and Kingwood railroad, and we notice the black mouth of the tunnel by means of which the iron horse shortens the circuit of the sharp promontory at the mouth of Green's Run. At the Marsden home near the mouth of Coal Lick, we leave the river, soon pass a gristmill, and climb by a winding course to a moderately elevated and rolling plateau reaching eastward to the Bran- donville pike and extending northward to Lenox. This is the Craborchard, so known from the earliest times, and doubtless so called
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because the pathfinders found an unusual number of crabapple bushes. This locality is well populated. It was here that Thomas Chipps located in 1770. Later came the Feathers, Reckards, Cresses, and Rode- heavers, and near the Rodeheaver chapel Burchinal Town had a tempor- ary existence.
Retracing our path to St. Joe and then keeping the river we find the bluffs pressing it closely until Caddell is reached, although at the mouth of Elsey's Run are a few houses and also a gristmill that is no longer used. At Caddell we cross the old Winchester and Clarksburg road, which we left a mile from Terra Alta. On the river bank is the ruinous house formerly occupied by General Buckner Fairfax. The crossing was formerly by a ferry, but after the building of a bridge at Albright the greater share of the travel began to choose that route, although the distance is farther. The Caddell ferry is now supplanted by a bridge, built primarily for the lumber mill near by, but turned over wholly to the county after the tract of woodland to our right was trans- formed into a dreary waste of stumps, sprouts, and rotting brush piles.
At the old Fairfax Ferry begins the Dunkard Bottom, which reaches well up to the railroad crossing at Trowbridge. It is the largest body if truly level land in Preston and includes an island of some size. Though mostly open, but little of it is in tillage. The soil is sandy and does not possess the fertility usually seen in bottom lands. Yet this expanse was a favored point of settlement. Here lived the ill-fated Eckerlins. Here at the ferry was a tavern kept in very early times by Casey, Mouser, and Price. Opposite was Hugh Kelso, a slave owner. On the island was Wildey Taylor, and at the mouth of Morgan's Run was the Morgan family.
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