USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 28
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The town lies in a cove of the mountain ridge and at the head of Pringle's Run. It sprang into existence with the railroad, and before the completion of the tunnel was of particular importance as the place from which the work was mainly prosecuted. Its position at the very foot of the dividing ridge also made it easily accessible as a point of country trade for the dwellers on the upland. Thus the Cassidy's Summit of the early days of the railroad grew into the town of Tunnelton with a business in timber and coal. To the latter industry it now owes its chief importance, and among the towns of Preston it has acquired the title of "Coal Center." The census of 1910 proved it to be running neck and neck with Kingwood and Newburg. A few years ago it put up a vigorous claim as entitled to the courthouse, but the matter was never pressed to a vote.
Though an active business point, it can scarcely be said that the appearance of the town has been attractive. Partly because crowded into a cove of the mountain, the business quarter was not well laid out, and Pringle's Run, by being a sewer for the rust-colored drainage from the mines, has not quite the crystal clearness supposed to be an attribute to mountain brooks.
But the appearance of the town is now in course of improvement. The building of the new railway tunnel necessitated a broad lane through the business quarter of the old town for the accommodation of the new tracks to be brought into use. A number of buildings, some of which were eyesores of long standing, were accordingly re- moved, and the upper channel of the unsightly sewer-creek has been filled in. The paving of the principal streets is still another change for the better.
The coal-black, soot-begrimed entrance to the old Kingwood Tunnel lies in a cut only a little way beyond the station, and contrary to what one might expect, it is a few feet lower than the rails at the station. The length is 4138 feet ,and as there is no curve the farther entrance may be distinctly seen, providing a locomotive is not belching clouds of smoke into the intervening distance. By a footpath one may cross the mountain and keep almost directly over the tunnel, sometimes more than 200 feet below. On the way we pass three unpleasant- looking holes of rectangular form. Around them are great mounds of the crushed slate which was hoisted through them. Formerly, through a criminal neglect, these dangerous holes lay entirely open. After the recovery of the body of Ashby they were fenced in.
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Two miles east of Tunnelton is the little village of Anderson. Here begins a grade of about four and one-half miles to the bridge at Rowlesburg, the descent being 463 feet. As the train comes within sight of the river there is a view of the Narrows of the Cheat, where the stream, 500 feet below, is contracted to a breadth of scarcely a fifth of that amount. To overcome the fissures opening into the face of the river-hill, particularly at Tray Run, some very costly work was made necessary. Trestling, huge retaining walls of masonry, and finally much solid embankment had to be constructed. The Tray Run hollow was 600 feet across and 180 feet deep. From the rock below, a solid wall was built up for 130 feet, and above this was placed an iron viaduct, 50 feet high.
If the hundred miles of railroad in Preston has proved an immense benefit to its people it has nevertheless been accompanied by a trail of blood. The aged man and his wife who at different hours on the same day were killed at a way station on this part of the road, repre- sent but a very slight fraction of the total number of men, women and children who have lost life or suffered injury. Under actual con- ditions, modern industrialism exacts a fearful toll in blood. In the county of Pennsylvania which contains Pittsburgh, 1,7000 persons were in one year by this instrumentality killed or maimed ; a number greater than the Federal loss at Chancellorsville or Chickamauga, two of the heaviest battles of the Civil War.
In like manner, if the number of Preston people who from first to last have been drowned in the Cheat were to corrspond with the num- ber drowned in a few moments by the bursting of a reservoir dam, the latter calamity would be given space in every daily newspaper in the Union.
We have now completed our cursory survey of Preston county. We could relate much more, but we do not wish to abuse the patience of the reader.
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PART TWO. Chapter I.
OUR EUROPEAN FOREFATHERS.
A dozen centuries before the settlement of the United States there dwelt on the eastern shore of the North Sea a Germanic people known then as the Angeln, or Anglen. They were rude and very warlike, yet possessed the early German virtues of simplicity, sincerity, truth- fulness, and regard for woman. They set a high value on personal freedom, and their chieftains had to be men of signal courage and force of leadership. They were at this time a heathen people. They lived in villages, each village governing itself and being surrounded by an ample expanse of woodland and meadow held in common. In fact they lived under a tribal form of government. Between the mode of life of the Anglen of the fifth century and that of the American Indians of the seventeenth, there was much resemblance, except that the former had metallic implements and a more serviceable knowledge of the arts.
Southward in the forests of interior Germany were the Saxons, who remained several centuries longer a wild, fierce pagan people, a terror to their neighbors, and haters of civilization. Charles the Great, a powerful monarch whose capital was near the river Rhine, fought them year after year, and after almost a lifetime of effort, he com- pelled the Saxons to accept both Christianity and civilization. This sturdy people, full of latent capability, became the founders of the present German empire.
Westward from the Anglen, across a few hundred miles of ocean, were the British Islands, inhabited by various Celtic tribes. Four cen- turies earlier, they had been quite as rude as the Anglen and fully as warlike and stubborn. The tribes occupying what we know now as England were subdued by the Romans and held in subjection four cen- turies. During their period of servitude they acquired some degree of civilization from their masters, and at length accepted the Christian religion. They also lost somewhat of their warlike spirit.
Across the Englsh Channel was the country now called France. Its Celtic tribes had been conquered by the Romans a little earlier
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than those of England, and they became still more civilized. The Romans were followed by the Franks, a German people, who blended with the native Celts and gave their name to the country.
Such, fifteen centuries ago, was the condition of that part of Europe which peopled America.
The Anglen together with neighboring tribes of Saxons and Jutes began to descend on Britain in their little ships, which were propelled by oars to a greater extent than by sails. The Romans had withdrawn their garrisons, and the invaders plundered, burned and massacred with a savagery equal to that of our own Indians. They had uo use for towns and destroyed those the Romans had built. Such of the Britons as were not butchered were driven into the mountains of Wales, where they are represnted today by the Welsh people.
The German invaders established several petty kingdoms. These fought one another, the stronger absorbing the weaker, until after four centuries the people came under one ruler. From this time forward they are known as the English nation. Meanwhile they advanced somewhat toward civilization, lived in towns to some extent, adopted civilization, and cared less for war as a steady business.
The English in their turn now had to take the same sort of medi- cine they had given to the Britons. Up in the Scandanavian countries were the Northmen, a fierce heathen people, whose piratical fleets had begun to carry terror and devastation to every shore of Europe. These sea rovers found their way to America. They gave a name, a great city, and a line of rulers to Russia. They overturned the early civiliza- tion of Ireland, giving that country a blow from which it never recov- ered They plundered the English with such vigor and success that the English priests put into their church service the following prayer : "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us." They overran the north and east of the country and ruled the whole of it for a while, but soon abandoned their heathenism and amalgamated with the English.
The most interesting of these pirates were the Normans. They pil- laged the shore of France and even sailed up the Seine and besieged Paris. In sheer despair, the king yielded to them the fine coast province which now took the name of Normandy. The remarkable adaptability of these people was shown in the speed with they ceased to be roving pirates and became civilized Frenchmen. They not only married French wives, but they adopted and improved the French language and culture. After a century and a half, the Normans con-
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quered England, yet in time became mingled with the native stock. The Normans were brave, cruel, and fond of exercising authority, but they were also venturesome, intellectual, and poetic. They had a genius for administration, and England now advanced more rapidly in civiliza- tion.
We now come forward to the reign of Elizabeth in 1558-1603. Dur- ing this period the English began to take steps to colonize the Ameri- can shore. The England of that day, a country somewhat smaller than the two Virginias, had about twice their population. It was not the wealthy and industrial nation that it is now. There were some bril- liant writers and philosophers, yet in general civilization it was scarcely abreast with France and Holland. The farming methods were crude. The streets of the cities were dirty and ill-lighted. The roads were bad, and lonely places were infested with robbers. Society was rough, coarse, and sensual. The poorer people lived in hovels. Even the better homes were not cleanly, nor were the inmates of these homes cleanly in their persons.
Here is the description of the home of an Englishwoman with three daughters. It is of an earlier period, but will answer quite as well for that of Elizabeth. Her hut contained only a living-room and a bedrom, or bower. The table was a loose board placed on trestles. There were two or three chairs and stools, a recess in the wall for clothes and utensils, one or two brass pots, a knife or two, some wooden platters, and an iron candlestick. The four women slept in their day clothes on rude beds. Their ordinary food, which was sometimes plentiful and sometimes scarce, was bread and milk, sometimes with eggs and bacon. Two persons would eat from the same plate or trencher. The livestock consisted of three cows, three pigs, and one sheep.
Such was the England that peopled the American shore from the Bay of Fundy to Florida.
The typical Englishman, then as now, is brave, dignified, cool- blooded, and strong-willed. He is also laborious, enterprising, self- reliant, a lover of order, and resolute in attaining his ends. He is a homestayer, and prefers living apart by himself in some spot to which he takes a liking. In his manners and in his outlook upon life he is austere. He bends only when it suits him to do so, and when the public gets anything from him it is only because he is willing to grant it. Because of his descent from the piratical Northmen he is over-
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bearing toward the man he can bully, and is greedy and grasping in matters of trade or the acquiring of land.
Then as now, England was a land of social contrasts. This fact was accepted as entirely right and proper, and it was not at all easy to pass from a lower class to a higher. At one extreme was the rich and exclusive nobleman, and at the other was the illiterate, poverty- smitten toiler.
West of England was industrious Wales, under the control of the English and living at peace with them. Northward was Scotland, then an independent kingdom. The Lowland Scots are of the same blood as the English, while the Highlanders are Celts. At this time the High- landers were still a cluster of disorderly clans, less fond of steady work than of stealing cattle. The Scots, both Lowland and Highland, were much less under the influence of aristocratic ideas than were the English. Between them and the latter, there was no good feeling, and the two nations had often been at war.
Ireland was domineered by the English, and her people lived in great poverty. Like the Welsh and the Highlanders, the native Irish are Celts, a stock more turbulent that the German, but of warmer sensi- bilities.
With their neighbors the French, the English had a persistent feud. The former are a very gifted people, and are the most artistic of the Europeans. They were at this time the most numerous, wealthy, and influential nation in Europe.
Holland, whose people resembled both the English and the German, was in 1600 the first commercial nation of Europe, and her industrious, enterprising people had more ships than all the other countries of that continent.
Germany was at this time a loose aggregation of small and very despotic monarchies. Owing to this fact, the Germans, though an industrious people, were of less power and influence than the French. From 1618 to 1648, Germany was desolated by the most terrible war ever known in Europe. It was mainly a war of German against German. The population was reduced from 16,000,000 to 4,000,000, and its progress was set back for a century and a half.
Having taken a rapid glance at the countries which now began to people America, it is next in order to find out why they did so.
In the first place, it was not because of a large population. - Even England, now the heaviest importer of foodstuffs of any nation on earth, continued to feed her own people up to the time of the war of
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the Revolution, and to build her ships with timber from her own forests. So far as density of population was concerned, there was no occasion for Europeans to migrate to America or anywhere else.
The causes of the migration may be summed up in these two words: Privilege and Religion.
A few centuries before the Anglen settled in England, the huge Roman empire had crumbled to pieces. In those countries of Western Europe which had been included in that empire, there was now an intol- erable condition of lawlessness. There were neither kings nor govern- ments worthy of the name. It was a time when the strong had their own way and when might made right.
The masses of the people, who were known as peasants, were con- strained to put themselves under the protection of military leaders. These leaders became the nobles of the Middle Ages. They were proud and haughty, and held useful industry in contempt. They lived in pri- vate fortresses and were supported by the toil of the people under their protection. The latter were regarded as inferior beings, and as having scarcely any rights which they felt bound to respect. The lesser nobles gave allegiance to those of more power, and these in their turn to one who was styled a king, although his authority was little more than a shadow. This system of government was styled feudalism. It is therefore easy to see that the times were hard, that the nobles were insolent and tyrannical, that the peasants were no better off than slaves, and that a spirit of humanity would confine itself to its own class.
But little by little, the king gained power at the expense of the nobles, until he became an absolute monarch. A middle class of trades- men and artisans arose, especially in the cities. To the aristocratic drone, this middle class was a necessary evil. It grew in numbers, wealth, and power, and became able to dictate terms to the nobles. The latter finally lost their civil authority, and in effect became little else than landlords.
So in the seventeenth century the lands of these countries were monopolized by the nobility. The peasant had to pay a most oppres- sive rent, sometimes being allowed to keep ouly one-twelfth of what he produced. He therefore had to be content with few pleasures and no luxuries. He was ignorant and rough, yet simple and earnest, and as industrious and ambitious as he had any encouragement to become. In Germany and France, his lot was much harder than in England and Holland.
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In any country the men who own the soil determine the form of government and the structure of society. Because the soil of Europe was held in huge estates, the mass of the people being renters or serfs, the governments were monarchies, nearly or quite absolute, and society was aristocratic. But while population and rents were increasing, the supply of tillage land was diminishing. For their selfish amusement, the nobles were turning large areas into parks and game preserves. Thus the people who tilled the ground were being crowded to the wall.
But America was like a field without any weeds. On this side of the Atlantic there was known to be an inconceivable amount of unculti- vated land. Free land meant no rents, and it is high rent that makes wages low. Then again, free land meant ownership of the soil, and ownership of the soil meant a share in the government. it also meant that society would be democratic rather than aristocratic, and that humanity in general would have something like a fair deal.
Free land, and with it a desire for greater social, industrial, and political freedom, was the greater of the two magnets that drew people to America.
As we have pointed out, the other propelling force was religion.
Until after the sixteenth century began, there was only one church in all Western Europe. It was the well-night universal opinion that as there could be only one government in a country, there should be only one church. The idea that several distinct sects had any right to live side by side in the same country was held to be as intolerable as for several governments to attempt to exercise jurisdiction within the same state. Furthermore, the government and the church were partners, each upholding the other. So it was thought a duty to crush out any sect that presumed to set up for itself.
It was after a long while found that such a task was not possible. The Reformation arose early in the sixteenth century, and made religious inquiry free. But free inquiry led to differences in opinion, and thus sectarian distinctions appeared. That century was an age of experiment and of bold discussion. It was likewise an age of fanaticism, of deep prejudices, and of bitter hatreds. It was not yet a time of religious toleration. Each sect wanted freedom, but only for itself, because it believed itself wholly in the right. This clashing between men who would sooner die than yield, developed in time a feeling of forbearance. It was found that religious freedom did not bring civil anarchy. Toleration grew finally into mutual respect and co-operation.
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But it was a long while before this point was reached. The appeal was often to the sword. And when men fought one another in the name of religion, the contest was desperate and the victor was mer- ciless. Even in England the sect in power would persecute the sects out of power with a bigotry and cruelty which seem to us almost incon- ceivable. Men were skinned or quartered, or they were burned alive in the hideous opinion that torture in this life would save the soul of the erring person from torture in the next.
But in religion as in land, America was like a safety valve. Here in the wilderness it looked as though there was room enough for men of unbending opinions to get beyond elbow touch with one another. So the Huguenots came to South Carolina, the Pilgrims to Massachu- setts, the Baptists to Rhode Island, the Quakers to Pennsylvania, and the Catholics to Maryland.
There were secondary results which grew out of the Reformation. The claim of the right of private judgment in matters of religion made it necessary to be able to read the Bible for one's self. Therefore popu- lar education became general in the regions most directly affected by that movement. Until then the person who could read and write was the exception.
Religious emancipation led irresistibly toward social and political emancipation. The theory of the divine right of kings was weakened and finally shattered. The churches founded on the teachings of Calvin were hotbeds of democratic impulse. Thus among the Scotch, the Puri- tan English, the Welsh, the Huguenots, the. Swiss, and the Hollanders, there was a rising tide of protest against the claims of privilege. In the eighteenth century it found expression in these lines of Robert Burns :
"If I'm designed yon lordling's slave, by nature's laws designed, Why was an independent thought e'er planted in my mind?"
The Europe that sent colonists across the Atlantic before the Ameri- can Revolution was a land of economic, social, religious, and political oppression. It was a land where white slaves were owned by white masters; where manners were coarse, the prisons vile, and the punish- ments inhuman. Until 1837, even England, the freest of the European countries, permitted capital punishment in 223 separate offenses. A boy could be hanged for killing a rabbit or stealing a coat.
Let us now give attention to the various kinds of immigrants who came to what was felt to be a Land of Opportunity.
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England led in the colonizing of America, because she was an enter- prising, sea-faring nation, and also because the various sects and par- ties within her confines were better able to hold their own against one another than was usually the case on the Continent. Lowland Virginia was settled by the class rather improperly called the Cavaliers. They were country squires, accustomed to possess consid- erable land and were men of influence and consideration in their neigh- borhoods. They were of aristocratic feeling, and it was land which drew them here. The Puritans were from the substantial middle class of English, and were largely tradesmen and artisans. They were more accustomed to town and village life than the Cavaliers, and were some- what less aristocratic. The Quakers differed from the Puritans only in their peculiar religious creed. But like the Cavaliers, they were more inclined to country life than were the Puritans. The English Catholics were much like the Cavaliers except in the matter of religion.
The Scotch of this period were much like the Puritans, except that they were ruder in habits and more democratic in feeling. The same may be said of the Welsh. For some time neither people came to America in large numbers, and they mingled with other colonists, not seeking to found communities of their own.
In Ireland were three elements : the Celtic Irish, the Saxon Irish, and the Ulster-Scotch, or Scotch-Irish. The native or Celtic Irish were very poor and were much oppressed in every way by their English landlords and the English government. Few came to America until after 1840. The Saxon Irish are descendants of English and Norman-French who began to settle around. Dublin in the twelfth century, and by this time had grown away from the English as the English had grown away from the Germans. But their general characteristics were much like those of the Cavaliers. The Ulster-Scotch were not properly Irish at all. They were Highland and Lowland Scotch, with some people from the North of England, and were colonized in the province of Ulster about the time of English settlement in America. They did not begin to migrate until about 1725, but then came in great numbers.
Holland was a free, progressive, and commercial nation. It founded the colony of New York mainly for the purpose of trade.
France sent a special class of immigrants and by an indirect route. A bigoted king attempted to crush the strong hold which the Reforma- tion had secured in his dominions. The Huguenots, or French Pro- testants, were the most progressive and intellectual of the French people, and they were the mainstay of French industry and commerce.
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They were forbidden to leave the country, yet to the number of 300,000 they did escape, going mostly to England, Germany, and Holland. From those lands they took part in the movement to America.
Germany also sent colonial immigrants, but in a somewhat indirect way. The same tyrant who drove the Huguenots from France turned the Palatine province of Germany into a temporary desert. By his express order, towns, farmhouses, and orchards were destroyed, and wells were filled up. William Penn invited the homeless people to join his colony, and thus began the German element in America. During the colonial era it came almost wholly from the valley of the Rhine and from Switzerland. These immigrants, however, were not of the purest German type, which is a decided blonde. The Palatine Germans show a great frequency of dark complexions and black hair.
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