USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 3
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The other mineral resources of Preston are not unimportant. Be- sides the "great limestone," thinner and similar veins occur in every district. This rock makes good building and road material and good lime, the latter being indispensable as a soil fertilizer. The bluestone of Rowlesburg is of very fine grain, and is in high repute for paving and architectural purposes. Cement rock in vast quantity exists at Man- heim, and in Chestnut Ridge is glass sand. Fire and potter's clays occur, and in nearly every neighborhood is brick clay. Iron ore is widely dis- tributed, and much of it is near the surface. A vein from half a foot to two feet in thickness and containing 35 per cent of metal lies beneath the Barton coal. Salt is known to exist, but no salt wells have been commercially developed. Test wells have been sunk for oil and gas, but whether to decisive effect has not become a matter of public knowl- edge. Yet natural gas has long been seen to issue from the bank of Raccoon creek near Newburg.
The outcrop of the Alleghany coal series makes a fairly good soil, covering slopes that are often very steep and being well suited to timber and grass. The texture is rather coarse and gritty, and when damp the color is generally darkish. On the high ridges the soil inclines to a sandy nature, but in some localities it is clayey. In the glades it is darker than anywhere else. Soils with a limestone base occur over limited areas on the Highland, as at Cranesville and Aurora. The Cheat bottoms are rather sandy and only moderately good. The natural fertility of the Preston soils varies in a considerable degree. It is highest in the limestone areas, the glades, and the river plateaus along the Cheat On the hillsides facing south and east, it is less than on the northern and western slopes. Rocks, both tight and loose, are found everywhere, some of the more level areas being comparatively free. The limited spots known as "batters" are so heavily burdened as to be unavailable for tillage.
Though Preston covers but a half degree of latitude, the altitude varies from 873 feet to 3216, and the difference produces an effect equal to four degrees in a flat region. While the temperature at the lower levels is distinctly cooler than on the same line at the Chesapeake or the Ohio, the climate of the Highland corresponds in thermometric readings with that of New York and the south of New England.
The climate of Terra Alta is that of the Highland in general. For winter, spring, summer and fall, the respective mean temperatures are 26, 47, 67 and 51 degrees, the average for the year being 48 degrees.
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The lowest and highest temperatures for the average winter day are 17 and 35 degrees, and for the average summer day they are 55 and 78 degrees. The extremes are 90 degrees for the summer and 24 degrees below zero for the winter. The precipitation, including melted snow, is 55 inches, summer being the wettest season and fall the dryest. The fall of snow is 92 inches and the prevailing winds are westerly.
The Middle Basin lying 600 feet below the Highland, the average temperatures are about two degrees higher, while in the gorge of the Cheat and in the valleys of Lyon and Reno the climate is warmer yet, reaching an annual mean of at least 51 degrees. At Fellowsville the writer has seen ripe blackberries, ripening oats, and tasseling corn, whereas at Aurora on the very same day the oats and the blackberries had not turned color and the corn was still being plowed. Furthermore, the Highland is subject to heavy falls of dry snow, blockading some of the roads for weeks, and sleds will be in use at Terra Alta at times when there is scarcely a vestige of snow along the course of the Cheat or the Three Fork.
The climate of these hills is not that of the seashore. The peculiar softness of the ocean breeze is very rarely wafted over the Alleghany barrier. Yet the atmosphere is more humid than on the Atlantic coast to the eastward, and still more humid than in the open portion of the Mississippi valley. Nevertheless, visitors to Baltimore or New York in the winter season complain of the penetrating touch of the sea air. But although the climate is not maritime, the variations in temperature are not so extreme as they are beyond the Ohio. The rainfall is due chiefly to the gulf winds from the southwest. The air currents from this quarter strike the Appalachians obliquely and meet the winds coming from the east. The struggle of the contending currents among the cool uplands brings a condensation of moisture, thus causing many local showers, but not the prolonged, drizzling rains of the seacoast. The alternations between cloudy and sunny days are rapid and frequent. The high humidity is apparent in the morning fogs so very frequent along the Cheat and its tributaries and on the low, moist glades. Yet a swelter- ing heat is not common, owing to the absence of very high temperatures. Even on the Cheat, where sultriness is most in evidence, it is mitigated by drafts of air which blow up or down the gorge. But though the rain- fall is rather evenly distributed between the four seasons, a long con- tinued dryness being infrequent, the thirsty soil causes all streams to run low toward the close of the warm season, and the smaller ones cease
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PRESTON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
entirely. The wind velocity is low, averaging little more than four miles an hour, though the air movement is of course greater on the exposed ridges than in the sheltered valleys. Tornadoes are all but unknown, and a wind so high as to cause any particular damage is very infrequent. The winters are long and cloudy though not usually severe. The larger streams remain open most of the time, and only now and then is the ground covered continuously with snow for many weeks. The warm season is much more sunny, the air is fresh and pure, and on a bright day the verdant hills are set off to fine effect.
With the exception of the damp glades, which were in part grown up to alder thickets and in part covered with coarse grass, and with the probable further exception of some spots which the Indians kept open by an annual burning of the grass, the white settler found an unbroken forest, the dominating wood being chestnut and a variety of oak. Other growths were ash, poplar, linn, hickory, beech, locust, sycamore, sugar maple, white walnut, black walnut, black gum, and white birch, On the Highland was then a large amount of spruce and hemlock, and these evergreens are occasionally seen on the watercourses in the lower parts of the county. Of shrubs there were the dogwood, haw, sassafras, crabapple, elder and sumach. In the ravines were dense thickets of the rhododendron, or mountain laurel, of which the large and handsome white flower has been adopted as the floral emblem of the state. Wild fruits were present in variety. They included grapes, cherries, plums, crabapples, service berries, haws, mulberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and huckleberries. Cranberries grew in the glades, and in dry, shady situations was the wintergreen, or mountain tea. Chestnuts. walnuts, hickory nuts, hazel nuts and acorns were more or less plenty. The wild flowers were numerous and varied.
The woods were well tenanted with animal life. The buffalo, the elk and the deer fed on the herbage, and the bears, panthers, wolves, wildcats and foxes preyed on any vegetable-eating animal they could overcome. Of smaller animals there were raccoons, opossums, skunks, groudhogs, rabbits and squirrels. On the streams were otters, beavers, muskrats and mink. In the limpid streams flowing out of Laurel Hill were many brook trout, and in the Cheat was an abundance of pikle, perch, chub, catfish, suckers and eels. The mountains were infested with rattlesnakes and the river-hills with copperheads. Mosquitoes, deerflies and gnats were numerous and troublesome. The woods were frequented by many of the feathered tribe. The eagle was ruler-in-
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chief of the air, which sometimes was darkened by flights of the wild pigeon.
Less than a century and a half of Caucasian occupancy has wrought a considrable change with respect to animal life. The buffalo, the elk, the panther, the wolf, and the wild pigeon have long since vanished. The bear and the deer are virtually extinct, and trout have become rare. A person may scour the hills and valleys for weeks without seeing any other reptiles than an occasional blacksnake, gartersnake, or toad, or a spotted newt. The clearing of the land and the burning of wooded tracts have multiplied the blackberry and the huckleberry, while bring- ing a great abatement of the insect pests. They still linger in the woods in some degree, but venture little into the open. The mosquito has thus become a negligible consideration.
The red men unquestionably had their own names for the mountains and streams of Preston. It is unfortunate that not one has been pre- served, with the solitary exception of the Youghiogheny. Hu Max- well, however, thinks the name Cheat is of aboriginal origin, the early form of the word being Cheak. Their names were not only significant and appropriate, but were in general quite easy for the white people to pronounce. It is a curious fact that the name Youghiogheny, the aboriginal spelling of which we have already alluded to in this chapter, was until about the close of the French and Indian war applied to the Cheat. The present Youghiogheny was on, early maps styled the Roonanetto, a map of 1747 giving the Ohio the fearful name of Splawici- pikio. Since the settlement of this region, there have been many changes in the naming of its natural features, especially when the early name was that of some pioneer family which has long been extinct on Preston soil. The most conspicuous change is in the naming of Chestnut Ridge, which divides Preston from Monongalia. In the pioneer days the moun- tain was known . Laurel Hill.
It remains for us to consider the suitability of this upland wild to the people who came to make it their home. They were derived almost exclusively from the British Isles and from Germany. In many instances they came directly here. The climate of the ancestral home, as measured by the thermometer, compares quite closely with the climate of the Preston hills; more so than that of our seacoast. There is a particular approach to European conditions in the humid air, the frequent showers, the rapid alternations between sunshine and cloud, and the comparative infrequency of very extreme changes in temperature. Land redeemed
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PRESTON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
from the forest soon covers with a turf, without which this wilderness would have seemed a desert to the pioneer. A new mode of farming did not have to be learned. The Scotch-Irishman came with his flax, the Germans with their buckwheat and cabbage, and the colonials from the seacoast with their corn, potatoes, and apple trees, all of which took kindly to this region. The climate not tending to an outdoor life during the cold season, did not impair that domesticiy which is so valuable a trait among the nations of the north of Europe. There was no occasion to adopt a new manner of living.
An evidence of the suitability of this climate to the immigrant stocks is seen in the frequency of clear, fresh complexions, such as we are wont to associate with the natives of Britain. This is due to atmospheric conditions, and the climate of Preston more nearly approaches that of the British Isles than perhaps any other locality in the United States ex- cepting Puget Sound.
With certain qualifications the climate was found very healthful. The scourge of malaria, so common in the South and West, and so destructive of energy as well as health, is here unknown. But with . respect to catarrhal, bronchial and rheumatic ailments, it cannot be said that these hills are particularly favorable. In the winter season there are epidemic visitations, as of grip and scarlet fever. Tuberculosis and typhoid fever, both of which disorders are very largely preventable, occur somewhat frequently, yet less often than in many other places. The most salubrious air carries a heavy handicap when it is expected to offset the influence of contaminated wells, unventilated rooms, rotten dishcloths, dwellings in damp, shady hollows, and an inexcusable in- difference to personal cleanliness, bad dietetic habits, and the infectious nature of many ailments. With no more than a reasonable care in these matters, and leaving out of account those constitutional diseases which seem almost independent of climate, a high degree of good health is a result of the climate of Preston. That the immigrant stock has found these hills a highly suitable home and has not at all deteriorated here, may be seen in the numerous instances of longevity which are on record.
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PRESTON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
CHAPTER IV
POLITICAL DIVISIONS
A Certain Lack in Homogeneity - The Districts Like Miniature Counties - Grant - Pleasant - Portland - Union - Reno - Lyon - Kingwood - Valley.
Preston is not so homogeneous as is the average county. The eight districts possess an unusual degree of individuality. Economic condi- tions have never yet developed a real metropolis, such as is possessed . by the average county. Until the coming of the Northwestern Pike there were two village centers of about equal importance, each with its distinct sphere of influence. The advent of the Pike ยท developed three more such centers in the southern districts. When the railroad came it caused three of the old centers to decline, yet started four more. When the present century opened, there were five small towns of nearly equal size and commercial importance. The number of such tends to increase. Then again, the larger cities of Grafton and Morgantown make their influence felt in the West Side. The same remark is true of Uniontown and Somerset for the north of the county.
The people of the extreme northern and southern districts are little acquainted with one another, except through the imperfect medium of political activity and the occasional attendance of their citizens at the county and district courts. Even the institutes fail to command a very unanimous attendance of the teachers, a quite noticeable number visiting those of Taylor and Monongalia. It was no less than instinctive to the Prestonians to secure a county court of eight members instead of the prevailing number of three, so that each district might have direct representation therein.
Instead of being little else than mere arbitrary divisions of homo- geneous territory, the districts of Preston are with respect to their individuality quite suggestive of a cluster of small counties. This is partly a result of the local geography and partly a result of differing streams of immigration coming in by different routes. Elsewhere in this book this matter is further discussed.
Even the districts themselves are divided sectionally. The river . Cheat separates them into two groups, equal in number and nearly equal in area and population. It is an unwritten law in local politics that each
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PRESTON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
section is entitled to its own delegate to the state legislature. Before the War of 1861 there was a political difference, the Whig vote being often in the ascendency west of the Cheat, although the county as a whole was then Democratic.
In the extreme north the district of Grant extends from side to side and has an average breadth of about six miles. It is a cross-section of the Ligonier valley, its eastern and western frontiers, fifteen miles apart, lying respectively on Dog Ridge and Chestnut Ridge. In the middle distance is the bisecting course of the upper part of the Big Sandy. The southern line is also a natural boundary, being formed by the Little and Big Sandies and the Cheat. The western half of this distance is marked by a deep canyon. The northern line on the other hand is purely artificial and passes through very open country. But for the lane and the tele- graph poles which mark a pipe line of the Standard Oil Company, a person would pass the boundary without perceiving it. The surface of the district is not heavily broken except in the southwest. In the northeast corner is a high sloping plain characterized by glades. The suitability of Grant for tillage is above the average in Preston and there is rather more than the average of good farm buildings.
This district was named for the victorious commander-in-chief of the Federal armies in the war of 1861. It illustrates how artificial boundaries are disregarded in a social and commercial way. Grant is like a parcel of land with walls on two sides, a ditch on a third, and an open border on the fourth. The northern line of the district is like a broad, open door facing the state of Pennsylvania. Only by virtue of political geo- graphy is this district a part of West Virginia. Its inhabitants have many kinsfolk in the other state. They read Pennsylvania papers and go to market in Pennsylvania towns. When their young people look about for employment, they usually go at once to the large industrial towns of the Keystone State.
Grant was the first district to become numerously settled. For about seventy years it stood foremost in population, wealth, and development. Until after 1850 it continued to about hold its own. Its relative de- cadence since then is due to the superseding of the National Road by the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. Brandonville, its old commercial center, has dwindled, and the population of the district has remained nearly stationary. The quality of the farming has improved, yet the district is a nursery ground for the peopling of industrial centers.
The carly settlers of Grant were mainly of English and Scotch-Irish
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derivation. Their descendants have in large measure migrated, thus giving place to a steady influx of German families, especially from Somerset and Bedford counties in Pennsylvania, so that now the pre- - dominant strain in the population is of German origin. This later im- migration helps to account for the community of interest among the people on either side of the state line. In great degree Grant is the parent district whence many families or branches of families dispersed into other portions of the county.
The village centers of this and other districts are more fully described in another chapter. Brandonville, once the leading center of the county, fell into decay through the diverting of trade from turnpike to rail routes. Bruceton, only a mile away, owes its greater endurance to its possession of water power. Very small villages are Pisgah and Clifton Mills. Hazelton, which lies partly in Pleasant, is a hamlet rather than a village, while Glade Farms is too small a neighborhood center to be entitled even to this designation.
Pleasant district is shaped somewhat like the blade of a single-bitted axe. It is about twelve miles long and its breadth varies from five to nine. On the north is a creek boundary separating it from Grant. West is the gorge of the Cheat. East is the Maryland line running near the crest of Dog Ridge. The irregular south line is artificial, although for about three miles it nearly follows the lower course of Muddy Creek. Pleasant is the smoothest of the eight districts. It presents the aspect of a plain, reaching from near the Maryland line to the very brink of the river canyon, and interspersed with tracts of glade land. The creeks flow in depressed channels, while above the general surface of the plain rise a few knobs in the center and the plateau of Beech Run Hill in the south angle. Toward the west is some tableland, so level and with mountain elevations looking so remote and inconspicuous, that a person can yield himself to the illusion that he is traversing a broad plain. Yet the soil of this district is of not more than the average fertility of Preston lands.
Pleasant was given a commonplace name for no very distinctive reason. It appears to have had very few settlers until just after the Revolution. Many of these were Germans, although at the present time the German element is somewhat smaller than in Grant. This district resembles Grant in being without a railroad and in the slow net increase in its population. But commercially it faces south and east, its market towns lying in these directions. Socially, also, it has little intercourse
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with the Pennsylvania counties. The district is without a true village. On Muddy Creek is the industrial hamlet of Guseman. Eastward and close to the Portland line is Lenox. Northward is Valley Point, and toward the northeast corner is Hazelton.
Portland was named by lumbermen from Maine in honor of the metropolis of the Pinetree State. It is the largest of the districts and, covers a little more than 100 square miles. In shape it is suggestive of the head and upper neck of a horse. The diagonal distance from Cranes- ville to Rowlesburg is seventeen miles and the distance across the center from Albright to the Maryland line is eight miles. The diagonal line just mentioned closely corresponds with the direction of Briery Moun- tain. East of this ridge Portland lies within the Highland, except as to the lower Salt Lick, which lies within the Rowlesburg Basin. West of the mountain, Portland, like Grant and Pleasant, is included within the Middle Basin No other district presents so great a contrast in altitude, the vertical difference between the top of Gregg's Knob and the mouth of Muddy being about 2200 feet. Yet there is some glade land in the basin of Snowy Creek at the southeast.
Although the surface of Portland is very much broken, a large share of the soil is of more than average quality. In the northeast corner are the fertile limestone hills just west of Cranesville. Touching these hills on the east is the level Pine Swamp, so named from having once been covered with a heavy growth of pine and hemlock. Other choice sec- tions of Portland are the hilly upland between Briery Mountain and Brushy Ridge, the lowland tract in the northwest known as the Crab- orchard, and the hemispherical lowland on the Cheat called the Whetsell Settlement. But the higher section of the west slope of Briery Mountain is rather indifferent, and much of it is still in forest.
Settlement in Portland began earlier than anywhere else. The first comers located in the Craborchard and on the Cheat, the Highland remaining largely a wilderness until after 1840. Since the arrival of the iron horse, there has been a great increase in population, Portland having now more inhabitants by sixteen percent than both Grant and Pleasant. Between 1870 and 1900 it more than doubled, and isnce 1900 it has led all the districts. With respect to their derivation, the people of Port- land show still less than in Pleasant the dominance of any one national strain.
Portland contains the commercial town of Terra Alta, now the largest place in the county. Four miles east is the coal mining village of
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Corinth. Seven miles northwest is the growing town of Albright, now swallowing the nearby hamlet of St. Joe. Ten miles northeast is the inland village of Cranesville, and four miles southwest is the railroad hamlet of Rodamer. No district of the East Side has undergone more rapid and substantial improvement than Portland.
As in the case of Pleasant, the district of Union has been given a much-used name. In shape this division of the county is rhomboidal. It has a direct length of about eleven miles and an average breadth of about nine. Lying mostly in the Highland, it is in the main a plateau rising toward the center into the long hills belonging to Brushy Ridge. The section of the plateau lying east is everywhere elevated and is the smoothest part of the district. The western side is deeply furrowed by the watercourses making toward the Cheat. But while there is not so high or so unbroken a wall toward the river as in Pleasant, the im- mediate valley of the river is narrow and the amount of bottom land is very limited. The northeast of Union is still a forest, and in general the amount of woodland is considerable.
In being a tableland, although more elevated, Union has a degree of resemblance to Pleasant. The soil is somewhat better and along Brushy ridge are some limestone lands. The German element is more conspicuous in this district than anywhere else, and it came by an earlier and different route than most of the German immigration to the north- ward. The population of Union is very largely derived from the pioneers who began coming in 1787. It is the least interrelated with the inhabitants of other districts. The Northwestern Pike was built directly through Union and led to an improvement in the methods of tillage, the effects of which have been progressive as well as permanent. Railroads are quite accessible, the Baltimore and Ohio following the northwest border and the Western Maryland almost grazing the southeast corner. From 1870 until 1900 ,the rate of increase in population was nearly as great as in Portland. Concerning the descendants of the pioneer immi- grants of Union, one of its citizens thus remarks :
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