USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 51
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He was highly fortunate in the students with whom he was thrown in contact. They were young men and women who knew the value of time as well as money, and few squandered many hours in needless diversion. He was by no means the only one there who prepared his own meals. Several of his fellow students have risen to prominence and even to national repute. Among these were Amos G. Warner, the brilliant specialist in charity work. Charles E. Magoon, the provisional governor of Cuba, and George E. Howard, Howard
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W. Caldwell, and Harry K. Wolfe, professors in their alma mater and authors of merit. To measure forces with such men in the struggle for intellectual supremacy means the developing of traits of character that count for much in the battle of life. The attendance was seldom over two hundred, but this small- ness of number permitted a general acquaintance among the students, as well as as that personal touch with the instructors which is so helpful to any wideawake youth. Several of the faculty were men of high attainments. One of them, George E. Woodberry, is an eminent man of letters. Another, Harrington Emerson, is the well-known "efficiency engineer."
After leaving college, Mr. Morton taught two years in rural schools, and then joined the family in a return to the Atlantic seaboard. He has since lived almost wholly in the South, and has thus received an impress from a third of the great sections of our Union.
Closing a year as assistant principal of an academy for boys, he entered into a small woodworking business in Virginia. His leading purpose was to become better able to follow his literary bent as an avocation. The line of work was entirely new, but adjusting himself to it with the ready versatility of the man born in New England, he produced an output of exceptional quality. Yet the mill was destroyed by an accidental fire, and a severe hurt caused by a fall from a defective stairway rendered him very much a cripple for five years. A degree of lameness proved permanent. Another misfortune was a business reverse com- ing through an unavoidable absence from his work. For upward of a year he gave his personal attention to his father, who had become disabled by paralysis. The general result was to plunge him into the most straitened circumstances.
With his widowed mother he at length sought the western face of the Alle- ghanies, and here amid the lingering usages of its pioneer era, he found a larger measure of the social atmosphere of the West. He could as yet walk but little, and at Mountain Lake Park in Maryland he spent a year and a half in private tutoring. Thence, by a fortuitous circumstance, he came in 1896 to Masontown in Preston county. His mother had fallen ill in Morgantown, and he took her here because of the mountain air.
The tie between mother and son was unusually close. Hers was the chiefest influence in the formation of his character and the inspiration to noble purpose. During the fourteen months of her invalidism, he took the most tender care of her, paying back in a measure what she had done for him, and proving his desire to reward her faithfulness and affection. There is no more touching scene in this world than a child ministering to the wants of an aged parent who is helpless and ill. One of the noblest traits in human character is that of reverence for a parent, and in the case of our author this trait had been developed largely through the influence of the mother. To the extent of his exceedingly slender means, no son ever more nobly discharged this most solemn obligation than did the subject of our sketch. The parent passed from the seen to the unseen, leaving a void in the life of the son that has never been filled, but leaving evidence of the splendid work she had done in developing uprightness of conduct and a determination to persevere in the struggle of life.
Until this moment Mr. Morton had very little acquaintance with the county, except Immediately around the village of Masontown. Under the existing cir- cumstances he was much inclined toward a permanent stay in those restful
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glades. Yet there was a painful surprise in the attitude now shown toward him. Whether rightly or wrongly, he was no longer able to regard himself as in any real sense a resident of Preston. Ho contemplated an early departure. He soon closed the home at Masontown, but aside from the financial embarrass- ment made deeper by his recent loss, a chain of circumstances protracted year by year his sojourn among us. Friends arose, and he fell quite unawares into a bohemian career, a marked contrast with his previous life and not in real harmony with his domestic nature. Kingwood was for periods more or less brief a rendezvous. When not at the county seat, he was present at hundreds of town and country homes within the Mountain State or on its borders. This nomad life brought him experiences which have proved invaluable.
In May, 1899, he accepted an invitation by the late Henry C. Hyde to assist that attorney in compiling his "Digest of the West Virginia Reports." He was next a special traveling representative for the "West Virginia Argus." He then became an agent for the books he has written. In this and other capacities he traversed our county time after time. As his own salesman he visited, often more than once, nearly every other county in West Virginia. In the winter of 1906-7 he took up the field work which has resulted in the present history.
During his entire stay among us, excepting the first year, Mr. Morton was informally connected with the "Preston County Journal." For a shorter period, he was similarly connected with the "West Virginia Argus." He also wrote for the other local papers, and for various publications in Wheeling, Fairmont, and other points. At times he performed editorial service, and many of his leaders were quoted in other newspapers. His articles were in fact quite diversi- fied, and added to the interest and circulation of the Preston periodicals. Under the pen title of "Colonel Broomsedge," he made quite a name in West Virginia as a humorist.
It is claimed that every man's work in this world is born with him. Mr. Morton's training, development, and general peculiarities have pointed him to authorship. While at Lincoln, he contributed very frequently to the college magazine, writing more voluminously, perhaps, than any other student excepting one. During his senior year he was one of its two editors. But for a long while he did not see his way to give the pen his main attention. He had also discerned that the writer who would score results worth while must first serve a long and toilsome apprenticeship, so as to accumulate, through study, observa- tion, and contact with the world, a groundwork of well digested knowledge.
Mr. Morton came to Preston with three book manuscripts. These he had worked out in his leisure moments. Through an offer made him while in the office of Mr. Hyde, the first, bearing the title, "Under the Cottonwoods," appeared in December, 1900. A prompt demand for a work of local color caused the appear- ance, one year later, of "Winning or Losing?" This was an effort in contemporary fiction. There was next a call for a local romance with an historical setting, and "Land of the Laurel," came out in 1903. The second and third of these books were written at Kingwood.
The first of the three is a graphic portrayal of the struggles of the early settlers of the Northwest. The author deals with what came under his personal observation, although neither he himself nor any of his kin are personages in the
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story. He presents the trials and difficulties of the early settlers, as well as their joys and pleasures in establishing new homes and building up a new common- wealth. He weaves these experiences into a story that is touching as well as thrilling. "The scenes are presented with force and interest." The charac- ters are men and women, whose joys and sorrows and aspirations and hopes, are so skillfully delineated as to arouse an unusual sympathy for the leading personalities. It is a book of the Plains, of the free, open country, of the great West's heroic pioneers. It strikes a chord of sympathy in the heart of any man who has risen from the masses. "It is a beautiful, homelike, American picture of an honest poverty that triumphs." Several of the prominent men of Nebraska, including the late J. Sterling Morton, have spoken in decisive tones of the absolute accuracy of the book in describing the period in which it is placed. "Under the Cottonwoods" deserves to become a classic among the sketches of pioneer life in America.
The second book takes us to the crags and chasms of Appalachian America, and in the perusal of "Winning or Losing?" we find the author as much at home in these hills with their mature social conditions, as he is in the crystallizing conditions that attend the formation of a prairie state. In our own Preston, where the scene of the second story is laid, the environment is quite unlike that which is pictured in the first, Yet the charm of the mountain has ever been upon our author. In "Winning or Losing?" he has given to West Virginia and America a classic no less valuable than the one he gave to Nebraska and America. "It breathes of the soil of our state, and is so realistic that to a native it seems like living a span of West Virginia rural life. It sketches character in a way to charm even the casual reader, and it also furnishes material for deeper study to those who are philosophically inclined. There is an inspiration in its pages that appeals with special force to the young, and the reader is pleased with the lesson of industry and perseverance taught by the life of the hero."
When we read this book, we wonder how a person born in the Northeast and reared in the Northwest could come among us of the Southern Alleghanies, adapt himself in so short a time to our peculiar characteristics, distinctly catch the local atmosphere, take natives of the county for his characters, and handle his materials so deftly as not only to bring ut local individuality with photographic faithfulness, but also to develop the broader, grander conception of American citizenship. How the author can disassociate every character from himself is strange to those of us who have not written, but like Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Morton becomes thoroughly familiar with the scene he chooses for a story, and with the condition of the people dwelling therein.
In "Land of the Laurel," wherein Mr. Morton portrays the primitive life of these same hills two generations ago, he not only evinces an historical knowledge that is close and accurate, but he causes the movement of the story to be so vivid as to lose none of the fire and dash of romance. He has preserved, before the opportunity to do so has fled forever, a portraiture from living eye-witnesses of a period whose footprints are fast being rubbed out by the leveling chariot of modern dollar-chasing. In the opinion of a majority of his readers, this third book, written in four weeks, is the most thrilling and entertaining of bis published works of fiction, and the best exponent of his easy, flowing style with its subtle literary flavor.
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Mr. Morton has an artist's regard for the dress in which a thoughi is to appear. His style is clear and direct. "He depicts scenery in a way that is fas- cinating, while at the same time his characters are intensely lifelike. They are as persons of flesh and blood. He is so close an observer that his descriptions impart the same interest as an actual occurrence, and hold the attention of the reader to the end." Neither do his writings leave a bad taste in the mouth. Their influence is entirely on the side of that which is clean and cheerful. "Their elevating moral tone is such that no one can read his books without imbibing their spirit. His pen-pictures give a charm to everyday occurrences, and make life seem more than worth living, not to the young only but to persons of all ages."
The reason why Mr. Morton gets so close to the hearts of the common people is that he has always stood in close touch with them. He has been a guest in hundreds of their homes. Unlike those of the professional writers who deal with the common people as with curious, inferior beings, and study them much as they would study the caged animals in a park, Mr. Morton takes a viewpoint from the inner as well as the outer angle. "He idealizes the commonplace," and he extols a rural life in harmony with the aspirations of the present age. He exhibits no interest in the city or in fashionable life. His scenes are therefore pastoral. They exhale the aroma of the sunny fields, the shady forest and the green hilltop.
Our author has no exclusive preference for the domain of fiction. He is rather versatile, and has some unfinished work in other lines. But in writing stories he feels that he can most nearly fulfill his mission in the world. He bolleves that the writer of fiction who does not degrade his calling is the most powerful teacher of the present reading age. He therefore holds that since the writer, as an interpreter of life wields an influnce deliberate in its working and far- reaching in its extent, he has no moral right to produce a book which is not wholesome and helpful.
Though the books we have named were not published in a way to permit an appreciable hearing outside of West Virginia, their reception wherever they have gone has proved highly favorable. In selling nearly two thousand of his books by personal effort, Mr. Morton has gained an inside knowledge of the attitude . of the reading public toward literature. Many a patron was a purchaser of two or of all three of his books. In the later visits there was often a discussion of the previous volume. Many of these interviews, particularly with professional men, proved highly advantageous.
"The works he has thus far brought out deal very largely with local condi- tions. His story, 'An Irony of Fate,' is of broader scope. Even in the incom- plete draft I have read, it is in some respects the best in execution of the many novels I am familiar with. The plot is unique and is worked out with rare skill and ingenuity. The movement is rapid and dramatic, and is full of dash and vigor.
"During ten years I have been intimately acquainted with Mr. Morton. We have some traits in common, and there are many things in his make-up which appeal to me with peculiar force. I have been glad to cultivate his acquaintance and have profited thereby. Being more inclined to observe than to talk, he has not merely a good grasp on himself but is an unusually good judge of men.
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In fact, one of the traits which struck my attention early is his absolute self- possession. One of the results of his self-knowledge is self-mastery.
"I have found him a man of self-respecting pride, of strong likes and dislikes, sensitive to slights, and slow to overlook a wrong. He is naturally impulsive, yet is well-balanced and has a strong sense of justice. He is drawn toward the beautiful, the true, and the good, the real, the plain, and the unpretentious. He lives near to nature's heart, and exhibits in his living the tenets of a simple life, preferring plain food, a plain home, and plain yet neat attire. He enjoys the old-fashioned home life and its associations, and hates with an intensity rarely seen in so quiet a nature the sham and frivolity of fashionable society. He is free from dissipation, and detests the tobacco habit even more heartily than that of dram drinking. He loves God's out-of-doors, and likes to spend a good deal of his time in the open.
"Mr. Morton is at all times the cultured and courteous gentleman. As a friend he is faithful and true. He is broad in selecting his intimates, as often finding them in the log cabin as in the mansion. Yet he is also choice, not being drawn to the society of the coarse or the uncouth. By some of those who do not know him well, he is called eccentric. While he is not large socially, and is in fact rather reserved, it being a little difficult for some people to approach and under- stand him, he is nevertheless very fond of congenial companionship. To those who meet him half way, he is open, free, and genial, never stooping to the gross in his conversation. There is also present a delicate vein of humor that frequently surprises the listener and is always refreshing.
"In his study and work he is methodical. He has a disciplined mind that grasps and retains that which comes under his observation. In performing a task, he develops his own method of procedure, and arrives at his conclusions for himself and in his own manner.
"He is an American of the Americans, and is an interested observer of current events. He is tied to no political party, and has no use for thick and thin partisanship. Public office he has never sought nor held. This fact is in part due to his lack for many years of a fixed residence. In questions of religion he likewise thinks for himself. Yet he thoroughly believes in Christianity as God's plan of civilizing the earth, and regards the religion of Christ as the Divine form of ethical teaching. While he prefers to remain unconnected with any formal organization, he is an adherent of the Methodist communion. He holds that man should not as the savage be content to leave the world as he finds it, but should strive to make the world better for his having lived in it.
"Being strongly individualized, disdainful of mere convention, and prizing fiberty, Mr. Morton is somewhat of a free-lance. This appears in his contempt for the placing of partisanship above statesmanship, and in his being of the Church Universal rather than the Church Particular. He has spoken of himself as an unattached member of society. He is aware that a person undergoes a very dis- tinct loss who is in effect an alien wherever he may sojourn. Yet the person without a deep local attachment may none the less have the invincible ambition to leave behind him some useful and enduring work."
Though industrious and economical, Mr. Morton has always been very poor in worldly substance. He is of those persons whose well-meant efforts are often deficient in result, because their idealistic temperament is not coupled with that
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peculiar insight which is swift to see and facile to use the conditions permitting the prompt accumulation of money. Yet he never knew the slavery of debt until he encountered the business reverse to which we have alluded. He appeared among us under circumstances quite disadvantageous to himself, and the pecuniary em- barrassment which kept upon his heels helps to account for his reserve and reticence.
Mr. Morton taught in his earlier years and occasionally afterward. Yet he has never regarded the educational field as his vocation, nor has he ever wished to be rated as a school man. By us he is often spoken of as "Professor." He was never thus addressed before coming here. He considers such title very much out of place, and it is exceedingly unpleasant to him.
The subject of our sketch has personal observation of thirty-one members of the Federal Union and two provinces of Canada. His circle of acquaintance has included people of many states, and as a letter-writer he is very much at home.
While in Preston county Mr. Morton became known as quite a pedestrian, often covering fifteen miles in half a day, notwithstanding his handicap of lame- ness. He thus grew very familiar with the natural features of the region, and became known to many of the people. At a number of homes, especially in the rural districts, he was made to feel himself a welcome guest. One of his motives in accepting an invitation to write our history, was that he might thus, before leaving the county, make some general and enduring return for the hospitality and kindnesses which had been shown him.
Mr. Morton left Preston in the spring of 1908, visited Texas and Oklahoma, and then wrote up his field notes at a small college town in Northeast Georgia. A proposal that he write a history of Pendleton county led to his return from the South in April, 1909. After performing this work he wrote a history of the adjoining county of Highland. He passed the winter of 1912-3 at Hot Springs, in Bath county, where he assisted Joseph T. McAllister in preparing his "Data on the Virginia Militia in the Revolution." For the same gentleman he wrote "The Story of Daniel Boone." The following summer he completed his "Pioneer Annals of Bath County, Virginia," this being Mr. Morton's fourth volume in local history. The succeeding October, he finished "A Practical History of Music," the only work of the kind yet published in the South. He is now literary editor of the Musical Million.
The History of Highland is pronounced "a model county history," by the Sec- retary of the Virginia Historical Society. As the present book is going through the press, Mr. Morton is preparing an important historical monograph on Appalach- ian America. At a very early day he hopes to produce two historical romances, for which he has gathered a wealth of material during his field work in the beautiful valley of the South Branch of the Potomac.
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