USA > West Virginia > Lewis County > A history of Lewis County, West Virginia > Part 14
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order was contested by John West, who in the September term of the Superior Court of Lew, appealed from the judgment of the county court. The Superior Court de- clared the judgment of the county court erroneous, but without prejudice to any future application of Burnside. A little later in the year, Daniel Stringer obtained per- mission to build a mill on First street. He and John Burnside erected the first mill in the town on the site of the present mill, in 1818. West secured a certiorari to the action of the county court the same year. After a prolonged contest in the courts, John Wamsley, clerk of the county court, was in 1823, declared by the Superior Court guilty of unlawful gaining in issuing the permit. The mill continued to stand, and the punishment of the clerk was apparently the only satisfaction that West re- ceived. West shortly afterward secured permission from the court to construct a mill at Bendale, and from that point of vantage he was able to cut off much of the up-river trade. His mill was not a paying proposition and he abandoned it after a time.
The mill at Weston was operated by Burnside for a few years until his interest was taken over by Stringer, who sold it to Thomas Bland in 1830. The mill has since passed through many hands and experienced many vi- cissitudes of fire and flood and decay. Citizens of Wes- ton have at times been obliged to have their wheat ground at the Jackson mill, the McWhorter mill at Jane Lew, the Holt mill at Bendale and even at the Waldo mill above Roanoke.
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The new proprietor of the mill added a carding ma- chine to his equipment. On account of the number of sheep then being kept in the county, the new depart- ment was well patronized from the start. The house- wives of Weston found it a great convenience as com - pared with the laborious process of carding the wool by hand.
Many of the owners of farms near town owned stills in which they worked up their surplus grain and fruit. Since it was impracticable to transport a bulky con- modity like farm produce across the mountains or down the Ohio and the Mississippi to market, and since there was a considerable demand for the product of the stills near home, it was the most profitable way in which sur- plus crops could be utilized, even though whiskey was worth only $10 a barrel. The Fleshers continued the manufacture of whiskey at a still on Buck Knob, which was perhaps the most important one near Weston at. that time.
A gun shop was established very early in the history of the town, probably by Alexander Kester. A black- smith shop was in operation in the late 'twenties where not only were horses shod, but butcher knives, scythes, hoes, frows, axes and other implements were made for the people of Weston and the surrounding country. Every shoe and every nail used in the opera- tion had to be made by hand in the shop.
The first tannery established in the town was owned by Daniel Harpole who had previously operated a tan- nery at McWhorter's mill with indifferent success. After operating the plant for several years, he sold it to John Lorentz about 1825, who added new equipment and op- erated it for a number of years. The business required a capital of about $800 or $1,000 and gave employment to two boys. When it was operated by Lorentz, the plant was located at the head of Run street. Two build- ings, one for the vats the other for preparing the hides,
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THE BEGINNING OF WESTON
made up the establishment, which long remained one of the most important of the manufacturing plants of Wes- ton.
In 1830 the town contained about thirty dwellings representing a population of about two hundred. The streets were in bad shape from the fact that many of the farmers insisted upon hauling logs through them in wet weather. Pigs wandered through the premises of the inhabitants or wallowed in the mud holes. The cattle . grazed in the woods near town or in some of the land which had been cleared nearby and left unfenced after several crops·
The establishment of good hotels early differentiated Weston from most of the backwoods towns of north- western Virginia. The record book of the county court for 1852 contains a notation to the effect that one Min- ter Bailey had applied for a license to keep an ordinary in the Weston Hotel, and "being of good appearance and likely to keep an orderly house of entertainment," he was granted the desired right by the court. Bailey had lately come across the mountains from Fauquier County and was a member of the Bailey family which had settled on Broad run and later on Freeman's creek.
The hotel thus established has remained one of the most noteworthy institutions in Weston from the time of its establishment to the present. It never had a sea- son of depression, never had a great boom. From the first it has remained in the hands of the proprietor or his descendants. For the first twenty years after its es- tablishment it was located in a two-story frame building which stood on the southwest corner of Main and Sec- ond streets, opposite the present site of the hotel.
It may well be doubted whether the house has had greater popularity among travelers or greater fame throughout the surrounding country than it enjoyed in the old frame building. Major Bailey was a born host. He knew how to dissipate the fears of timid boys away from their homes for the first time. He would show
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
them his surveyor's compass, or ask them about their parents, and so gain their confidence. Other guests were regaled with tales of his experiences. All were made to feel almost as if they were in their own homes. The at- mosphere of the hotel is still largely that of the old times when the citizens of Weston and travelers sat around the spacious fireplace and discussed the relative merits of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, or expressed their disgust at the government of Virginia as adminis- tered by the politicians east of the mountains for the benefit of their own section. Next to the urbanity of Major Bailey, the success was due to the abilities of Mrs. Bailey as a housewife. "Any man could run a hotel with such a landlady as Mrs. Bailey," said one of the visitors. The venison always roasted to just the proper turn, the delicious wild turkey roasted or fried in its own fat, but above all the fried chicken, prepared as only Mrs. Bailey knew how, spread the fame of the establishment far and wide.
The bar at the Bailey house was the best in the town in the early 'thirties. It consisted of a small space in one corner which was enclosed by a railing like a postoffice window. The purchaser came to the window, paid for his drink, drank it and gave way for another customer. It sometimes happened that the guests be- came too hilarious. Then the barroom would be locked and the key would suddenly disappear. It was of no use for the guests to protest. Major Bailey was very sorry, but the key was nowhere to be found. On one occasion the crowd became too noisy to be controlled, and the proprietor went to the river bank and cut a stout limb from a sycamore tree. Using it as a club he cleared the room in a very short time.
The Weston Inn was established at the head of Main street in 1827 by Lucinda Lazell, but it never at- tained the popularity of the Weston Hotel and the later Bailey House under Major Bailey. Within a few years
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THE BEGINNING OF WESTON
it was sold to Thomas Bland, and for a long time there- after continued to be one of the leading hotels of the section-second to the Bailey House in Weston-but better than the hotels in the neighboring towns. It con- tinued to block Main street at First street until it was destroyed by fire late in the century.
Following the construction of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, a wagon shop was established in Weston about 1842 by W. W. Warder, a young man just graduated from Rector college at Pruntytown. Some of the best wagons of the day were made in the shop. When the lumber, stone and other material was hauled for the construction of the Weston State hospital, many of the old wagons made in Warder's shop were impressed into service. Many of the farmers who had not previous- ly been able to own wagons, furnished material in re- turn for the finished product.
Rapid as was the material development of the town, the educational development was very slow. There was no concerted attempt of the citizens to secure good schools, such as took place in other and smaller com- munities at the same time. The people were content to depend upon subscription schools established by such teachers as could secure a sufficient number of pupils.
There were no theaters in Weston until several years after the Civil war, but the citizens did not suffer from lack of theatrical entertainments. In 1838 a Thes- pian society was organized by some of the younger peo- ple for the purpose "of studying the masterpieces of the drama and presenting the best popular selections of the day." The use of the courthouse was granted to the so- ciety by the county court, but after the first two or three performances, the permission was withdrawn. The society did not suspend performances, but secured another hall. At intervals until the beginning of the Civil war, plays were presented at various places, and the society was even reorganized after the close of the war for a brief, but very popular existence. Some of
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
the plays presented were worth while, but others, like "East Lynne," could hardly be justified as worthy of study. The young men of the town organized a debating society about 1840, which enjoyed a brief existence.
The religious organization of Weston was far be- hind that in the country districts round about. While churches were being organized on Freeman's creek, Skin creek, the Collins settlement and even at Bulltown, the citizens of the county seat had not a single church of any denomination. No church building had been erected there until 1844, twenty-seven years after the first es- tablishment of Preston. Other towns in northwestern Virginia were in a like situation. The circuit riders con- sidered them stony fields, not easily susceptible to culti- vation. It may be that the county preachers, with their backwoods manners, were made fun of when they at- tempted to preach in the towns, and their sermons, de- livered in language more forceful than grammatical, were probably laughed at. Many religious meetings were held at the courthouse by different denominations, but there does not seem to have been any tangible re- sult until about the year 1830. The Rev. John Talbott, a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, became a permanent resident of Weston. He gathered all the Methodists of the town together into a small class which met at first in the home of Elias Fisher. Later, when the number of members had outgrown the accommodations, he secured permission to use the courthouse for regular preaching services every two weeks. In 1831 the class at Weston was added to the Lewis circuit, of which Jona. than Holt was then assistant pastor. Later pastors were Thomas Williams, B. F. Sedwick, Thomas Baker, Josepli Ray and David Cross.
The class grew and prospered during the ten years following its organization. In 1840 the quarterly con- ference of the Lewis circuit appointed a committee con- sisting of Elijah Flesher, Daniel Turney and Matthew Holt to secure funds, draw up plans and supervise the
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THE BEGINNING OF WESTON
construction of a church building in Weston. The result was that late in 1844 the Methodists were established in their own church, a small brick structure located on the site of the present church. Though it was not a large structure and though it was lacking in the facili+ ties which are found in even the country churches of to- day, being lighted with lard lamps, it was sufficient for the needs of the congregation until 1874, when a more commodious church was erected.
The new church was a community enterprise. All denominations were given the right to use it for their meetings, and they no longer had to depend upon the court room. The Rev. Daniel Helmick of the Methodist Protestant church would preach at stated intervals. There were then two families of Episcopalians in the town, who had to depend upon occasional services of visiting rectors. The Baptists, Presbyterians and Meth- odist Protestants did not have a very great following in 1844. The Methodist church received a wonderful im- petus from its having the first building in the town, but it was soon much weakened by a division within its ranks. The general conference of the church in 1844 split over the question of slavery, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was formed with a membership embracing most of the classes south of the Mason and Dixon line. Largely through the influence of the Holts the church at Weston determined to remain in the north- ern branch of the church, though most of the Methodist churches in the southern part of the county voted to join the southern branch. A number of the Weston Meth- odists withdrew from the church and formed a separate organization. About 1847 they erected a church build- ing on Center street on the lot now occupied by Linn Brannon. The southern church never was strong, and it finally died out about 1880." The Sunday school of the Methodist church was in full operation in 1846, when it was reported that its membership was fifty scholars. The West Virginia conference of the Methodist Episco-
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WESTON IN 1844 From map of Weston /837, by Lewis Maxwell Corrected to 1844 by Roy B.Cook
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
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THE BEGINNING OF WESTON
pal church, which was held in Weston in 1851, was an occasion long remembered by the people. Pastors who followed the Rev. Cross before the Civil war were W. D. F. Lauck, Caleb Foster, Moses Tichnell, Gideon Mar- tin, W. C. P. Hamilton, Franklin DeHass, James L. Clark, J. S. Patterson, S. R. Dawson, Samuel Steele, T. H. Monroe, A. J. Lyda, J. Hare, H. C. Sandford, J. W. W. Bolton and A. B. Rohrbough. A parsonage was con- structed in 1866.
'Squire George H. Oliver came to Weston in the early part of 1844 when he was a young man. The ap- pearance of the town and its people made a vivid impres- sion on his mind, and later he wrote a description of the town at that time. Most of the buildings of the town were then on upper Main street and on First and Second streets nearby. Lower Main street was then out in the country, and the Moore house, which had been erected by the Rev. John Talbott some years before, was con- sidered a country mansion. The new home of John Brannon on First street, according to popular opinion, was much too fine a house to be located so far from town.
Log houses were in the great majority. The best houses in the town were a story and a half in height, built of poplar logs hewn to shape, over which weather- boarding had been nailed. The aristocrats among the houses had brick chimneys. Few of the buildings had ever come in contact with a paint brush, and the result was a dilapidated and woebegone appearance. In the majority of the houses the interior had not been finished. Some of them had only a single room furnished in which the family cooked, ate, slept and received their guests. Others had two rooms finished, and the remainder post- poned to some future date. There was only one brick building, the residence of M. W. Harrison, on the west side of Main street. On the corner now occupied by the National Exchange bank, stood an old rambling one- story frame structure owned by Hoffman and Camden,
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
which was then unoccupied. The south side of First street was vacant from the Bland hotel at the head of Main street to the corner of Center street; from that point eastward was a cornfield. One hewn log house stood on the opposite side of First street. Center avenue had three houses on each side, not including the court- house and jail. On the east side of the street the house farthest down was the two-story brick residence of Lewis Maxwell on the lot now occupied by W. W. Bran- non. All the land north of the Maxwell home and east of Center avenue was included in Maxwell's meadow. It was enclosed, of course, in order that the cows which ran loose in the town could not get in. The stake and rider fence along Center avenue was at that time one of the most modern fences in the county. The old-fashion- ed worm fence could not always be depended upon to turn the Weston cows, trained as they were through years of experience in getting their food from forbid- den pastures. There were three buildings on each side of Court avenue occupied as residences by the elite of the town. In all there were about fifty dwellings.
It is hardly correct to call the principal thorough- fares of the town streets. Main street had never been graded. It was still under the control of the county and was worked by the people of the town under the super- vision of Cabell Tavenner, the leading member of the Weston bar, who had probably been chosen for the posi- tion because he was of slender build and could not wield a pick as successfully as some of the others. There were neither horses nor plows; every bit of dirt had to be moved with pick and shovel. There were no sidewalks. "In some places there were some slabs-two laid side by side and spiked to cross pieces laid along for the pur- pose." At the corner of Main and Bank streets there was a very low place which became almost impassable in the fall and winter. Four-horse teams frequently became mired there, and had to be pulled out. As a temporary sidewalk across the alley, which had all the advantages
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THE BEGINNING OF WESTON
of a drawbridge, the people built a trestle work with slabs laid on top of it. In winter it was a not uncommon occurrence for the citizens of Weston to lose their foot ing on the icy slabs and fall into the almost unfathom: ble mud below. A board sidewalk would have been a novelty.
There were in Weston five stores owned respectively by Weeden Hoffman, R. P. Camden, Alexander Scott Withers, McBride and Smith and Addison Mclaughlin ; three saddle and harness shops, owned by Thomas Fisher, John Morrow and George A. Jackson; three tailors' shops owned by David Bare, John Flesher and James Ferguson ; and two clock peddlers selling brass- wheel clocks which were just then superseding wooden- wheel clocks in the mountains of northwestern Virginia. Conrad Kester then owned the gunsmith shop and W. W. Warder the wagon shop. Benjamin Pritchard and Pres- ton Dawson were the two blacksmiths in the town, and there was also a shop about a mile out the Polk creek road operated by Elijah Flesher. Pritchard was consid- ered especially good on edged tools, and most of the butcher knives used in Weston at that date came from his shop; Flesher specialized in hoes, frows, and axes; and Dawson devoted his time principally to making horseshoes and shoeing horses. Allen Simpson and George W. Sleeth were the two cobblers, and both were overworked. They made all the shoes and boots worn in the town and in the surrounding country with the ex- ception of ladies' fine shoes which were brought from the east and sold by some of the merchants. John Lor- entz still owned the tannery. Isaac P. McBride and Jesse Woofter were cabinet makers, and Thomas W. Morris, John R. Beall, Joseph Minter, and William Beard were house carpenters and joiners. There was no meat market in the town, and none was needed, for all the citizens raised their own hogs. When butchering time came, most of the people employed Joseph Minter. whose skill in securing just the right scald, and whose
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
knowledge of how to cut up the carcasses were unex. celled.
There were then two physicians in Weston-Dr. William J. Bland and Dr. N. B. Barnes. Dr. Bland is the first one who came to Weston. 'Squire Oliver says of him that "he traveled through this county where there were no roads, through the woods and over the hills. The night was never too dark or the weather too stormy to deter the doctor when there was a call. He did not stop to inquire if the party were able to pay the bill" but saddled his horse and was away as soon as the call came. His practice extended over all of Lewis, Upshur and Gilmer and parts of Harrison and Braxton. Dr. Barnes was also an able physician, and he also re- garded his profession as a means of prolonging life rather than of making money. His health would not permit him to expose himself to the elements as Dr. Bland did, and his practice therefore included only Wes- ton and the country in the immediate vicinity.
The Weston bar in 1844 was a brilliant one. It was composed of eight lawyers, all of whom made their mark in the development of northwestern Virginia. The old- est in point of service was Colonel John McWhorter, who had been instrumental in the formation of Lewis County. He was an able lawyer, but given to lapses of memory. Cabell Tavenner, son-in-law of Alexander Scott Withers, was the recognized leader of the bar. He is described as a "slender, rather delicately featured man who combined logic with fluent speech and grace- ful delivery." Matthew Edmiston, later destined to make his mark in the judiciary, was then a new comer from Pocahontas County. Another very young lawyer was Jonathan M. Bennett, whose early education had been gained in the country schools of the Collins settlement, who had studied one year in Weston, served as deputy sheriff, and had been admitted to the bar in 1842. 'Squire Oliver says that he was better as thinker than as a speaker. Addison Mclaughlin had lately come from
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THE BEGINNING OF WESTON
Nicholas County where he was so popular that he was elected to the legislature before he was twenty-one years of age. He later moved to Braxton and championed the creation of Webster, whose county seat was named Ad- dison in his honor. Others were Jonathan Holt, Lewis Maxwell and Dexter Williams. Politically they were divided. McWhorter, Holt, Mclaughlin and Maxwell were Whigs and Tavenner, Edmiston, Bennett and Wil- liams were Democrats.
The postoffice in 1844 was conducted by George A. Jackson. The mail arrived once a week by horseback from Clarksburg. On Sunday afternoons toward the hour of four the citizens could be seen wending their way to the postoffice where they collected in a group and talked over questions of the day until a blast from the post boy's horn announced his coming. The mail was quickly sorted, and the return mail prepared and handed to the postboy for his return trip usually within twenty minutes. About twenty-five newspapers were regularly received by the citizens of the town. The Whigs divided their allegiance between the Richmond Whig, the Louisville Courier and the National Intelli .. gencer, published at Washington. The Democrats sub- scribed for the Richmond Enquirer, then under the able editorship of Thomas Ritchie. A few subscribed for the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate. Several copies of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, and the Saturday Even- ing Post furnished all the current literature which came to the county. The Clarksburg Scion of Democracy was the only newspaper published in northwestern Vir- ginia which had any circulation in Weston.
The circulating medium in use, aside from the pro. ducts of farm and forest, were Spanish silver dollars; French five franc pieces with the head of Napoleon I; English threepence, sixpence and ninepence ; a few dimes, quarters and half dollars struck by the Philadelphia mint; and the banknotes of banks at Baltimore, Knox- ville, Richmond, Philadelphia and Wheeling-
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
Two schools were in operation in Weston during the late fall and winter of 1844-45. Mrs. Mary Wilson and daughters, Anne and Fronie, had a school for young la- dies and small boys in their house, and a Mr. Foster, a Yankee direct from Vermont, taught a school attended by the larger boys. The latter school had sixteen pupils, of whom eight were taught the higher branches for $1 per month, and eight were classified as primary stu- dents at seventyffive cents per month. Some little diffi- culty was experienced by the pupils in solving the prob- lems in Pike's Arithmetic, which counted in pounds, shillings and pence instead of in dollars and cents.
The Weston housewife in 1844 had practically the same equipment as the housewife of pioneer days. There were but two stoves in Weston, one in each of the hotels. The baking was done in Dutch ovens buried in embers at the capacious fireplace. Wild turkeys were dressed and hung up by the legs above the fire. A platter on the hearth caught the drippings which were poured over the fowl from time to time until it was done. The older inhabitants say that the old-fashioned roasts were bet- ter than those prepared today with the modern utensils of the ultra-moders housewife.
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