USA > West Virginia > Lewis County > A history of Lewis County, West Virginia > Part 18
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Michael Collins, James Dempsey, Thomas Kenstry Thomas Mulvaney, Peter Doonan, Edward Doonan, Michael Carroll, Thomas Timms, Thomas Lynch, Pat- rick Hoar and others were all on Sand fork or its trib- utaries by the end of 1852. Among the Germans who came about the same time were Lorentz Schuhtretler, John Finster, Bernard Krouse, Johannes Martin, An- thony Stark, George Scherer and Joseph Stark, all at- tracted to the western part of Lewis County by the pros- pect of securing cheap lands. The center of the first
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THE IRISH AND GERMAN IMMIGRATION
German immigration seems to have been on tributaries of Leading creek, though they were also scattered among the hollows of Sand fork.
Not all the Irish in Lewis County settled on Sand fork. According to a census of the town of Weston by a boy in 1845, there were then living in the town "one Irishman and five children." There were doubtless oth- ers in the vicinity. Bishop Whelan in that year estab- lished a Catholic mission at Weston, and held services in the Bailey House for the benefit of all members of the Catholic faith in Lewis County. Most of the Irish citizens of Weston made their living at first by working at odd jobs or helping contractors at various work. Later they established themselves in business.
The first comers to Sand fork and Leading creek were frugal and enterprising. Though their lands were so rough and so little desired for settlement that they had been left in the wilderness for over sixty years after the more desirable lands in the valley of the West Fork were occupied, yet the immigrants, by careful clearing, close cultivation and constant care have developed them into excellent farms of bluegrass pastures. The exam- ple of the Irish had a good influence over other farmers in the community who copied their methods of raising potatoes with profit. There was little inclination on the part of the citizens of the county to associate with the immigrants for several years, and the feeling was recip- rocated to some extent. Yet the Irish and Germans, by attending strictly to business, got along well. They be- came good citizens, all of them. The records of the courts for 1857-8 are filled with notations of applications for citizenship or for first papers. Martin Kinney, John Finster, later the millwright of Sleepcamp run, Simon Finster, John McCally, John Mellett, John Collinan, John Bergin, Elick Burk, Thomas Conroy, John Tully, Lawrence Dunagan, Patrick Downey, Patrick Hoar and Michael McLaughlin are names of some of the appli- cants. The new settlers had traveled over all the United
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
States in laboring on public works, and they were per- haps more national than the citizens of the county who had lived all their lives here. They hated slavery ; they knew nothing and cared nothing for state's rights; they knew only that their prosperity and independence were due to America. During the war they were staunch Union men, regarding their oaths to their new country before their allegiance to their state. A great portion of Company "B", 15th Virginia Infantry, was made up of Irish and Germans who served under an Irish captain.
After the war the development of the Sand fork watershed continued. Many roads were caused to be viewed by the county court and many schoolhouses were erected in a district which twenty-five years before had been a wilderness. There were many other signs of in- creased prosperity.
In 1866 occurred the death of Minter Bailey, and the firm of Camden, Bailey and Camden was broken up. Their lands were divided. The third portion assigned to the estate of Minter Bailey was cut up into small tracts to be sold at auction by a commissioner. The terms of sale were as liberal as any arrangement that had so far been made, purchasers being given an extended time in which to make payments. Sixty-three tracts were sold in 1870 alone, and the sales continued for some time thereafter, it being the policy of the commissioner to sell to actual settlers as far as possible. Many of the farmers took advantage of the opportunity to add to their farms, especially since the large number of sales caused the price of the lands to be reduced from their pre-war figures. The Camdens continued to sell small tracts from their holdings at intervals almost to the pres- ent time. They are still charged on the Lewis County assessor's books with many hundred acres of land.
CHAPTER XIX. LOSSES OF TERRITORY
It was unavoidable that when the outlying portions of Lewis County were settled they would break the slender bonds which held them within the county and form new local political divisions. The establishment of the seat of justice at Weston, less than ten miles from the Harrison County line, rendered it very inconvenient for the citizen who lived on Steer creek or on the Elk river to attend court. There were few settlements or none at all in these valleys in 1817, and the county,, seat was then located where it would best serve the majority of the people. By 1840 it was no longer convenient for half the people of the county.
The first sign of approaching dismemberment is in- dicated in the formation of Nicholas County from Green - brier in 1818. It included settlements which had been made on the Gauley and its tributaries and some on the lower Elk river. There were many other settlers in the valley of the Elk who had been attracted there by the prospects of good hunting and also by the fertile soil and the broad valleys of some of the streams. Even before the close of the Indian wars there was a respectable set- tlement in the vicinity of Sutton. These settlers were in close proximity to the principal settlement which had been made by that time on the Little Kanawha river and its tributaries. Salt Lick creek was the most compact of these settlements. In 1773 more homesteads were lo- cated on the creek than on Hacker's creek. The estab- lishment of Haymond's salt works in 1808 had attracted many settlers who made a living from the produce of their farms and even sold supplies to other settlers who
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
had come to buy salt. The upper valley of the Little Kanawha around the present site of Burnsville had also attracted immigrants far more than the lands on the small eastern tributaries of that river. Here was a con- siderable community cut off from the county seat by the unbroken wilderness of Oil creek, Leading creek, Sand fork and other streams. The people were dissatis- fied almost from the first with their position on the edge of the two counties, and at a distance from the county seat of either. In 1836 the settlements on the Elk and the upper course of the Little Kanawha were detached from Lewis, Nicholas and Kanawha counties and form- ed into the new county of Braxton. It extended in a broad semicircle between Lewis and Nicholas from Webster Springs to the present site of Clay Court House. From its peculiar shape, it was called for years "the jug handle county."
A part of the northeastern corner of Lewis County was next detached to form a part of Barbour. The com- munity on the lower Tygart's Valley river had grown rapidly with the advance of settlement in northwestern Virginia. It was one of the first regions settled, and by 1843 there were five or six thousand people living within the present limits of the county. The natural center of the community was at Philippi on the edge of Harrison and Randolph. In order to secure a sufficient radius of territory around it, a portion of Lewis, including about eighty square miles, with a population of about five hundred, was attached to the new county.
The progress of construction on the Northwestern and the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpikes was in- strumental the same year in causing the formation of another county out of the princely domain of Lewis. Opened in 1838, the Northwestern turnpike brought life to the sleepy settlements on the North fork of Hughes river and caused the acceleration of immigration to the region, where lands were cheap and very desirable as compared to the other vacant lands in northwestern
241
LOSSES OF TERRITORY
Virginia. The simultaneous construction of the Staun- ton and Parkersburg turnpike brought a corresponding development to the South fork of Hughes river. Both valleys had an outlet to the Ohio river, and to the east- ern markets for their produce. In 1842 the legislature established the town of Smithville in Lewis on the South fork of the river, which became a center of com- merce between Weston and Parkersburg, just as Penns- boro and Ellenboro were centers on the Northwestern turnpike. Nearly three thousand people were living in the Hughes river valley remote from their courthouses at Weston and Clarksburg when a bill was introduced in the legislature, 1843, providing for the formation of the county of Ritchie. No objection to the measure was made by delegates from Lewis and Harrison, and the bill became a law. Ritchie included part of Wood and a part of what is now Doddridge.
Lewis County was then left with the valleys of the upper West Fork, the Buckhannon and the Little Ka- nawha from Braxton to the present Wirt-Calhoun line. The last named region was undeveloped except for three sections-along the Little Kanawha river, on the route of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, and in the territory south of the Little Kanawha river which had been opened to settlement by the construction of the Weston and Charleston road. The whole region was iso- lated. The settlements in the Sand fork and Leading creek valleys were then in their infancy. The settlers of the Little Kanawha had different economic interests from those of the remainder of the county. Their trade was down the river toward Parkersburg, where they sold their rafts of logs cut at the water's edge, and brought back merchandise. The establishment of Hart- ford on or near the present site of Glenville in 1842 gave the settlers of that section a common center for trade and a nucleus for a county town. The two thousand people living in the district now known as Gilmer and Calhoun counties started a movement for independence
242
A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
at the same time as the people in the Hughes river val- ley, but the persuasions of the people of the county seat caused the movement to be prosecuted half-heartedly, until the success of the Hughes river residents caused them to redouble their efforts. Some objections from the eastern part of the county were still to be overcome, but in 1845, they secured the election of the delegate to the legislature to champion their cause. The result was that the citizens of the western part of Lewis and the northern part of Kanawha were formed into the county of Gilmer. The selection of Glenville as the county seat of the county was very unsatisfactory to the people liv- ing in the western portion of the county, who split off in 1855 to form Calhoun.
The year 1845 was also memorable for the creation of another county in the Virginia northwest which took part of the territory of Lewis. The formation of Ritchie in 1843 had included in its eastern part settlers who had been accustomed to making their business as well as their political center at Clarksburg, and the change was unsatisfactory to them. The dwellers of the valley of Middle Island creek, who still belonged to Lewis County, found that their interests were mainly along the North- western turnpike, rather than across the divide on the upper West Fork. Many of the settlers who had been left with Harrison County joined with the others, with the result that Doddridge was formed.
With the possible exception of the northeastern part of the county which was cut away to form a part of Bar- bour, the division up to 1850, of the territory of Lewis into other bailiwicks was a distinct advantage to the re- mainder of the people of the county. The center of wealth and commerce was around Weston and Buck. hannon. The western part of the county, which had long been neglected, was just beginning to demand at- tention from the county court, and new improvements were demanded which would require large expenditures from the county treasury-improvements like the Wes-
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LOSSES OF TERRITORY
ton and Charleston turnpike, which, though valuable to the region through which it passed, were of little use to the citizens of the county who paid the greater portion of the taxes, and who preferred that the proceeds should be spent nearer home. The needs of the western part of the county were perhaps being neglected to some extent by the selfish county court. Such a state of affairs was to have been expected. The upper West Fork valley had suffered from like treatment at the hands of the Har- rison County court before 1816. Western Virginia was at this time suffering intensely from the treatment of the eastern politicians who insisted upon taxing the cit- izens of the west unjustly and spending among them less than the amount paid in. The remedy for the dis- , content-the only remedy that would be fair to all sec- tions-was dismemberment.
After the loss of the western section of the county, Lewis was fairly homogeneous. A little further reduc- tion of territory drained by the tributaries of the Little Kanawha would have made the county more of a geo- graphical unit, and it would not have affected the inter- ests of the inhabitants, because there were none. Col- lins Settlement was loyal to Lewis County. Many of the prominent leaders of the county had been born there. There was no danger of a movement being begun to form the southern end of the county, with parts of Brax- ton and Randolph, into a new county. The eastern part of the county alone desired an independent political or- ganization. Three years after the formation of Gilmer and Doddridge, the people of the Buckhannon valley began to agitate for the creation of a new county.
Various reasons have been assigned for the discon- tent. In the first place the county seat was at Weston, and the town derived all the honor and emoluments which belonged to that important spot in every Virginia county. Weston merchants were able to keep better goods than those of Buckhannon, though they had a tough competitor in Jacob Lorentz. The schools were
244
A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
better at Weston than elsewhere in the county. The Weston mill had better patronage. Buckhannon busi- ness men thought that all the inequalities would be abolished by the establishment of a county seat east of the Buckhannon mountain. A second reason is to be found in the different political views held by the people of the two sections. Those in the Buckhannon valley were largely Whigs of the Henry Clay type; but those of the West Fork valley were almost solidly Democrats.
In 1848 the citizens of the Buckhannon valley de- manded that a vote be taken on the question of the di- vision of the county. It carried almost unanimously in the precincts now embraced within Upshur County, only thirty-seven votes being cast in opposition to the measure. James Bennett, who was then the delegate from Lewis, Gilmer and Braxton counties in the General Assembly, paid no attention to the vote of separation. A petition asking that a bill be introduced in the legisla- ture for the formation of a new county was prepared by citizens of the Buckhannon valley and handed to him in December, 1849, just after the General Assembly went into session; but no bill was introduced. A sec- ond petition was given to him early in January ; a third, on January 8; a fourth on January 24. Against these petitions, which might have made the position of Del- egate Bennett rather uncomfortable without a counter- movement, the citizens of the West Fork valley, prin- cipally of Weston, prepared a memorial remonstrating against the formation of the new county.
At the next election, 1850, the division of the county was the principal issue. Samuel L. Hays of Gilmer was nominated for House of Delegates by the Whigs. Be- ing from Gilmer, he of course cared little for the terri- torial integrity of Lewis; and early in the campaign he announced his intention of supporting the movement to form a new county. He was elected through the almost unanimous vote of the Buckhannon valley. Immediately upon the opening of the legislative session in the fall of
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LOSSES OF TERRITORY
1850 he introduced a bill into the house for the creation of the new county. The citizens of Buckhannon sent a lobbyist to Richmond to work for the measure both in the House of Delegates and in the Senate. In spite of the opposition offered by the residents of the West Fork valley, the measure became a law, and in 1851, Upshur County began its separate existence. Besides the eastern part of Lewis, the new county included part of Randolph and a small portion of the strip ceded by Lewis to Barbour in 1843.
Lewis County was thus reduced to its present boundaries. It has remained a geographical unit from 1851 to the present time, without any serious attempts being made to form new counties from parts of its ter- ritory.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GREAT BUSINESS BOOM, 1845-60
The period from 1845 to 1860 may rightly be called the era of commercial awakening in Weston and Lewis County. Beginning about 1845 there was a tremendous. burst of energy among the people; internal improve. ments had broken down the barriers which had hereto- fore circumscribed the interests of Lewis County and the people found themselves in a world bigger than any they had ever dreamed of. Industry was stimulated; living conditions improved; and before the period was half over Weston was a center of the business life of north- western Virginia, and Lewis County was regarded as one of the most prosperous agricultural communities in the state.
There were several reasons why Weston took the lead during this period. The completion of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike brought immigration, stimu- lated business prosperity and established a home market; but it alone could not have produced the result. The effect of the great panic of 1837 which had stopped in- vestment of capital and temporarily checked the wheels of industry, had practically disappeared; but the return of prosperity would only have meant a consolidation of the results already accomplished and a further growth along the old lines for a number of years.
A community is rarely singled out by fortune to be the recipient of a very great development. The real ex- planation is believed to be in the great number of men of large vision and of untiring energy who formed a part of the population of the county-men like Jonathan M. Bennett, R. P. Camden, Minter Bailey, C. J. Moore,
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THE GREAT BUSINESS BOOM, 1845-60
David S. Peterson, George W. Jackson, A. A. Lewis, George J. Arnold, William E. Arnold, R. J. McCandlish and others of like stamp. The efforts of the Camdens, the Arnolds and Minter Bailey to settle the wild Sand Fork country have been noticed already; Jonathan M. Bennett, one of the greatest of the luminaries, a young man who had only just begun to come to the front in 1844, deserves special mention. He was born in Collins Settlement, the son of William Bennett, 4 October 1816. His early education was obtained in the schools of the neighborhood, and in the school taught by Matthew Holt in Weston. In 1844 he was a young lawyer of diffident manners. He soon became a leader in the coun- cils of the Democratic party in the northwest, and one of the leading capitalists of the county through his at- tention to business and his careful investments. David S. Peterson was a farmer who lived about a mile out Polk creek, and was regarded as one of the wealthiest men in the county. A. A. Lewis was a new comer in the county, as was R. J. McCandlish, first cashier of the Ex- change bank, who came from Norfolk.
One of the signs of the new era was the formal in- corporation of Weston as a town. The government by trustees was superseded by a government with a mayor, sergeant (chief of police), recorder, and five aldermen. The limits of the town as fixed in the act of incoporation were about the same as those before the coming in of the McGary addition, North Weston and the other late accretions. Jonathan M. Bennett was the first mayor of Weston. The aldermen were Addison Mclaughlin, lawyer; John Lorentz, tan-house owner; Conrad Kester, gunsmith; Elias Fisher, and M. Lazell. So far as im- provements were concerned there appears to have been little difference between the new government and the old. There was a police protection of a sort, and added dig- nity and importance.
The Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike had scarce- ly been completed when Weston made efforts to secure
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
a railroad. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad, which had reached Cumberland in 1839, was anxious to extend its lines to the Ohio river. The logical route was by way of Wills creek and the Youghiogheny-the old Braddock road, and the route used later in part by the National road; but Pennsylvania also had a road in process of construction to Pittsburgh and the route through the state was refused. The company applied to the legisla- ture of Virginia for permission to build the lines across the northwestern part of the state and to make its ter- minus at Parkersburg or Point Pleasant. The matter was under consideration in 1846. Virginia capitalists in the Tidewater section did not wish to see the trade of the northwest diverted to Baltimore but wanted Rich- mond and Norfolk to secure it. They therefore pro- posed an all-Virginia railroad which would start at Alexandria, and run by way of Moorefield, in Hardy County, and Weston to Parkersburg. In the summer of 1846 a monster convention of 1400 delegates from all the counties in the Parkersburg district assembled at West ton in the interest of the proposed railroad. Strong res- olutions were adopted in favor of it-resolutions which called the attention of the assembly in no uncertain terms to the magnificent improvements which had already been constructed in the eastern part of the state, while the people of the west had not a single railroad or canal.
The people did not secure their railroad. By a com- promise the Baltimore capitalists were allowed to con- struct the Baltimore and Ohio railroad through Virginia, but it was confined to the northern limits of the state, with its terminus at Wheeling. Other means of trans- portation were taken up by the people of Weston and other points with the result that before many years, Weston became a center of improved roads which ra- diated, like the spokes of a wheel, in every direction.
The first of these turnpikes, which were really lat- eral feeders of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, was constructed in 1847. The inconvenience of having
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THE GREAT BUSINESS BOOM, 1845-60
to depend upon the narrow, muddy road connecting Weston with points north in the Monongahela valley led to the incorporation of the Clarksburg and Weston turnpike in 1847. The capital stock was fixed at $12,000 in shares of $100 each. Lewis Maxwell, Minter Bailey and J. M. Bennett, at Weston; Stephen P. Jackson and Walter McWhorter, at Jane Lew; and three citizens of Clarksburg were authorized to open books and receive subscriptions of stock for the new road. It was also provided that the county courts of Lewis and Harrison might make subscriptions. It was the favorite method of road improvement at that time for private citizens to form companies to construct roads. Tolls were charged to meet the expenses of upkeep and to provide dividends for the stockholders. The road was opened via Jane Lew and Lost Creek the same year. Like the Weston and Charleston road its surface was clay, and it was not of much use in winter. The route was further improved two years later.
In 1849 the Weston and Fairmont turnpike was in- corporated with a capital stock of $16,000 in shares of $25 and the Board of Public Works was authorized to subscribe $9,600. The company opened the road along the route located through Jane Lew. The road was hampered by lack of funds, and in spite of the fact that the Board of Public Works borrowed $4,000 for the road in 1848 it remained little better than it was before the company relieved the citizens along the route of the task of keeping the road in repair. The road was desig- nated as the route for mail from Clarksburg, in 1850, and a regular mail stage was established the next year.
In 1858 Mail Contractor John D. Sinnett, filed no- tice that he would apply to a justice of the peace to have a jury summoned to examine the section of the road near the county line to determine whether the tolls should be discontinued on account of the damaged condition of the road. The section was repaired by the company.
It was upon this turnpike after the completion of
3
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A HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY
the Northwestern Railroad from Grafton to Parkersburg that a regular stage line was put in operation which brought better mail service in addition to greater con- venience in traveling. The coach was driven by Peter Dargan for many years, who, following the custom of the drivers of the old stages, would let his horses go at the regular speed until he came to the bridge across Stone Coal and then drive furiously to the corner of Second street.
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