USA > West Virginia > Lewis County > A history of Lewis County, West Virginia > Part 19
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In 1847 a company was incorporated with a capital stock of $25,000 to build a turnpike between Weston and Lewisport, in Doddridge, a few miles east of West Union. The county courts of Lewis and Doddridge were also given permission to make subscriptions. The route for the road was disputed among various commu- nities, special objection coming from West Union; the capital stock was too large for two-fifths of it to be raised in order to secure the subscription of $15,000 authorized by the legislature from the board of Public Works; and other impediments caused the abandonment of the scheme. It was taken up again in 1851 when the Weston and West Union Turnpike Company was in- corporated with a capital stock of $14,000, the road to be built on a route surveyed by Joseph McCally, engin- eer of the Board of Public Works. The state's subscrip- tion was to be $8,400. The road followed a direct route via Dry fork, Left fork of Freeman's creek, Fink creek and Indian fork of Middle Island creek. It made use of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike to the mouth of Dry fork, but owing to the fact that part of the route was new, the opening of the road as a public highway was delayed until 1862. It later accomplished much for the development of the northwestern part of Lewis County.
The Buckhannon and Little Kanawha turnpike (sometimes called the Buckhannon and Bulltown road) was incorporated in 1849 to run by way of French creek to some point on the Weston and Gauley Bridge turn-
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pike south of Weston. The capital stock was fixed at $12,000, of which the state was to take the customary three-fifths provided that the other two-fifths should be raised by private subscription. The road was opened about 1855. It entered the present county of Lewis by way of the Left fork of the river and followed that stream to Bennett's mill where it crossed and proceeded up the Right fork for a short distance. It then crossed to Abram's run, and thence to the present Lewis-Brax- ton line. Not well constructed in the beginning, it is still the rockiest road in the county. The important bridge at Bennett's mill was its chief contribution to the development of Lewis County.
By far the most important of all the lateral feeders of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike was the Wes- ton and Gauley Bridge turnpike, incorporated in 1851. The necessity for a north and south road connecting the Great Kanawha and Monongahela valleys had been felt almost from the establishment of Lewis County. As early as 1827 the surveyor of the Board of Public Works was ordered to survey and locate a road from Gauley Bridge to Nicholas Court House (Summersville), thence to Haymond's salt works (Bulltown), thence to Lewis Court House and thence to Salem. If the survey was made nothing came of it at once. The next attempt to unite the two sections resulted in the construction of the Weston and Charleston turnpike in the late 'thirties. Though it followed a roundabout route, it was the only connecting link between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha valleys other than the narrow trails hacked out through the laurel thickets of the back counties and utterly unfit to be used for wagons.
The plan to build the road from Weston to Gauley Bridge met with great favor among the people because it was seen that the completion of the road would make the whole district tributary to Weston. The opening of the books for subscriptions was so successful that the en-
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tire amount was quickly subscribed, and the work of construction began the same year.
In general the route decided upon followed the old roads marked by commissioners, appointed by the Lewis County court thirty years before, except where a change was necessary by reason of the legislative proviso mak- ing the maximum grade five per cent. In 1820 commis- sioners had been appointed to locate a road from First street in Weston to the head of Rush run, and the next year from the head of Rush run to the head of Granney's creek at the Nicholas County line. The last named road was declared a public highway in 1832. Both together formed what was known for many years as the "Salt works road."
The Weston and Gauley Bridge turnpike was sur- veyed and located by Minter Bailey and others. It as- cends high mountains, like Powell's mountain in Nicholas County, by easy grades, rarely reaching the maximum of five per cent. It winds round ridges, descends into valleys for a space and then climbs to the ridges again. From its location on the benches along the divide be- tween the West Fork and the Little Kanawha river sys- tems can be seen the hills and valleys for miles around, making it perhaps the most picturesque road in the coun- ty. The turnpike was constructed thirty feet wide throughout. In a few places it was macadamized or cor- duroyed but for the most part it was simply a well con- structed, well drained, dirt road, its high location making a metaled surface less important than in the case of other West Virginia roads. The initial capital stock of $30,000 was increased by $15,000 in 1857. Thirty thousand dollars was added the same year for the purpose of building bridges over the Little Kanawha and West Fork rivers and Salt Lick creek and for graveling the roadbed. It was following this act that the Bendale bridge was constructed.
The importance of the road in the development of Collins Settlement can hardly be estimated. From al-
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most the opening of the turnpike there was a great vol- ume of travel. A blacksmith shop was built at the foot of the hill on the Carrion run side as soon as the road was opened. The community at the mouth of Sand fork and Canoe run, which had grown up around Wal- do's mill, was augmented by a store and ordinary oper- ated by Joseph Hall, and the postoffice of Bush's Mills was established before the outbreak of the Civil war with one of the Rohrboughs as postmaster. The office was kept in a log house which still stands by the side of the road between the mouth of Canoe run and Roanoke. Jacksonville became probably the most important place in the county next to Weston. It had the advantage of a location at the junction of the turnpike and the road coming down the West Fork valley, and the citizens were enterprising enough to take advantage of their op- portunities. And all the goods sold in the stores, all the imported commodities in use by the people of not only the upper West Fork valley but of practically all of Braxton County as well, were hauled over the Wes- ton and Gauley Bridge turnpike until the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad into Braxton County in the early nineties.
The possession of the road was of the utmost strat- egic importance in the Civil war. It was the chief line of communication between the armies of the Mononga- hela valley and those operating in the Kanawha and New river valleys. Rosecrans advanced over it to con- quer the Kanawha valley. Confederate raiders used it in retreating from the West Fork. Weston became an important stratigic center and Clarksburg an important depot of supplies, all on account of the road.
Other important turnpikes constructed during the period were the Weston and West Milford, which fol- lowed the right bank of the river, and the West Union and New Salem road which passed up Hacker's creek and Buckhannon run in Lewis County. The outbreak of the Civil war interrupted further progress in building
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roads. The military campaigns cut to pieces the exist- ing highways; the state government which followed the government of Virginia was unable to furnish aid in turnpike construction; and public sentiment in the county was not sufficiently educated to appreciate the value of good roads. Interest has only recently been awakened by the advent of the automobile.
The good effects of the construction of the turnpike system centering at Weston were not confined wholly to the country districts, but had their influence as well upon the town. New people came who constructed dwellings far more commodious than those already there. The older residents made improvements in their proper- ties so that within a few years the whole aspect of the town was completely changed. It was no longer a col- lection of houses of which the log buildings were the best.
A. A. Lewis established a store in 1849 which was a center of trade under his guidance for half a century, and other stores followed. Minter Bailey built a brick building across the street from his old stand and moved his "Weston Hotel" into it. Henceforth it was called the Bailey House. He also established a still in what is now West Weston where he manufactured most of the beverages partaken of by the customers of the half dozen ordinaries in Weston. An effort was made to improve the schools of Weston through the short-lived Lewis County Seminary, incorporated in 1847. The system of private schools was, however, too deeply engrafted into the life of the town to be changed.
The first newspaper was established in 1847 by Ben- jamin Owen, formerly a foreman in the office of the New York Tribune under Horace Greely. The Weston Sen- tinel, as it was called, was a four-page, six-column jour- nal published in the interests of the Democratic party, which was then in the ascendency in Lewis County in spite of the tremendous Whig sentiment in the Buck- hannon river settlements. The paper was liberally sup-
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ported from the first, both in subscriptions and in adver- tising. Many of the merchants of Clarksburg advertised in it.
Owen continued to publish the weekly until the office was burned down in 1853. He apparently did not care longer to continue in the newspaper business, and the paper was revived under the editorship of W. D. Tapp, who sold it to F. D. Alfred in 1856. The name of the paper was then changed to "The Weston Herald." It continued in existence, always an apologist for slavery and states' rights, until the Union troops came to Wes- ton.
Two new churches were established in Weston shortly before the middle of the century. The first ser- vices of the Episcopal church in Weston were held by the Rev. Ovid A. Kinsolving, of Christ Church, Clarks- burg. A church was organized by the Rev. Samuel D. Tompkins, of Parkersburg, at a meeting held in 1847 in the new Southern Methodist church presided over by Major Thomas Bland. The church began its existence with two members. Thomas Bland, Joseph Darlinton and Samuel Tompkins were appointed trustees, to pur- chase ground and erect a church building. They bought the lot where the Baptist church now stands from Lewis Maxwell for $130, and there erected a frame church, which was consecrated by Bishop Meade in 1850. The Rev. Tompkins continued to serve the church at Wes- ton for several years, being followed by R. A. Castleman, James Page and T. H. Smythe, under whose ministry the rectory was built.
The foundation of the Catholic church in Weston was due largely to the construction of the Parkersburg and Weston turnpike and the Irish immigration to Lewis County which followed. In 1845, when there was "one Irishman and five children" in Weston, the Rev. Francis Vincent Whelan, Bishop of Wheeling, celebrated the first mass in an upstairs room of the Bailey House in the presence of a group of Irish workingmen and their
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families, some of whom had walked all the way from Sand fork. The visits of Bishop Whelan continued for some time. In 1848 a permanent pastor was appointed in the person of Father A. F. Crogan, who began the erection of a small brick church on the hillside where Robert L. Bland now lives. He was followed by the Rev. B. Stack, under whose ministry the church was completed.
All sects in the town had contributed generously to the construction of the church, and it became an im- portant educational center in the community almost from the first. The priests were all men who had good clas- sical educations, and their schools in the basement of the church on the hill were attended by boys who after- ward became prominent in the life of Weston and Lewis County. Father L. C. L. Brennan, who succeeded Father Stack in 1855, is thought to have established the school, and it was continued by Fathers James V. Cun- ningham, L. O'Conner and John McGill.
The little brick church on the hillside had great in- fluence over the further growth of the Catholic faith in Lewis County and northwestern Virginia. It was the fourth church of the denomination in what is now West Virginia. There were no other churches in this section with the exception of a small church at West Union which had been established for the spiritual welfare of the workmen on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad who had moved to Doddridge county and taken up lands. Churches which have since been built at Clarksburg and other towns, as well as the Sand Fork churches, are off- shoots from the Weston church.
Connection with the outside world by means of the stage line to Staunton was not deemed sufficient by the people. Following the completion of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad to Wheeling, a Virginia corporation which, however, was financed by the Baltimore and Ohio com- pany, received a charter to construct a railroad from Grafton to Parkersburg in 1852. Some of the members
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of the legislature fondly hoped that this home company would compete with the Baltimore and Ohio, and hav- ing the southern route, would soon acquire the ascenden- cy in the trade. In the same year that the charter was granted influential politicians of Weston secured the passage of a bill authorizing the construction of a branch of the Northwestern railroad from Clarksburg to Wes -. ton. The corporation of Weston was allowed to bor- row $20,000 to be subscribed to the stock of the com- pany if the measure was approved by the qualified vot- ers of the town. Apparently the promoters of the North- western railroad had enough to do in the construction work from Grafton to Parkersburg, for they paid no at- tention to the proposed branch to Weston.
In 1852 a branch of the Exchange Bank of Virginia was established at Weston, with Jonathan M. Bennett as president and R. j. McCandlish as cashier. The capital stock of the branch was fixed at $150,000, but an act of the legislature passed in 1853, provided that the capital might be increased to not more than $300,000. The bank building was located at first on the site now occupied by the store of T. N. Barnes, and was later moved to the Bennett property. The branch at Weston was at the time of its establishment the only banking institution between Staunton and Chillicothe, and between the branch at Lewisburg and the Northwestern bank at Wheeling. It served an immense territory. Business men came all the way from Parkersburg, Fairmont, Bev- erly, Summersville and intermediate points in order to secure loans or transact other business with the bank. The only day on which loans were made was Wednes- day ; and so great was the crowd on that day that extra beds were always required at the Bailey House. Bank- ing methods were extremely crude at the time of the es- tablishment of the bank. It was impossible, for instance, to renew a note. The borrower was obliged to come to the bank, pay off the note in cash, and then if he wished, he might borrow the money again, always of
.
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course with approved security. R. J. McCandlish was an exemplary banker. Everything he did was just right, and the banker of the present day who follows in his footsteps can not go far wrong. His services were so satisfactory that after a few months the directors of the bank gave him an unsolicited increase in salary of $500 per year and a testimonial letter.
Most of the money required for the construction of the Northwestern railroad passed through the hands of the branch at Weston. When the "Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum" was located at Weston the bank fur- nished to the commissioners the funds with which to purchase the site. All the funds appropriated by the legislature of Virginia for the construction of the build- ings was deposited in the bank, and after the division of the state it was the depository of West Virginia funds appropriated for the same purpose. Though accused of being disloyal to the cause of the North, it was one of the most loyal of the banking institutions of the country, investing its funds in United States bonds in times of the country's greatest emergency.
A charter was also granted to the Lewis County Mining and Manufacturing Company in 1853. David S. Peterson, Minter Bailey, Albert A. Lewis, George Jackson and others were the incorporators and the cap- ital stock was fixed at $10,000, with the privilege of in- creasing it to $500,000 by vote of the stockholders. The purpose of the company was "to mine iron, salt, goods, lumber, and such other mineral substances as the com- pany may determine to mine for." Lumbering seems to have been the principal activity of the company, which suspended operations almost immediately. The Lewis County Woolen and Cotton Manufacturing Com- pany, incorporated by Richard P. Camden, David S. Peterson, Blackwell Jackson, Noah Life, Henry Butcher and others with a capital stock of $5,000 to $200,000, was another company created upon a magnificent plan, but failing in execution.
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The old court house had long been considered in- adequate for the busines to be transacted and not be- fitting a great county like Lewis, and in 1855 the county court made provisions to supplant it by another. John Brannon, Wiliam E. Arnold and Jonathan M. Bennett were appointed commissioners to contract for the con- struction of the work. Joseph Darlinton was the super- intendent of the building. The structure was complete 16 November 1857. It was a more commodious and com- fortable building than the one now occupied by the coun- ty officers, and in addition it was an imposing edifice worthy of Lewis County. The courtroom, passageway and stairs were carpeted, and the walls of the interior were elaborately decorated. The next year after its completion the court provided for the construction of an iron fence with cut rock foundations around the square.
The Weston College was incorporated in 1857 but it apparently never exercised much influence on the ed- ucational development of the town.
George C. Danser established the first foundry in Weston in 1857.
By far the greatest single event in the history of Weston was the location of the Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum in the town in 1859. The growth of population west of the Alleghanies and the inadequacy of the ex- isting asylums, one at Williamsburg and the other at Staunton, caused the General Assembly to establish the new institution. The legislature designated for the site one of three towns west of the mountains: Fayetteville in Fayette County, Sutton in Braxton, and as usual when there was a pudding to be opened, Weston in Lewis. The final selection was left to a board of three commis- sioners to be appointed by the Governor. Thomas Wal- lace, of Petersburg City; Dr. Clement R. Harris, of Culpeper, and Samuel T. Walker, of Rockingham Coun- ty, were designated by Governor Wise to visit the three towns, inspect the locations offered and fix the site.
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The other proposed locations were inspected first. When Jonathan M. Bennett, then serving as First Aud- itor of Virginia, was informed that the commissioners were coming to Weston, he is said to have hastened home from Richmond and organized a campaign to se- cure the location of the building in Weston. Lobbying in the halls of the legislature has secured the designation of Weston as one of the places to be inspected ; but lob- bying could go no further; it was necessary for the citi- zens of the town to impress the commissioners with its desirability for the location. The people without ex- ception followed the directions of their distinguished townsman. Missing palings were nailed on the fences; the whitewash brush was applied to all the houses that needed it; the rubbish lying on the river bank and on the lots both vacant and tenanted, was burned or hauled away; the holes in the streets were filled up; and the whole town was made to present an outward appearance of snug prosperity and a high order of citizenship. An entertainment committee was selected from among the leading citizens, and on the day that the commissioners arrived they were shown not one but several available sites for the proposed building. They were wined and feasted. Every form of entertainment which the inge- nuity of the citizens could devise was held in their honor ; and at every point the advantages of Weston were presented with such force that the commissioners would almost have seemed derelict in their duty to the Com- monwealth if they had made any other choice than Wes- ton. Their unanimous opinion was that Weston pos- sessed such advantages over the other sites offered that the institution should be located there.
Of the legislative appropriation, the purchase of land, the beginning of building operations, the interrup- tions by the war, the opening of the institution to pa- tients, the successful completion of the plant and fur- ther progress, more will be said in another chapter. It is desirable to mention, however, the immediate effect
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of the location of the institution in Weston. Many fam- ilies moved to the town, attracted either by the prospect of obtaining work, or in order to take part in the com- mercial activity which was evidently to follow. The farm on the west bank of the river below the grounds selected for the institution was divided into town lots and platted as Hale's addition. P. M. Hale erected a store near the site of the passenger station, which did a thriving busines before the war. The beginning of the hotel business on the site of the Monticello was a boarding house established about 1860 for the accommo- dation of laborers on the building. On the south side of the site purchased for the asylum, P. M. Hale pur- chased the land then occupied by a single dwelling and the still of Minter Bailey, and divided it into lots. The plat of Butcher's addition, as this section was called, was filed in the clerk's office in February, 1860. The population of Weston, which had been about 200 in 1844, 400 in 1855, and 820 in 1860, had increased to a thousand at the outbreak of the Civil war.
The new stores of Bailey and Tunstill, Brown and Windle, Darlinton and Wood and I. G. Waldo, which were in evidence in 1857, catered to an increasing trade, and new stores were opened to compete with them. Where there were two or three ordinaries in Weston in 1844, there were six or more in 1860, kept by C. S. Hur- ley, Patrick Tierney, Joseph E. Wilkinson, Francis Bat- ten, Minter Bailey and Thomas Faulkner. Patrick Tier- ney was granted license to keep a "booling saloon"-the first in Weston-13 April 1857.
The prosperity of Weston was shared by the whole county. The proprietors of the Weston mill found that notwithstanding the competition of the Jackson mill and the Holt mill at the mouth of Rush run, it could not grind fast enough by water power to supply the needs of the increasing business, and a steam engine was in- stalled a few years prior to the Civil war. It was the
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first in Weston, and great difficulty was experienced in making it run.
The Jane Lew mill was rebuilt and equipped with steam power by Edward J. Jackson in 1858. In the same year, or the year following, J. P. Potter and John T. Hacker established the potters' shop and kiln which has been one of the distinctive industries of Jane Lew from that time to the present. The village in 1858 had two ordinaries kept by Maxwell W. Ball and Bolivar Hawks, and had entered upon a period of prosperity which seemed to promise much for the future.
The rapid development of Jacksonville following the completion of the turnpike was one of the surprises of the period. The store of John G. Arnold had passed into the hands of Porter M. Arnold, and with it the post- office, the name of which was changed from Collins Set- tlement to Jacksonville in honor of the founder of the village and promoter of the settlements of the upper West Fork. The town came into being full-fledged ---- blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, shoe shop, and two or- dinaries, conducted by Samuel B. Hogsit and William Brake, and soon afterwards the town had physicians, church and school. At the beginning of the Civil war, it was a rival of Jane Lew for the honor of being the second town in the county.
Farther up the river, the little settlement which had grown up around William Bennett's mill as a nu- cleus, and which had a store and postoffice in 1851, had taken on added importance. B. J. Mills established an ordinary there in 1857. The name of the village was changed from Bennett's Mills to Walkersville in honor of Walker the filibuster whose ill-fated attempts to con- quer Nicaragua and add it to the United States caused a great feeling of admiration and sympathy for him which extended from one end of North America to the other. Judge G. D. Camden pointed out that the name had no local significance: "If it had been called Craw- fordsville, Bennettburg, Cunninghamton, Barnettstown,
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