USA > West Virginia > Monroe County > A history of Monroe county, West Virginia > Part 10
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Following a usage of the time, the following minute schedule of prices was prescribed for the observance of tavern-keepers :
109
FORMATION OF MONROE
Warm dinner, 2 shillings $ .33 1-3
Cold dinner or warm breakfast .25
Cold breakfast
21
Lodging on feather bed
.1212
Lodging on chaff bed .08
Corn, per gallon
.121/2
Oats, per gallon
.1012
Pasturage for 24 hours
.08
Stabling, and hay for 24 hours
.16 2-3
Spirits, per gallon
5.33
Teneriffe and Lisbon wine, per gallon
4.00
Other wines, per gallon
3.33
Madeira, per gallon
6.00
Common rum
3.33
Peach brandy
2.00
Whiskey
1.33
"Sider"
.50
Beer
.33
As seems always the case in the pioneer period, the new sheriff objected to the "insufficiency of the jail," by taking exception as to the consequences should any prisoners be committed to his custody. The first county boarding house on the frontier was always a very small affair and doubtfully secure.
And thus the May session of the court came to an end and the new county of Monroe was launched upon its independent career. The first civil suit came at the second term, when John Hinchman appeared against Levi Lowe to recover some money. The judgment of $12.83 and costs was in favor of the plaintiff. The first marriage bond was that in favor of Henry Miller and Rhoda Brooking.
But Stuart and his followers sought to undo what had been ac- complished. And within Monroe itself there was complaint as to the choice of courthouse site. During this same year a petition was sent up to the legislature objecting to the Alexander land as "far from the center," and the justices being "appointed and commissioned without the recommendation of the court of Greenbrier or the knowl- edge of the citizens of Monroe." The petitioners believed these do- ings to be the work of John Hutchinson. They said the court was already preparing to erect the public buildings. And since the Act
110
A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
creating Monroe said the courthouse should be "as near the center as conveniency would permit," they asked the appointment of com- missioners who should ascertain the center, etc.
In December, 1799, another petition asks a consolidation of Mon- roe with Greenbrier. The people of Monroe regarded this scheme as originating with the clerk of Greenbrier, aided, perhaps, "by a few disappointed persons." Greenbrier was denounced as "an un- natural stepmother, who still wishes to hold over us the scorpion chas- tisement, whips and fetters."
Stuart and his friends replied that Hutchinson introduced a pe- tition to divide Greenbrier on a line running "near its courthouse, thereby leaving scarcely the shadow of a county either on the one side or the other." They insisted that a proper announcement of the petition was not made. They now asked a repeal of the act creating Monroe, and the formation of a new county out of Green- brier, Monroe, and Montgomery, agreeable to a petition from Green- brier and Montgomery given to William H. Cavendish, but never presented, although notice of the same was published in the news- paper at Staunton. The boundaries asked for the proposed county were these: beginning at James Allen's on Turkey Creek, passing thence to John Byrnside's on the head of Indian, and crossing the Greenbrier at James Graham's; touching the Kanawha line where the state road touched Gauley river, then following said line to the line of Wythe county, and running with the latter to the top of Walker's Mountain, which it followed to Shannon's Gap. The next point was the mouth of Sinking Creek, whence a direct line passing the end of Salt Pond Mountain, ran to the Botetourt line; then with the same to the top of Peters Mountain, and thence to the beginning. It was pointed out that such county would be 100 miles long and 40 wide, its circumference nowhere passing within 20 miles of any established courthouse. Its own courthouse could be 40 miles from neighboring courthouses and from Sweet Springs, and on a leading road from the latter place to Kentucky. A favorable answer to such petition was asked on these specific grounds: that Hutchinson presented his own petition without the knowledge or
111
FORMATION OF MONROE
consent of the Greenbrier people; that if any division were neces- sary, it was on the side of the Greenbrier people, some of whom were farther from the courthouse; that the law dividing the county failed to point out a mode for nominating the first magistrates of Monroe; that Hutchinson had the address, by "obscure means," of having such members nominated as would secure him the Monroe clerkship; that the said members had the privilege of locating the courthouse, and "contrary to law and all propriety" have located it far from the center; that Monroe being of too small area, the county government will prove a burden; that the limits of the new county now prayed for are ample, and its abundant "backlands" will per- mit a large increase in population; that every exertion was made by the interested members of the court of Monroe to place its court- house on their chosen spot, lest on petition of the people a special law should direct otherwise; and finally, that the law to divide Greenbrier was obtained surreptitiously and by corrupt means.
Another petition of the same year, asking that the Greenbrier- Monroe line be moved to a distance of 15 miles from Lewisburg re- ceived many signers.
A general meeting of citizens was held at the courthouse of Greenbrier, August 29, 1799. William Bourland was its clerk. It decided to present a petition to the legislature ; to print 150 copies of the resolutions adopted by the meeting, and also the assessment law. It asserted that any report that the citizens of Greenbrier were divided in political sentiment was not only groundless but was calculated to promote some private end.
The petition drawn up as a result of the meeting shows the na- ture of the resolutions adopted. It also throws light on Hutchin- son's assessment law and its bearing on the division of Greenbrier. Our synopsis of the petition is as follows :
The lands of Greenbrier were duly and properly assessed under the equalizing law of 1782, and taxes have since been paid. The law of 1796, affecting only Greenbrier, Kanawha, and Randolph, had the effect of making all lands average according to the law of 1782. Men of the Eastern states have in wild speculation taken
.
112
A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
millions of acres of mountain land in Greenbrier, regardless of qual- ity or situation. These are to be assessed as our own lands,-which do not cover 200,000 acres,- so as to put all lands on the footing of the law of 1782. We are therefore taxed much above other citi- zens of this state. Hutchinson was the principal mover of this law, which was to his own emolument. He did not hesitate to accept an appointment as one of the three assessors, and he performed his work in an unrighteous and improper manner, pretending to show a great increase in revenue. Reassessing our lands with ten times their quantity of barren mountain is not uniform with the tax to other citizens of the state, and is grievous oppression. The reas- sessment was improperly performed, generally after the expiration of the law, and without going on the lands or consulting the county assessors. One commissioner was a delegate to the General As- sembly. Another, John Rodgers, was a deputy sheriff who had not closed his accounts. The third, William McClung, was concerned in land speculation to the extent of 100,000 acres. The county be- ing without sufficient revenue, the general interest of the people is infringed upon. Greenbrier is one of the smallest and poorest coun- ties, and the mountain barrier which shuts it off from others is ruin- ous to its society. It therefore becomes our peculiar interest to en- courage a good school, good artisans and manufacturers, all which efforts are confounded by dividing the people, thereby preventing the development of our little village, which would soon become a mart to our citizens and a center that would promote a spirit of in- dustry and emulation among the inhabitants around. We had a county as commodious and convenient as any in the state, but it is now divided close to the courthouse, causing discord and uneasi- ness. The majority of the Greenbrier people were opposed to a division. (Here is quoted Article VII of the Bill of Rights.) The man who presented the petition to divide our county was privately interested. There are fewer tithables by 300 than when the county was formed. We ask an "adjunction" of our two counties, to be called and known by the name of Union county, with the same mag-
113
FORMATION OF MONROE
istrates and other officers that were in commission when the division took place.
The court of Greenbrier ordered that subpoenas be served on 20 of the most reputable of the citizens of Monroe and Greenbrier, these men to testify as to the charges against the commissioners. The 20 men were to be equally divided between the counties, and none of those from Greenbrier were to be members of the county court. The men summoned from Monroe were Colonel James Graham, Major John Handley, and Captains Isaac Estill, John Byrnside, William Maddy and Matt Farley; also William Haynes, Christian Peters, John Arbuckle, and John Henderson, the last named being ex-commissioner of the public tax. The Greenbrier men were Col- onel Samuel Brown, Captain Joseph Hanna, Captain Alexander Welch, William H. Cavendish, James Hanna (commissioner of the public tax), Linah Mims, Joseph Mays, Samuel Kincaid, Andrew McClung, sheriff, and James Reid, late prosecuting attorney.
When the commissioners appeared, August Woodward entered a recognisance for them and presented a bill of nine particulars. These denied the jurisdiction of the court, pronounced the charges libelous as to legislature, governor, and commissioners, and affirmed that the commissioners were at all times ready to answer in a proper and legal manner, and to show that the charges were untrue. The court entered a replication to each article, after which the witnesses were examined.
Graham estimated the inhabited lands at 150,000 acres and the uninhabited at 1,000,000 acres. He understood that the law of 1796 caused the tax in Greenbrier to be forty per cent more than to other citizens in the same class. He valued the speculator land at one pound ($3.33) per 100 acres, hardly any of which was held by residents. About 1787 he heard the division of the county thought desirable. He was not himself friendly to Hutchinson, and thought the commissioners did not do their duty. He claimed that Hutchin- son lost $200 at Richmond in playing pedro.
Handley said there was an attempt to divide the county before 1787.
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
Peters said it was a matter of common remark that Hutchinson sold his county for a clerkship.
Byrnside expressed himself as a determined advocate for the division of Greenbrier. A lack of revenue had been an obstacle.
Arbuckle said persons were charged with land who had no right in Monroe or Greenbrier. Hutchinson claimed that the law did not require the commissioners to visit every tract.
Estill said he would not give one cent an acre for mountain land unless he were sure of a market.
Kincaid pointed out that the lands in Kanawha and Randolph were not assessed under the law of 1796.
Brown said the reassessment was in the summer of 1798. He considered an acre of the best land worth 100,000 of the poorest.
Cavendish said Hutchinson asked him as a delegate to move that the name Monroe be changed to Wayne, because he objected to the politics of James Monroe and feared his political belief would be objectionable to other people. The request was withdrawn.
It must be conceded that a consensus of the testimony, quite ir- respective of whether a given witness were of Monroe or Green- brier, is to the effect that the law of 1796 worked hardship to the people of the two counties; that the reassessment was a fraud on the people and a political move to carry Hutchinson's point; that the commissioners made only a pretense of going upon the lands and were not deserving of their fee of $500; that the petition to cre- ate Monroe was not advertised; that the division of the county was not at once beneficial to a majority of the people; that Hutchinson was not clean-handed, either in the reassessment or the division of the county, and that he held back the share of the fee that belonged to one of his associates.
One other petition we now give in full. It not merely speaks for itself, but it throws an important light on the feelings of the pioneer settlers of Monroe.
That the inhabitants of the said county, having in early times pene- trated into these territories, of which now under a free and happy gov- ernment they are the lords and proprietors; having encountered the dan-
115
FORMATION OF MONROE
gers and the obstacles presented by a race of men wild and uncivilized, possessed of no other title to the soil than that of their hunting over it might be conceived to bestow, a right which your petitioners conceive, by the law of nature and of nature's God, must in the train and providence of human affairs succumb to the superior claim derived from occupancy and appropriation; having in obedience to the laws of their country, for- tified by every legal prescription the fruits of their enterprise; and hav- ing borne for a succession of years the inconveniences incident to an in- cipient settlement, and particularly that of a remote seat for the adminis- tration of domestic justice; began at length to proffer to the legislators of their state an application for redress, by the erection of their limits into a distinct and independent county.
United heretofore in the bonds of civil brotherhood with the inhabitants of Greenbrier, from causes as inexplicable as their effects were astonish- ing, this application excited in the breasts of their fellow-citizens of that county an animosity, which time as little promises to extinguish as a sense of justice and of acquiescence in the laws of their country dispose to alle- viate. In the pendency of the application of your petitioners, arbitrary and oppressive measures, the suggestions of individual haughtiness and rapacity, were interposed to deter and discourage the attempt. The first of these was an expensive and grievous levy for the erection of a superb prison. A small majority having postponed an acquiescence, with the re- quest of your petitioners, for one year, the burthen was met by them with a fortitude which eventually enabled them to comply with an exaction as much repugnant to natural rights, as the motive of its organization was an outrage on that sensibility of honor which is justly deemed the pride of civilized man.
A renewal of the attempt for a division was but an invitation to a repetition of oppression. The former levy was succeeded by another, still more grievous, for the erection of a courthouse. The benevolent inter -. position of the legislature served not to palliate the passions of those who had been hostile to the reasonable wishes of your petitioners. After the passage of the Act of Assembly constituting the separate county of Mon- roe, a respectful application to the court of the county of Greenbrier to exempt from the operation of the latter levy so many of the inhabitants as would, on the first day of May, fall within the limits of the new county, was regarded with indignant contempt. Presuming that the county of Greenbrier wished to signalize its justice in a separate capacity, the pa- tience of your petitioners, long habituated to the insolent exercise of power, and to receive as matter of favor what was their strictest right, still pre- sented a distant hope of relief. But when the applications to that court, aided by the firm approbation of their proper county, shared a similar fate, the point was reduced to demonstration, that every hope of relief, grounded on the honor or justice of the court of Greenbrier, would prove fallacious and deceptive.
116
A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
Thus depressed, as it were into despair, the freeholders of Monroe cast around an anxious look to discover an authority competent to their relief. Not apprised of the limits which the construction of the judges might as- sign to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, they presented themselves before them, as the victims not only of an unjust, but also of an illegal exercise of power. The detail of this application will appear in a docu- ment annexed, to which your petitioners refer. The inclination to afford relief was far from being absent; but the power was disclaimed. The organs of the tribunal of justice have unfolded to your petitioners, that whatever may be the doubts, whether the imposition of this tax by a county court, it (is beyond) the exercise of the legislative or of an execu- tive power, they can by no construction define it to be judiciary, and how- ever glaringly unjust, or deviating from express law, they cannot assume the right to control the discretion by which it was rejected.
The committee appointed by the freeholders of Monroe to lay the matter before the district court were William Haynes, James Alexander, John Hutchinson, John Byrnside, John Gray, William Graham, James Graham, William Vawter, James Handley, John Handley, Jacob Cook, Henry McDaniel, Tristram Patton, Joseph Alderson, Robert Nickell, and Joshua Leach. The signers to the petition numbered 426. An Act of Assembly, bearing date, Janu- ary 11, 1800, exempts from the levy referred to in petition such tithables as are in Monroe. It further provides that if any citizen of Monroe has paid in on said levy, it shall be refunded to him. But William Hamilton, sheriff of Greenbrier, was also in hot water. He stated that he employed a young man more than one year at 100 pounds a year, to collect this levy, and that the law did not give him any commission. The commissioner in charge of building the courthouse sued him on his bond for the collection of the public levy, and got a judgment of $1000. He therefore petitioned the legis- lature for relief.
It was through the lobbying of John Hutchinson that the As- sembly passed the bill just mentioned, which relieved the people of Monroe from helping to build Greenbrier's courthouse. The con -- tract price of the same was 800 pounds ($2666.67).
Whatever may have been the purity of Hutchinson's methods in securing home government for the people of Monroe and a clerkship
117
FORMATION OF MONROE
for himself, he outgeneralled such redoubtable antagonists as Stuart and Cavendish. Time has vindicated the division. But Stuart did not take his defeat gracefully. He set up in Monroe on the road to Sweet Springs a board bearing in large letters the following leg- end: "Union County; Greenbrier and Monroe united." In the fragment of local history he wrote on the fly-leaves of a deed-book, he does not forget to excoriate Hutchinson for his attitude toward a road across the Alleghany.
XII
A FARM HOME IN 1800
As Seen in a Personal Visit.
E shall now try to describe a' home and neighborhood in Monroe in the closing year of the eighteenth cen- tury .* This date is much beyond the personal knowl- edge of any living eye-witness. But since the changes between the year 1800 and the time of the earliest recollections of our very oldest people were comparatively small, it is possible to picture the life and times of the year in question with a high degree of accuracy.
Ever since 1850 the conditions of life throughout the United States have changed enormously. In a very large degree, the men and women who founded Monroe lived in a different world from ours. Their opportunities were not what we possess, but they were not our inferiors in their capacity to accomplish things. It is well worth while to gain an intelligent idea of the circumstances under which they lived.
The "John Bee" of this chapter is only nominally a fictitious man. He is a type of the men living here at the close of the pioneer period. Therefore his house does not stand in some particular spot. But to localize "John Bee," we will assume that he lives near Sec- ond Creek gap.
Since his neighbors speak of him as John, and never think of calling him mister, we must do the same. He is forty-five years old and was born in a fort on Cowpasture River. A little before he had become his own man, his father decided to move to the only West which was then open to settlement. He was in debt, he had
"The nineteenth century did not begin until the year 1801. And so with all other centuries.
119
A FARM HOME IN 1800
a growing family, and the rose-colored tales he had heard of the boundless transalleghany country were irresistible. So the elder Bee loaded the meager stock of household goods on packsaddles and trekked to the new land of promise. There was no wagon, and even if he had had one he could not have used it on the old Indian road up Dunlap Creek. The five horses carried the freight and the female members of the household. The masculines, large and small, had to walk and to have an eye to the cattle and sheep.
For nearly fifteen years after the migration there was Indian alarm after Indian alarm, and there were several hasty flights to the nearest blockhouse. John has himself taken shots at hostile red- skins and can tell some hair-raising stories about them. But for a half dozen years there has been a growing belief that never again will the red man carry the torch and tomahawk even so far east as the bank of the Ohio.
The name of John's wife is Euphemia, but she is called Feemy for short. She was reared on Catawba Creek. The couple have ten children, three of whom are grown. The others are of assorted sizes. The two oldest have left home. Two girls will soon fol- low, because they have beaux, and courtship in this community is followed by early marriage.
The highway on Second Creek is broad enough to admit a wagon, and once in a while a wagon does pass along. But the bridle-track is far more conspicuous than the wheel ruts. The whole breadth is much infested with rocks, stumps, and mudholes. We barely suc- ceed in getting over a branch dry-footed. The stream carries more water than is habitually the case at present. This is because the hills and mountains around are as thickly covered with wood as they were when the first white settler arrived. We turn into what seems a cross between a path and a wagon road, and following it half a mile through the woodland we come into the clearing around Bee's house.
The dwelling is ten years old. The logs built into the house are broad, and the narrow crevices are carefully chinked. The roof is of riven clapboards held in place with weightpoles. The one
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
door is thick and heavy, and is strongly secured. The few windows are narrow and the panes of glass are only nine by ten inches. When John put up this house he was moved by prudential considerations, for he had his doubts whether the last Indian raid had yet taken place. At one end of the house is an enormous outside chimney of unhewn stone. Underneath the floor is a pen into which lambs are driven at night to safeguard them from the wolves. Our atten- tion is struck by the almost total absence of millsawed boards, either in the house itself or its furniture. Sawmills are yet rare and they use only the up and down saw. Most boards are turned out by the whipsaw, and if too thick are made thinner with the adze. Even the benches in the house are puncheon slabs held up by pegs driven into augur holes.
Passing through the open door, we find one apartment of mod- erate size with two smaller ones opening into it. The first of the three is a general purpose room. At one side is a cavernous fireplace broad enough to take in a nine foot log. In one corner is a squarish, massive bedstead. The feather ticks are supported by a network of creaking hemp rope, and on top is a figured coverlet of home man- ufacture. On a row of pegs are articles of masculine wearing ap- parel. On a mantle are two horn combs with some of the teeth missing, two or three badly used books, a cracked looking glass, and a few bottles stoppered with cobs or rags. The long table was built by a carpenter who lives in the same valley. He was not sparing of timber, and the strong piece of furniture will stand hard usage. The more comfortable of the two chairs has a sheepskin lying over its back. Seating capacity for the household and its frequent guests is eked out by the benches we have spoken of. A pair of deer ant- lers attached to the wall support the family arsenal, which consists of two muskets of the Revolutionary period and a rifle with a bar- rel forty-eight inches long. All these weapons are flintlocks. The prongs of the antlers hold up some powder horns and bullet-pouches. In one corner is a broom fashioned out of a block of green hickory. Above are short shelves on which are displayed some blue-bordered table ware, several wooden utensils, and some dishes and spoons of
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