USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 14
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Pendleton was laid out with a method that does credit to all who were concerned in the matter. The amount of ground covered by the original survey is 46 1-2 acres, the county according to statute law requiring two acres for its public buildings. Within this original area the streets and alleys are straight and the lots are parallelograms.
The selling of lots and the building of houses began at once. As will presently be shown, Evick did not always yield full possession of the ground. Yet he had some ad- vanced ideas. He seems to have been unwilling to sell lots for merely speculative purposes or to permit a lot to harbor a public nuisance.
Robert Davis, the sheriff, bought a lot on the same day that Francis Evick bought out the interest of George. For the single lot of one-half acre Davis paid 5 pounds ($16.67). The deed stipulates that the purchaser is to build within two years a good dwelling house, at least 16 by 20 feet in size, and with a chimney of brick or stone. There was to be no distillery on the premises. Each New Year's day he was to pay a ground rent of 33 cents in gold or silver at its current value. If no building were put up, the rent was to be three shillings, or 50 cents.
Samuel Black, a cabinet-maker, was already in the town, but there is no record of his purchase of a lot. He may have occupied the old Evick home, for Francis Evick was already living in a stone dwelling, now a part of the Daugherty Hotel and not in full alignment with the main street. Garvin Hamilton, the county clerk, was also prompt to locate in the new town. He lived on the Anderson lot in front of the courthouse. and the first term of court at the county seat was held in his house in September of the same year.
We have no record of further sales until 1790. In that year a double lot was sold to Joseph Ewbank for $43.33 and a ground rent of one dollar. This property lay close to Evick's old home and springhouse. A single lot was sold to John Skidmore at the same price and on the same terms as to Davis. Single lots were also sold to Hamilton and to James Patterson for $20 and $15 respectively and without condi- tions. About the same time a lot was sold to George Ham- mer with conditions and price the same as to Davis, and a lot to Jacob Reintzel without conditions. Reintzel, whose lot was on the upper street, sold two years later to Sebastian Hoover. John Painter bought a half lot at half price.
The price of town property was soon rising. In 1792 Michael McClure bought a lot without conditions for $33.33. Edward Breakiron paid $41.67 for another, which he resold to Stephen Bogart. In the same year James Patterson sold
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his property, then the home of John Roberts, to Jonas Chris- man for $366.67. In 1795 Oliver and William McCoy paid $40 for a lot originally granted to William Black and then occu- pied by William Lawrence. Before 1797 George Dahmer owned the lot which was later the property of Adam Evick. In 1800 lots were purchased by Aaron Kee, a merchant, and by a man whose name is written "John Steal." In 1803 Francis Evick, Jr., sold a house and lot for $800. In the same year John Roberts moved away. selling his lot opposite the courthouse to Peter Hull for $1333.33.
Within a half dozen years there was a cluster of dwellings of sufficient importance to cause the legislature to designate it as a town under the name of Franklin. The Act of As- sembly is dated December 19, 1794. The name Frankford would doubtless have been retained, had not the legislature in 1788 designated a town in Hampshire by that namne, to say nothing of the Frankfort in what is now the state of Ken- tucky. The new name evidently commemorates the eminent statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin.
The trustees of Franklin, as named in the legislative act were Joseph Arbaugh, Jacob Conrad, James Dyer, Sr., John Hopkins. Peter Hull. Joseph Johnson, William McCoy, Oliver McCoy. James Patterson, and John Roberts. By another act, dated Christmas day, 1800, the trustees were authorized to make and establish legal regulations for protecting property from fire, for keeping hogs from running at large, to prohibit the galloping and racing of horses in streets and alleys, and preserving good order generally.
The population at the opening of the new century was probably about 100, and the growth has ever since been slow though steady. The changes among the residents are too numerous, however, to be followed. But step by step the hamlet springing up around the log courthouse developed into the completeness of an inland town.
James Patterson appears to have been a merchant as well as justice, although the first recorded license to sell goods was that granted to Perez Drew in August, 1790. From the frequency of his mention in the early records. John Roberts would appear to be one of the early merchants. He removed to Washington county, Pennsylvania. Aaron Kee opened a store in 1800. But until his drowning in Glady Fork, while on his way to Beverly about 1825, Daniel Capito was the leading man of business. The first license for an ordinary was that granted to Joseph Johnson in 1795.
There is mention of a "meeting house" in 1790, but this can hardly refer to a church building within the corporate limits. The first mention of a school is in 1802, when the use of the
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courthouse was granted for this purpose. In 1809 Francis Evick, Jr., deeded two and one-half acres on the west side for the purposes of church, school, and cemetery. A com- modious frame church was erected thereon by Campbell Masters. The site is between the houses of John McClure and H. M. Calhoun. It remained many years a plain weath- erbeaten structure without bell or belfry, but was painted and improved some years prior to the civil war. This build- ing was a union church, though at first used mainly by the Lutherans. Laterit was used chiefly by the United Brethren, Methodists, and Presbyterians. The last two congregations finally put up brick houses of worship of their own, and the union church having fallen into decay was torn down. A schoolhouse was built on the hillside above the Evick spring, and the summit of the knob beyond was used many years as a place of interment. But at present the property is not used for any of the three original purposes. The three roomed schoolhouse stands on the main street, and the town cemetery lies a mile north on the Harrisonburg pike.
In 1834, after the town had had an authorized existence of forty years, there were two stores, two tanyards, three sad- dlers, two carpenters, two shoemakers, two blacksmiths, one gunsmith, one tailor, one hatter, and one cabinet and chair- maker. The professions were represented by two attorneys and one physician. There were also a school, a temperance and Bible society.
In 1867 a photograph taken from nearly the same position as the picture appearing in this book does not show a very striking contrast with respect to the upper end of the town, save in the appearance of the Union church. The houses were generally weatherboarded and painted.
The last fifteen years have witnessed a decided growth to- ward the north and also on the Smith Creek road. Houses of modern design have arisen, and the greater share of the oblong two-storied log dwelling houses have been removed. The number of private houses has increased to about 100. and Franklin in its present guise is one of the handsomest of the small towns of West Virginia. There are three stores, two drugstores, two hotels, two tanneries, a bank, a printing office and newspaper, a carding mill, an undertaker's shop, a photographic gallery, a planing mill, a blacksmith shop, a wheelwright shop, and a grocery. There are two resident ministers, four attorneys, four physicians and a dentist.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Pendleton of To-Day
As "all Gaul is divided into three parts," so is Pendleton divided into three well defined valleys, with broad, timbered ridges lying between.
Along the South Fork there is found a somewhat narrow ribbon of fine bottom land, extending very nearly the entire length of the county. This ribbon is cross-sectioned into a rapid appearing of well-tended farms. Through the six miles of Sweedland valley, and up Brushy Fork, Stony Run, Big Run, and Hawes' Run are other series of farms of less productive soil and very much less extent. To the east of the river there is an otherwise unbroken forest rising to the crest of Shenandoah Mountain, and used only as a wood re- serve and as pasturage. To the west is a much narrower and and more rugged belt of woodland.
At Sugar Grove is a hamlet rather than a village. Here we see a church, two stores, a blacksmith shop, a gristmill, a resident physician, and a half dozen dwellings. There were a store, a mill, and a postoffice here before 1860, but there has since been a nearer approach to the characteristics of a village. Ten miles below is Brandywine, the name a re- minder of Revolutionary settlers who fought in the battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania. Here the only thoroughfare from the east of any importance reaches the South Fork. Ten years ago there were but five houses in the place. The number rose to about 20 in consequence of a "plant" being lo- cated here for the manufacture of walnut bark extract. After a few years the works closed down, but the houses generally remain occupied. Here are two store buildings, a modern church building, and a schoolhouse of two rooms. Three miles below is Oak Flat, where we find little else than a store and a resident physician. Three miles still further down, and at the entrance to Sweedland valley is the historic name of Fort Seybert, applied to a store and postoffice, a black- smith shop, and three dwellings. Yet within the radius of a mile are two churches, a schoolhouse, and a well settled neighborhood. From each of the four points along the river, roads cross the South Fork Mountain.
On the tableland beyond the mountain summit, as at Deer Run, the Dickenson settlement, and Mitchell and Dahmer postoffices, are clusters of hilly but good farms with lime-
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stone soil. The double valley of the Thorn is in the nature of a pocket, the lower course of the stream being walled in with steep hills. At the heads of the two Thorns, the valley becomes broad rather than narrow, presenting the aspect of a tolerably smooth and well settled plateau, the watershed between the sources of the Thorns and those of the Bull- pasture and Cowpasture being a pair of insignificant cross ridges.
Unlike the South Fork the South Branch presents a series of ovals or pockets, these detached river bottoms growing larger as one goes northward. A mile below Franklin the river gives up an apparent purpose of climbing the valley of Trout Run, which opens in the same direction as the stream is pursuing. It now breaks abruptly through a ridge to cross a pocket of bottom land. Just below Upper Tract it turns aside from what would seem its natural course down the broad, open Mill Creek valley, the water-parting between the source of the smaller stream and a bend of the larger being scarcely perceptible. The river now enters a long and pic- turesque defile, at the right summit of which may be seen a long, perpendicular cliff, wherein lies the entrance to an ex- tensive cavern.
Immediately above Upper Tract Reed's Creek enters the main valley through a clift of verv unusual appearance. It looks as though some titanic hand had cut a narrow scarf across a long and not very lofty ridge, just as a woodcutter sinks a scarf of similar appearance into the tree he is in the act of felling. The utter lack of a rounded outline at the outer end of the gorge is very exceptional. In fact the gorge gives little warning of its existence until one is quite near to it. Yet beyond the ridge thus unexpectedly opened lies a valley several miles long, the stream in seeming de- fiance of hydrographic law becoming larger toward its source.
The bottoms of the South Branch are rather more exten- sive than those of the South Fork, the pear-shaped Upper Tract containing fourteen farms. The tributaries are also more important with respect to the farming lands they em- brace. Again, the bordering hill lands are somewhat less exclusively in wood. especially in the broad basin northeast of Upper Tract known as the "Ridges."
Apart from the county seat the only centers of population in this valley are Ruddle and Upper Tract. The former, at the mouth of Hedrick Run, has a store and several houses, and nearby a church and a mill. Upper Tract, overlooking the bottom known by the same name, though having less than a dozen houses, has the air of a village center. It has three churches, a store, and a schoolhouse of two rooms.
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The valley of the North Fork resembles that of the South Fork in the character and amount of its bottom lands, but differs widely with respect to its uplands. Below the preci- pice which marks the escarpment of the North Fork Moun- tain, and as far down as the East Seneca Ridge, a large share of the ground is in cultivation or pasturage. West of the river, on the Hunting Ground, behind Timber Ridge, on the slopes of Spruce Mountain, and on the plateau beyond the mouth of Seneca, are other areas of tilled and productive up- land. The North Fork has a somewhat moister climate than the other valleys, and is a better grazing region. Its pres- ent greater nearness to a railroad is of much importance to its farmers. The long, brush-covered summit of Spruce Mountain and the high Roaring Plains are of local interest from the huckleberries which grow plentifully on these elevations.
Circleville, taking its name from a Zirkle who once kept store here, has more the genuine appearance of a village than any other place in Pendleton save the county seat itself. Two stores, a mill, a hotel, several minor concerns, a church, and a schoolhouse of two rooms together with about ten dwelling houses, make a very compact appearance. The river is here crossed by an iron bridge. Riverton, about six miles below, is a hamlet with an air of newness. Macksville, a few miles beyond Riverton with its store and mill is like Fort Sevbert the trading point for a well settled neighbor- hood. Mouth of Seneca and Onego, though having two stores each, are likewise little more than trading points. With ready access to the outer world the imposing rock scenery opposite the mouth of the Seneca and at the Miley Gap will attract not a few sightseers from abroad.
The roads of the county are fairly good, and on the lead- ing thoroughfares the automobile is frequently seen. Yet the three rivers are spanned by only four wagon bridges, and in very high water crossing becomes impossible. There is a special embarrassment in the case of school districts that are divided by the rivers. The narrow planked foot bridges are sometimes swept away, and the high, swaying suspension bridges cannot be used by all persons.
The Pendletonian farmhouse is generally commodious. Very many of the log houses of an earlier day are still in use and contain the broad fireplace that was once universal. But the modern white-painted dwelling is also very frequent. The telephone is of general occurrence, both in the newer and the older homes. The churches, which outside of Franklin and Upper Tract are usually frame structures, are a credit
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to the community. But as a rule the schoolhouses are by no means up to date
Whatever their ancestry, the Pendletonians of to-day are practically homogeneous in blood and even more so in man- ners and customs. In demeanor they are plain and straight- forward, and exceptionally free from caste feeling. A closer approach to social equality would be difficult to find else- where in America. They are industrious and thrifty, and awake to the desirability of comfort. The table fare is liberal and varied. A good living is general and destitution does not exist. Modern furniture, musical instruments, articles of ornament, and potted plants are as likely to be seen in the weatherbeaten farm house as in the modern cottage. In his home the dweller in these valleys is the most hospitable of Americans. The visitor from abroad is not viewed as a stranger, but is made welcome to table and lodging. The na- tive citizen has numerous friends and relatives who have gone out to make homes in the newer states or in the rail- road towns. Of those who remain are some who work a por- tion of the time in the industrial communities without. In going or coming, a walk of forty miles a day across mountain and valley is not unusual among these hardy mountaineers. The number of the younger Pendletonians who teach in the adjacent counties is about one-half the number required to supply the schools at home.
The typical Pendletonian is a blending of German, Scotch- Irish, and English, with a small infusion of the Irish, the French, the Dutch, and the Welch. Yet he differs from all these ancestral stocks. He is an American of the Ameri- cans; a type of the native who has developed in the free atmosphere of the one-time frontier.
The Englishman is of the same blood as the German, yet a quite different person. The American citizen of British an- cestry is very unlike his English cousin. The Americanized citizen of German ancestry is quite as unlike his German cousin. He is in fact but little distinguishable from the American of British stock. His patient and successful in- dustry and his good mental qualities render him a superior citizen. But wherever the descendant of the German settler permits his tendency to clannishness to stand in the way of his Americanization, he falls below his opportunities, and is the loser by doing so.
The first duty of an American is to be American; to be in harmony with American institutions, to throw himself squarely into the current of American life, and to use the American tongue in his daily conversation. Whenever he shuts himself up in a corner he narrows and shrivels, and
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labels himself an unprogressive stranger to the land of his birth. To a very great degree the Pendletonian of German ancestry is an American in the fullest sense of the word. But in one portion of the county this cannot be said. In this locality we find people with a century and ahalf of American ancestry still clinging to a speech that is merely a bastard German. These people cannot read the German Bibles re- maining in their homes, nor can they read German script. Yet they use among themselves and teach their children to use a mongrel jargon that has no literature and no written form. Its dwindling and meager vocabulary has to be eked out with English words and phrases.
For this stubborn custom there is no sound excuse. Those who follow it are standing in their own light. The habit stands decidedly in the way of an easy use of English and a correct English pronunciation. It is a very needless handi- cap to the child who starts to school or goes among other people. It sets up an artificial and needless barrier toward the rest of the community, and narrows the intellect and the sympathies of the person behind the barrier. It tends to produce citizens of narrow and illiberal views. It fosters an air of self depreciation, and seeks to excuse its unpro- gressiveness by the phrase, "we are only Dutch here." This district was the only one of the county to vote down the school levy in a recent election. The adverse vote had no ef- fect in defeating the levy, yet it was the logical result of a dwarfing, retrogressive practice.
CHAPTER XIX
A Forward Look
The doings of to-day become the history of to-morrow. We may forecast the doings of to-morrow by understanding the tendencies of to-day.
The present inhabitants of this county are with an occa- sional exception the posterity of its pioneer settlers. The posterity of the present inhabitants will continue to pos- sess the soil to a very far day in the future. This is the more certain to be the case for the very reason that Pen- dleton is not an unbroken expanse of smooth, fertile land. If it were we would witness a drift of the landowners into the towns, and the tilling of their farms by an inferior tenant population. Yet the industrial development which is certain to arrive will bring in new people. So far as the new element is of like flesh and blood to the old, it will be assimilated, just as the sub-pioneer settlers were absorbed into the fami- lies of the early pioneers. So far as the new element may be alien in blood and thought, it will be largely of a tem- porary character. It will assimilate slowly, and it will gain little of a permanent foothold because there will be little room for it. There will continue to be a steady drift of people from the county, because the rural community is al- ways the feeder of the city and the town, and Pendleton will remain predominantly rural.
What the Pendletonian has been and is, he will continue to be, except so far as new phases of activity may commend them- selves to him as an outcome of the forces now operating like a leaven in American society. Books and periodicals contain some highly colored rhetoric as to the wonderful creature the "coming man" will be and the wonderful things he will per- form. But the coming man will be as much like the present man as the present man is like the man of yesterday. The differences in either case are chiefly a matter of changing en- vironment, and scarcely at all a question of inherent capacity. We may therefore expect the social customs, the methods of work, and the activities of church, school and business to re- main much the same as now, save for the influence upon them of tendencies now in progress.
The Pendletonian usually expresses himself in favor of a railroad. Herein he recognizes the fact that an absence of rapid transit prevents a community from making the most
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of its varied resources and from enjoying a due share of the privileges of the present age. As these pages go to press, one or two railroads are projected to run into or through this county. Whether or not there is any fulfillment, the undeveloped iron ores will sooner or later compel the coming of the steam locomotive. Scarcely less probable is an elec- tric line, either across the county or along one of its valleys.
Improved transit will open the way to a fuller utilization of the material resources of the county and to a greater diversi- fication of the products of the farm. The broader oppor- tunities will attract new people, while on the other hand they will keep at home a larger share of the native population. A larger number of summer guests will come to enjoy the mountain air and to view the scenic attractions. The county will grow more wealthy, and the closer contact with city standards will cause a falling away from the freedom and spontaneity of the old-time country life. Yet there may fol- low a compensation in the broader life that can be lived.
The little, uninviting country schoolhouse with its slim en- rollment is already a back number in American development. As a practical question it is as out of date as the flail and the spinning wheel. Except in occasional instances it will give place to the centralized school with its better equip- ment, its graded work, and its more stable attendance. In- creased intelligence on the part of the individual is the con- dition of success in modern life. The most advantageous way of imparting this training is a consequent necessity. The contour of Pendleton, with its population massed in nar- row valleys, is exceptionally favorable to a system of central schools.
The railroad train enables American agriculture to make the most of special conditions of soil and climate. A gen- eral type of farming was once the only kind possible, except within a few miles of a large town, and quite regardless of the quality of the soil. Rapid transit has made it much more practicable for a given locality to turn its chief attention to the crons for which it is specially adapted.
The Pendleton farmer has had to grow nearly all his sup- plies, simply because no other course was open to him. With the railroad once at his door it will become less necessary to raise crops that he now produces at a disadvantage. The rich bottoms will remain in tillage, but to the production in part of what are now esteemed the minor products of the farm. The hills will be given chiefly to grazing. For beef, mutton, wool, and dairy products, the position of the Appa- lachian highland is increasingly secure. For the competition of the West it will have little to fear in the future. Com-
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mercial fruit culture will also become possible. New orchards will appear in the least frosty localities. Poultry will like- wise become more profitable. Along with a more diversified agriculture will come more scientific and more remunerative methods. The yearly per capita value of farm produce in the United States is about $85. A proportionate share to Pendleton with its present population would be about $800,- 000; a mark which with railroad transportation might be reached without difficulty, notwithstanding that the county might not at first blush be thought of average productivity. The mines of America have a per capita output of $22. A corresponding share to Pendleton would be about $200,000. Its iron ores alone, according to the conservated estimate of expert authority, are capable of maintaining that share for a century and a half.
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