USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 2
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The streams of Pendleton are unsurpassed for clearness and purity. Except in the deeper or shadier places, or for a short time after heavy rains, the rocks in the river-bed may
be distinguished with the greatest ease, and the finny inhabi- tants may as readily be seen darting hither and thither. The streams, both large and small, have also a very high degree of permanence, even in the face of prolonged dryness. To- ward the close of the past summer, at a point seven miles below Franklin, the writer found the flow of the South branch to be 330 cubic feet per second. It was nearly eight weeks more before the drowth was fairly broken, and even then the smaller streams were running in nearly every in- stance. This permanence is due to the numerous springs is- suing from the high, broad, and often forest-covered hills. A seeming exception to this rule is observable in some of the tributaries. A stream of some volume will suddenly disap- pear. Below such a point the bed will show nothing but dry, waterworn stones. Lower down the waters again become visible. An extreme instance is Reed's Creek, which for a mile below its source is too large to be crossed readily with dry feet. Yet it presently dwindles and is a small brook even near its mouth. These disappearing waters pursue an underground course, especially in the presence of limestone strata.
A number of mineral springs exist. These are chiefly blue or white sulphur waters issuing from strata of shale. There is also an occasional chalybeate, or iron spring. Springs of common drinking water are very numerous, and the quality is generally excellent.
With little exception the rocks of Pendleton are limestones, sandstones, and shales. Here will be noticed a thick bed of hard, gray sandstone; there a projecting ledge of blue, wa- ter-worn limestone, or a riverside cliff of gray limestone pre- senting numerous seams. Here will be a black, flaky shale, upon which one may write as on a blackboard, or else a mass of iron ore thickly crowded with the imprints of shellfish. In certain hillsides we see rotten, crumbly layers of brown- ish shale intermingled with thin seams of sandstone or lime- stone of similar color. On a river-bank one may in a few moments gather a dozen stones, no two of which will agree in color or texture. Some of these are of so fine a grain as quickly to bring an edge to a steel blade.
Another fact of ready observation is that the various strata are tilted at all sorts of angles, and at times are nearly ver- tical. Still another fact is that nearly all these rocks are of sedimentary origin. They were built up from the washings of other rocks and were deposited in water. None of them is of volcanic origin, and none is primitive or original like granite or quartz. The sandstones were once sand. The shales were once mud. The blue massive limestone was
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formed in deep water, either by chemical action or from the skeletons of almost microscopic animals. The coarser lime- stone with its shell-casts was formed in shallower water near the shore. The iron ore was formed as iron ore is being formed today. Iron exists in almost every kind of soil or rock. Where it is most plentiful it appears in springs as a reddish oxide, a scum that gradually sinks to the bottom, and In time solidifies into bog iron ore.
But every form of sediment tends to settle on a level. If it falls on too sloping a surface it rolls downward. How then do these strata come to be so crumpled and broken that their very edges are exposed to view ?
To find an answer to this question we are carried back to the time when the only dry land in North America was a mountain ridge lying east of the Alleghanies but preserving the same general direction. Its position is marked by what is known as the "Fall Line" in such rivers as the Potomac and the James. The cities of Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond are on the Fall Line. This primitive mountain was thrust up from the bed of the ocean in the form of a long wrinkle and by an internal force. It was not composed of sedimentary rocks. because there had been no dry land to cause them. Atmospheric agencies began at once to attack this old mountain and in the course of millions of years it has been worn completely down to a base level. Nothing re- mains of it except the beds of granite, gneiss, and other hard primordial rocks which cause the rapids and cascades at Washington and Richmond.
By the persistent wearing away of the lost mountain ridge new land was built up around it. Life had appeared on the globe, and plants and animals in great variety assisted in the work. Layer after layer of gravel, sand, and fine textured mud was laid down in the ocean waters and these were in- terspersed with limy deposits, composed of the shells of minute marine animals. The shells and skeletons of larger animals became entangled in the various strata, and their casts are known to us as fossils. Heat and pressure hardened the sand, mud and marl into firm layers of sandstone, shale, and limestone. The new land crept steadily westward. Beyond the central line of where are now the Alleghanies was an im- mense swamp covered with a jungle of strange vegetation. In this swamp were formed the coal beds of West Virginia.
In time there was a new wrinkling in the earth's crust. There was a steady, upward push, exerted an inconceivable long time, and in this way the Appalachian highland was formed. But this mountain system is itself very old. If it were a young mountain that has not had time to be worn
down very much, we would find a lofty central ridge with short spurs extending outward, as in the case of the Sierra Nevada. But while the Alleghanies are broad they are not lofty. They are furrowed into a complex network of small valleys. Furthermore, the ridges are often interrupted by streams which flow directly across them by means of gaps. For example the New River flows westward across the entire breadth of the Appalachians with the exception of the ridge in which it rises.
We read of the "everlasting hills," yet rivers may be older than hills. When we see a river passing through a water- gap, it is because the upheaval of the mountain has been so very slow that the river has been able to keep its channel open. From the great range that once stood on the Fall Line, rivers flowed westward. Some of these, like the New, were able in part, as the Appalachians arose, to maintain their direction. The waters thrown eastward completed the tearing down of the Fall Line mountain.
Water will wear away soil that is already formed, but its unaided action on flinty sandstone is inconceivable slow. By rolling along sand, pebbles, and boulders it exerts a scouring action that tells in the end. But rocks are more rapidly worn down in other ways. The crumpling of rocks by their up- heaval and the jarring effect of earthquakes fills them with innumerable cracks. Into these water finds its way, freezes, and pries the rocks apart, and extends the loosening. The roots of trees exert a similar influence. The heating of rocks that are turned toward the sun causes a blistering of the sur- face. Mosses and other plants gain a foothold and slowly crumble the exposed surfaces into dust. The soil which in these ways is gathered from the naked rock is added to by the dissolving effect of vegetable acids. Rainwater, charged with these acids widens every crevice it can find in an underlying bed of limestone. Immense caverns are in this way formed. The roof of the cavern falls in places, leaving funnel-shaped depressions on the surface. In these localities surface streams are few, but at a lower level the sunken waters reappear in great springs.
The rivers of Pendleton are quite straight, simply because they cannot be crooked. They flow in troughs lying between the tilted strata. The edges of these strata may often be seen running diagonally across the channel or even in nearly the same direction as the waters. Waterworn stones have ac- cumulated in these troughs and support a coating of soil. In this way the narrow bottoms have been built up. This soil, sometimes three to four feet deep, is quite fine and dark, be-
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cause deposited by overflowing waters and intermixed with vegetable mould.
West of the North Fork Mountain is a belt of limestone two miles broad. Another belt appears on the plateau of the South Fork Mountain. Elsewhere the soil is mainly formed by the weathering of sandstone and shales, especially the latter. The shales of the South Branch valley weather buff and thus impart a yellowish tint to the soil. In the South Fork valley the rocks exposed on the mountain sides are not such as afford a superior soil, and in consequence very little of the upland has been reduced to tillage. In the South Branch valley this is less the case, while in the North Fork valley much of the upland soil is of good quality and it is of this that most of the farms of the valley are found.
The minerals of the county have not been thoroughly pros- pected. There has been traced for a distance of 24 miles along the crest of South Fork Mountain a deposit of red hematite iron ore, which according to a conservative estimate of the state geological survey will yield a supply of 20,000,000 tons of good iron. A sample of this ore took a premium at the World's Fair at St. Louis. Some years ago Henry Dickenson reduced some of the ore at his forge and made therefrom a horseshoe and several other articles. This deposit is the largest in the county, but the brown limonite, found es- pecially in the South Branch valley and North Fork mountain is estimated to be capable of yielding an additional supply of 10,000,000 tons. In view of the enormous consumption of iron and steel in the United States, it is only a question of time when these ores will be needed. The estimated supply would keep three large blast furnaces in operation for 60 years.
The Helderberg limestone, cliffs of which appear along the South Branch, affords good cement and good lime. The white Medina sandstone is a glass sand. Some of the shales when treated by modern machinery will doubtless make ex- cellent brick. Houses of brick are scattered about the county, but brick has been made only as wanted. The rocks of Pendleton are geologically too old to permit the presence of coal of commercial importance, unless in the extreme west. The same fact makes it needless to look for oil or gas unless in the Big Injun Sand, also in the west of the county. The caves contain nitrous earth from which saltpetre has at times been made. With this exception the mineral wealth of Pendleton has never been drawn upon for outside use.
Ever since the advent of the white hunter and trader there have been mysterious legends of lost lead mines in this and adjoining counties. These "mines" have never been redis-
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covered, because they never had any existence. The Indian did not mine metals. Even if he had known of lead, it could have been of no particular use to him until he became ac- quainted with firearms, and this was only a few years before the period of settlement. That the red man then became a miner and possessed the skill to find what no one since has found is too absurd for serious consideration. Furthermore, the usual ores of lead do not fuse under the influence of a common fire.
In the absence of systematic weather records one can speak only in a general way as to the climate of Pendleton. The mean altitude being about 2500 feet, the climate is de- cidedly cooler than eastward on the coast or westward on the Ohio. The annual temperature in the lowest parts of the county is apparently about 52 degrees, varying from 32 de- grees in winter to 71 in summer. The mercury seldom rises into the 90's and a temperature of 22 degrees below zero is the lowest that has been observed. The sea is too remote to yield any appreciable influence, while on the other hand the Alleghany divide shelters the valleys from the storms of the West. There is a large proportion of bright, sunny days. The atmosphere, however, is humid. as is evidenced by the moss occuring in shaded places and by the mugginess of a warm and rainy spell. But these oppressive days are not many. and the summer nights are restful. Tornadoes and destructive high winds are unknown.
With some qualifications Pendleton may be considered healthful. The records of 50 years mention 120 persons who passed their eightieth birthday. Of these, 21 reached or ex- ceeded the age of 90. One man is credited with having at- tained the century mark, and several other persons are alleged to have done so. Aside from constitutional diseases, which are by no means specially common here, the chief ail- ments are of the respiratory and digestive organs. For the former class the humid climate is largely responsible, as it also is for rheumatism. In times of prolonged drowth the drinking water becomes impure and induces disturbances of the digestive tract. Typhoid fever occasionally assumes a severe form.
The river bottoms have a rich and durable soil, capable of bearing large crops of corn, grain, and hay. Much of the upland, especially in the limestone belts, is also productive. Yet the amount of waste or unprofitable land is large. There are many acres of barren shingle in the bends of the larger water-courses. Many more acres are occupied by deep ra- vines, by exposed ledges, and by slopes too steep to reclaim, or too heavily burdened with rock. Adjacent to the rich bot-
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toms are hillsides of black shale too poor for tillage or pas- ture and capable only of sustaining a scattered growth of stunted pines. When these slopes lie to the south the sum- mer sun falls on them with tropic power and blisters the thin layers of shale into four-sided pencils. On one of these exposures the writer found a large patch of cactus. Though foreign to the locality, it was thriving as well as in its native home on the far Western plains.
The cool upland climate with its generally seasonable rains and its heavy dews is highly favorable to forest and meadow. Land once cleared will quickly return to wood if left alone. "Sprouting" a neglected field is a well recognized feature of farm work. In its wild state Pendleton was to all intents and purposes an unbroken forest, although the woods were nearly free of undergrowth. There is mention of savannahs on the bottoms. These were damp openings covered with native grass and with clumps of bushes. Whether the In- dians had enlarged these by fire we do not clearly know. But all open land not in tillage or reverting to wood is cov- ered with pasture grass and does not possess that naked ap- pearance so characteristic of the lowland South. Even with- out this protection the hillsides do not have anything like the same tendency to wash that is so noticeable in the South.
The trees and shrubs of Pendleton are of great variety and are intermixed with many herbs and flowering plants. The following trees have been recognized here : aspen, ash, birch, black gum, box elder, white beech and red beech, ce- dar, both red and white, chestnut, cooperwood, cucumber, dogwood, red and white elm, red, white, and shellbark hick- ory, ironwood, juniper, linden, white, yellow, and honey locust, red maple and sugar maple, mulberry, oak, (chestnut, white, black, red, ground, swamp, spanish, and bastard), pine, (white, yellow, pitch, spruce, hemlock, and water), per- simmon, poplar, (yellow and white), sycamore, sassafras, yel- low and weeping willow, wild cherry and may cherry, water ash, and white and black walnut. The oaks are the domi- nant forest trees. Pines occur frequently, especially along the watercourses and on the dry slate hills. Walnut is of extremely common occurrence.
Among the shrubs are the crabapple, witch-hazel, hazel- nut, rhododendron, sumach, elder, redbud, chinquapin, pussy willow, ninebark, wild rose, bearwood, spicewood, choke cherry, haw, sloe, buckberry, red-drop, dog-rose, and honey- suckle.
Of wild fruits the grape, huckleberry, blackberry, common and mountain raspberry, and teaberry are common.
While Pendleton remained a wilderness, and for sometime
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afterward, it was full of game. The buffalo and the elk soon disappeared. Deer remained numerous a long while, and a single hunter is said to have killed 1700 during his lifetime. But the animal is now nearly extinct. The panther is gone, although a few black bears remain. The wolf, so destructive to sheep and calves, has not been known for nearly 20 years. But the county treasury still pays many bounties on foxes and wild cats, and a few eagles. The other small animals that still linger are the same as are found in almost every corner of the North Atlantic states. Of reptiles, frogs are particularly numerous, and toads, lizards, newts, and several species of non-venomous snakes are common. The rattle- snake and the copperhead are occasionally met, but are less plenty than in former years. The abundance of forest at- tracts the feathered tribe, although the sportsman's shotgun has made the gamebird rare. Yet in spring and summer the woodland is vocal with song. The clear waters of the rivers are tenanted by trout and a variety of other small fish. In- sect life is in evidence, both in number and variety, and in- cludes several of the farmer's enemies. A few mosquitoes are in the woods but they seldom venture into the open. Probably the greatest insect damage was that wrought dur- ing the early 90's by a pest which nearly destroyed the standing pine.
Appalachian America has unusual landscape beauty, and Pendleton enjoys its full share. On a bright day in June there is an inspiration in standing on some elevated point and looking out over a succession of ridges and knobs, all heavily clothed in a vesture of deep, vivid forest green; or in looking down into a valley with its ribbon of shimmering wa- ter, its succession of meadows and tilled fields, and its com- fortable, white-painted farmhouses.
A special feature of scenic interest is the almost vertical stratum of Tuscarora quartzite which forms the core of the East Seneca Ridge the entire length of the county. This rock is of flinty hardness. To this fact is due the very exist- ence of the ridge. The thin seam is like a plank set on edge and banked up on each side with a buttress of earth that slopes away at a sharp angle. It is broken at a number of places by gaps which lead from the North Fork to the lime- stone plateau on the east. These gaps are very narrow. the rock standing out from the hillside like a finger-bone from which the flesh has shrunk away. During unnumbered cen- turies the ledge has been pushing upward. Meanwhile the streams from the North Fork have been sawing notches in it. On the summit of the ridge the seam of rock is little more than discernible, except for instance in the short, knob-
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like section at the Judy gap, where it rises above the curva- ture of the ground some 50 feet, reminding one of repres- entations of the Great Wall of China. At this and also at the Riverton gap, the appearance of the ledge is typical. The sky-line presents a ragged appearance, like the blade of a knife that has been much used in opening tin cans.
Opposite the mouth of the Seneca the seam presents its most massive guise. Here it has been pictured ever since the artist "Porte Crayon" gave it notoriety in a drawing. At this point the ledge cuts obliquely through the end of a mountain spur. Owing to this circumstance, the softer con- stituents of the hill have very largely disappeared, leaving the ledge towering into the air like the crumbling wall of some gigantic castle. In the Miley gap, four miles below, the view is even more striking. Instead of a single massive ledge it here rises in two parallel sheets inclining at an al- most imperceptible angle from a true perpendicular. The sheets are so thin, especially toward the top, that small holes appear in them. The edges facing the ravine are nearly ver- tical, and when the observer is squarely in front of either seam the effect is much as though he were viewing a slender spire rising 600 feet into the sky. To view these cliffs is worth a special trip, and it is to be regretted that the nar- rowness of the ravine forbids an effective photograph.
At any gap the Seneca ledge presents a variety of color. Brown, drab, greenish, and blackish tints appear on the gray background, giving place to an ocherish hue wherever a mass has lately fallen. Deep fissures are to be seen, but the lines of cleavage are horizontal as well as vertical. Large masses fall from the sides as well as the top, causing a deep accumulation of brick-shaped fragments. An occasional tree, usually a pine, clings to the side of the cliff and manages to flourish.
In other mountains of the county ledges of the same na- ture occur, as in the Smith Creek gap between Ruleman and Cassell Mountain, on the South Branch at the entrance to the Smokehole, and at the McCoy mill, but they never present the imposing scenery of the East Seneca Ridge
Another striking scenic feature is tne crest of North Fork Mountain when viewed from the west. Immediately below the sky-line is an apparently vertical wall, 100 to 200 feet high, except in the occasional depressions, where it becomes practicable to cross. This precipice may be followed for many miles, but it disappears at each border of the county. It is the exposed edge of the Oriskany sandstone, which con- stitutes the upper eastern slope of North Fork Mountain, where the covering of broken rock is so heavy as to make
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the slope of no value save for pasturage and forestry. Dur- ing the severely cold weather of February, 1899, a huge mass of rock fell out of the precipice above the house of E. B. Helmick and plowed a broad path westward down the moun- tain side. It happened just before dawn and was thought to be an earthquake.
In the limestone belt above the East Seneca Ridge are many sink-holes. Some of these have yawning mouths at the bottom, as in the case of the "hell-hole" near the Cave schoolhouse. Stones thrown in are heard to s.rike from point to point until the sound grows faint. The caverns be- low may extend several miles but have never been explored.
Pendleton is endowed with a happy combination of farm- ing, grazing, and forestral resources; with a healthful cli- mate and an abundant supply of clear, wholesome water; with mineral deposits of much consequence, and mineral springs of hygienic value; and finally with features of scenic interest that in time will develop financial importance.
It remains for us to consider the suitability of the region to the people who came to settle it. Almost without excep- tion these people were from Germany and the British Isles. A land without turf was in their eyes a desert. The climate of this upland is of much the same quality and temper- ature as that of the ancestral home. There was hardly any acclimating to be undergone. There was no new method of farming to learn and they could grow the same crops as in Europe. That the foreign stocks have flourished abundantly well in the new home is not open to question.
The influence of geographic conditions on the history of the county will manifest itself from time to time in the fol- lowing pages.
CHAPTER II
Before the White Man Came
When the Valley of Virginia became known to the white people it was an almost uninhabited land. On the South Branch of the Potomac was a clan of the Shawnees, only about 150 strong. In Berkeley county were a few of the Tusca- roras. On the Susquehanna. a hundred miles to the north- east, was the Mingo tribe. Much farther to the south were the Catawbas, dwelling on the river in North Carolina which bears their name. Yet the long intervening distance did not keep these red men from warring upon one another. They made of the valley a military highway, their trails taking advantage of its leading watercourses. The weak tribe of the Senedos, living near the forks of the Shenandoah, had lately been crushed between these upper and nether mill- stones. Westward of the Alleghanies was an unoccupied forest reaching to the very banks of the Ohio.
When America was discovered, the Indian population of what is now the United States is supposed to have been less than 400.000. This would yield a ratio of only 8,000 for the two Virginias. The whole Shawnee tribe, which committed so much havoc for half a century, counted only a thousand souls. To the red man in 1725 the valley of the Shenandoah and the intricate hills of West Virginia were little else than one immense game preserve. Yet the lowlands of the Shen- andoah, a region which takes naturally to a forest growth, were then an open prairie, the result of burning the grass at the end of each hunting season. The "Indian old field" in Hardy was another of these prairies.
The word Shawanogi means "Southerners." In the mouth of the white man the word became Shawanoes, or Shawnees. These Indians were of Algonquin stock and therefore related to the tribes of New England and the Middle States. They had pushed southward from their early home in the far North, until turned back by the Catawbas and other tribes in the South Atlantic region. Two centuries ago they claim- ed ownership of the valleys of Pendleton. In mental attri- butes and general ability, the Shawnees stood above the average of the Indian race. In the person of Tecumseh they gave the world one of the ablest Indians known to history. They could very often converse in several tongues, and be- fore they left the South Branch they could generally talk
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