USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 39
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The Meaning of History
The course which history assumes at any given time is not governed by chance. It is not chance that rules the universe. History is a thing of life and not a skeleton of dry bones.
The people of today are the makers of the history of today. The people of any preceding age have had the same interest in life that we ourselves possess. They moved in response to the forces of their own time and worked out a chapter in the history of the past, just as we ourselves are preparing a chapter in the history of the future. Since humun nature is fundamentally the same in all times and in all places, their thoughts ran along the same general lines as our own thoughts. Sometimes they succeeded better than we are doing, and sometimes they did not do so well. No age enjoys a monopoly of all wisdom.
The stream of history is the result of a blending of three forces. One force works through the laws of physiography, giving history a local color corresponding to the physical as- pects of each given region. The indoor civilization of bleak Iceland is not the outdoor civilization of torrid India. The
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civilization of showery Japan is not the civilization of rain- less Egypt.
The second force lies in man himself. Every person is a unit in some particular nation, after much the same manner as each leaf of a tree is a part of that tree. And as the leaves are never precisely alike, so neither are any two indi- viduals ever precisely alike. A world with all its inhabitants of one uniform type would not be worth living in. We give recognition to this fact of individual divergence from the average type whenever we say of a given person that he is "odd" or "queer." Nevertheless the degrees of divergence are not so broad that a community fails to exhibit a marked concert of action. Otherwise it could not hold together. Mankind in the mass thus unites in a common voice. This voice is the second force of which we are speaking. We may call it the Folk-Soul. For instance, it often declares in favor of experienced teachers for its public school. People call this general opinion "public sentiment." Public sentiment is unwritten law, and it is the only enduring source of writ- ten laws and other public regulations.
Nature-external nature-is the factor in history below man. Another factor, as we have seen, is man himself. There is still a third factor, and it is above man. We may call this third force the World-Spirit. It is nothing less than the voice of the Ruler of the Universe, working upon the nations of the earth according to his own purpose. People recognize its existence whenever they use the expression, "spirit of the times." They somehow feel that it is a power from without which works through man yet is independent of man. They feel its presence, but they cannot satisfacto- rily trace the source to any particular member of the com- munity.
The nation resisting the spirit of the times is in a losing fight. The triumph of its banner would be a setback to the broader interests of civilization. The downfall of the ban- ner may not at the time seem a beneficent act to the people arrayed beneath it. Later on it is found that substantial good is springing out of what at the first seemed little else than evil. A good illustration is found in the recent war in South Africa. A handful of farming people were arrayed against the might of the British Empire. It took more sol- diers to overcome their resistance than there were men, women, and children of the white race in the two Dutch re- publics. Their long and gallant defense called out the sym- pathy of the world. In the conduct of the war England reaped neither honor nor glory. The crusade was to all out- ward appearances inspired by commercial greed and ambi-
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tion. Cecil Rhodes, the millionaire who seemed to inspire the attack was neither admired nor applauded. Yet within the few years that have since rolled away the two little nations have become component states of a great federal republic. The union of the white colonies of South Africa was better for them all. The easy-going, conservative Boers were devoted to their pastoral life, yet they were resisting the spirit of the times and went down before it. Sordid, selfish commercialism, a thing unlovely in itself, was never- theless the agency through which a bundle of petty states was welded into a strong and more efficient nation; a self- governing and federal republic notwithstanding it is a ward of monarchical England.
In the workings of public sentiment we find a good illus- tration of the difference between the public leader and the crank reformer. The crowd listens to the public leader, be- cause he is giving expression to the thoughts of his listeners and giving these thoughts a working edge. Yet his opponents make him a scapegoat. They overlook the fact that he is not speaking for himself alone and is powerless without the willing support of his adherents. Men always await the ap- pearance of a leader and look up to him when they have found him, because of the instinct that an army with a real leader is far more effective than a leaderless mob. On the contrary the crank reformer digs out of his own fancy a scheme for social betterment. The scheme falls flat, except with men of his own kind, because it has no power to awake a respon- sive chord in the minds of his normal fellow-beings. The one person is in touch with the people he lives among and the other is not. People therefore call the one man "prac- tical" and the other "mpractical."
The mission of history is to enable the men of the hour to avoid the errors of their forefathers and to correct the other errors they are about to fall into. It asserts the duty of making at least a little advance in the march of a genuine civ- ilization. The ways in which this end may be achieved are almost beyond counting. In view of what has taken place during the lifetime of our older people, we of this opening decade of the twentieth century may think we are already near the top of the pinnacle of achievement. Yet there are many more steps between us and the actual summit. All things which dazzle the eye are not pure gold.
Local history conveys an insufficient message when it stops short with telling us that a certain settler came from a cer- tain place a century ago, settled a certain farm, and reared a family of seven sons and seven daughters. Those of the posterity of the pioneer who are at all able to use their
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thinking powers, and have the will and desire to look beyond the family fireside, will wish to know their ancestor as a person of flesh and blood and not as the unsubstantial embodiment of a few air-dry facts. They will wish to know how the pioneer toiled, how he clothed and housed himself, what opinions he held, what sort of neighborhood he lived in, and the general peculiarities of the period in which he lived. If they now reflect on what they learn they become broader-minded citizens.
The narrow wave-circles set in motion by a pebble tossed into a pool grow constantly wider. In like manner the field of local history broadens into that of the nation itself. A patriotic feeling of a substantial sort does not discover a barbed wire fence in the border-line of the county or in the border-line of the state. The county helps to interpret the nation and the nation helps to interpret the county. The person who spells country without an R is behind the times.
America an Old World
A visitor to our Atlantic seaboard ten or even five centuries before the coming of early European navigators would not have found the Indian tribes living just where they were in 1607. Nation had been pushing against nation in America the same as anywhere else. Solitudes had become peopled, and peo- pled districts had again become solitudes. For instance there is at Moundsville, W. Va., an artificial hill an acre in extent and originally 75 feet high. When the white settlers were exploring this region, this great mound lay hidden in a dense forest and was discovered only by accident. It is not to be supposed that it was built in a jungle, but rather in a large cleared space. Again, the settlers of the Shenandoah Valley found therein a prairie a half million acres in extent. This open tract was kept in existence only by annual burnings. But when was so large an opening created ? It is easy to say this prairie was the result of a gradual process, and for the purpose of attracting the deer and the buffalo. But why was not a large part of the Atlantic slope thus cleared of wood ?
People have been asking where the Indian came from, and how long he has been here in America. A convincing answer to these questions has never yet been forthcoming. The one point not open to argument is that he has lived on this con- tinent a length of time that makes the voyage of Columbus seem as but an affair of yesterday. The first dry land to rise above the universal ocean in geologic time was in the east of North America. The burden of proof is on the claim that the
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human race is older in the Eastern Continent than in the Western. As a practical question we may safely say that mankind has dwelt here as long as there. *
Books have been written to exploit some rather wild and fantastic views respecting ancient America. These views are scarcely more startling than some of the conclusions of recent investigation. It used to be assumed that our conti- nent was peopled by way of the narrow Bering strait. That it was just as easy for people to cross in the contrary direc- tion was not taken into account. But that the movement of population has been from America to Asia, and not from Asia to America, is the opinion based on a long and careful in- vestigating tour of scientific observers.
Civilization has nowhere developed without agriculture, and agriculture is exceedingly conservative. Tillage of the soil began so very long ago that within strictly historic times there is no record of the domesticating of any important food plant. Of such of these plants as have become seedless through the effect of long continued cultivation, every one with the doubtful exception of the breadfruit tree-a plant related to the osage orange-is native to America. Further- more, the domesticated plants of this continent are more numerous than those of the other hemisphere. Some of these have starchy roots from which meal may be made. Even in the case of Indian corn the natives obtained meal by grating, in the same way as with a raw edible root.
The natives of the Eastern hemisphere were the first to domesticate the horse, the ox, and the sheep. But the na- tives of the Western were the first to lay the real foundations of agriculture. It was in tropic America that the first primitive civilization could arise. When this early and crude culture gained efficiency it produced the cities whose remark- able ruins are found in Yucatan and Peru. There is proof that it crossed the Pacific, notwithstanding the immense breadth of that ocean. The cocoanut supplies one of the evidences. The palm which yields this nut grows wild in tropical America, but nowhere else. Though found in all other warm coast lands, it is there a domesticated tree, as incapable as the wheat plant of shifting for itself any length of time. It used to be thought this tree became scattered over the torrid zone through the floating of the nuts in the
Some may imagine this to be contrary to what is told in the Bible But Moses lived in a comparatively civilized age. In the book of Genesis he is describing the world as it was known to him. Asfor the Garden of Eden the location of it is involved in extreme uncertainty.
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ocean currents. But the long soaking in sea water destroys the germinating power of the nuts.
When this wave of primitive civilization reached the Per- sian gulf, as there is in fact tradition that it did, it created among the people of that region a necessity for new food plants. They domesticated wheat and other cereals, and with the great help afforded by their tamed animals they were enabled to improve on what they received. Further advance was made by utilizing bronze and then iron. Thus arose the Chaldean civilization, the earliest with which his- tory is on anything like familiar terms. The progress of still more improved types was toward the west, and when the ships of Columbus arrived at the West Indies, civilization had completed its circuit of the globe.
The gradual crossing of the Pacific in prehistoric times is not so preposterous as it may at first sight appear. The Polynesians of the eighteenth century were a rude people and had neither chart nor compass. Yet they are known to have made roundtrip voyages as long as that of Columbus, himself. As for the Atlantic, that ocean is only 1500 miles wide near its center. It is hardly to be supposed that sixteen of the Greek and Roman writers would speak of land in the west which no one had ever seen. One of these writers, a very practical man, said that a few days sail with a fair wind at one's back would carry a ship to the hidden continent. He declared that future generations would wonder why they themselves did not make the effort. It was only supersti- tion that made the mariners of Southern Europe afraid of the Atlantic. As soon as the way was once shown, they be- gan coming in vessels so small and frail that a modern sailor would be almost afraid of them.
As the early civilization journeyed around the earth, it scattered along its pathway a common store of folklore tales, curious myths, and the legend of an ocean encompassing the globe. Otherwise, the problems relating to the dawn of his- tory yield to no satisfactory explanation.
Our continent is a "new world" only in a very limited sense. It has been too much the habit to measure all things American by a European yardstick, and to assume an essen- tial superiority in things European. Even in its smaller size there is scarcely any inferiority in America. Mile for mile the Western continent is more productive than the Eastern. As for the loose statement that the European stock degen- erates in America, it has been shown by competent authority to be without foundation in fact. The hospital records of the war of 1861 showed that the American soldier had more
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vitality and endurance than the European and recovered more readily from wounds.
The United States has the most fortunate position for a great nation of any country on earth. If now the past of the American continent has been far less a blank page than we have been taught to suppose, a better knowledge of the matter should be a sound reason for a still greater pride in our country.
We close this paper with a paragraph by a recent investi- gator. His words apply to an exceedingly remote past. They may sound extravagant, and possibly the enthusiasm of the writer has carried him a little too far. But his seem- ing extravagance in statement is because of our natural sur- prise in finding open to our view an unsuspected chapter of early history.
"From this treasure house (the ruins of Yucatan) comes the key to a thousand problems that have vexed scholars and tormented theologians, and a knowledge of astronomy and mathematics that has dictated the chronologies and cosmog- onies of Europe. These people had a regular calendar; they had measured the earth; there is a strong presumption that they had the mariner's compass; that they were great navi- gators and merchants; they gave us an alphabet from which our own has come; they preceded England as the mistress of the seas; they made our land the granary of the world while Egypt was savage and the ancestors of our (European) race had neither clothes, weapons, nor habitations."
The Men Who Settled the Thirteen Colonies
The founders of the British-American colonies were of the Germanic and Celtic branches of the European race. The former includes the English, the Lowland Scotch, the Dutch, the Scandinavians, the Germans, and the German Swiss. The latter includes the French, the native Irish, the Highland Scotch, and the Welch. The former branch is more patient, persistent, orderly and cool-blooded. The latter branch is more turbulent, but of warmer, keener, and more artistic sensibilities.
Ten centuries before America was known, the ancestors of the English and the Lowland Scotch were dwelling on the eastern shore of the North Sea. They were a people rude and warlike, and there was in fact some similarity between their mode of life and that of the Indian. They lived in villages, each village governing itself and being surrounded by woodland and meadow held in common. These fierce heathens set a high value on civil liberty, and they had the
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German virtues of simplicity, sincerity, truthfulness, and regard for women.
They sailed in their pirate ships to the British Isles, where they burned, plundered, and massacred, driving what few they spared of the native Celts into the mountains of Wales and Scotland. They at length colonized that part of Ireland which lies around Dublin. These later immigrants, who may be called the Saxon Irish, mingled very little with the Celtic Irish, yet they grew away from the English, just as the English at once proceeded to grow away from the Germans.
In England the invaders became known as the English people. They embraced Christianity, grew more civilized and less warlike, and in time lost some of their early freedom through the encroachments of the kings and the nobility. After a few centuries they were harried by Scandinavian pirates, just as they in turn had harried the Britons. They put into their prayer-book the petition; "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us." Many of these sea- rovers settled in the country, and being closely akin to the English the two peoples soon became one. Another portion of the Northmen settled on the shore of France, adopted the French language and civilization, and became known as Normans. They were intellectual, adventurous, domineering, and had a genius for government. In the eleventh century they conquered and ruled England, but in two or three cen- turies they had become blended with the English.
Because of this intermixture of stocks and of isolation on an island, the Englishman acquired a type of his own. He is earnest, brave, dignified, and strong-willed. He is also in- dustrious, enterprising, persistent, and a lover of order. His piratical ancestry makes him overbearing toward those he can bully, and rather grasping in matters of trade or the acquisition of land.
The earlier inhabitants they crowded out maintained a foot- hold in the mountains of Wales and thus became known as the Welch. After sometime they lost their independence but not their liberties, and became industrious and prosperous. The Highland Scotch were a cluster of disorderly clans, not fond of steady work, and for a long while much given to fighting and the stealing of cattle. Ireland was for five cen- turies the most enlightened country of the British Isles. Her schools were thronged with students, her scholars were held in high esteem, and her missionaries were active and zealous. But the religious difference between the Irish and their English conquerors has since given the fair island an unhappy history.
The French are a highly gifted people and the most artistic
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of the Europeans. Their influence on the civilization of Europe has been profound. Toward the close of the seven- teenth century a bigoted king undertook to crush out all dif- ference in religious belief. A half million of the French Protestants found a refuge in England and Prussia. They were the most progressive and intellectual of the French people and were the mainstay of French industry and commerce. Many of these Huguenots, as they were called, came to America, especially to New England and South Carolina. They were not clannish, and they rapidly fused with the Eng- lish colonists. The fusion of the two elements has gone far to cause the American to differ from the Englishman. The Huguenot was less austere in disposition, more active in mind, more intense in his affections, more chivalrous to woman, more flexible and hospitable to men and ideas, and more keen and enterprising in matters of business.
In the seventeenth century Holland was the first commer- cial country in Europe. Though rivals of the English in commerce and industry, the Dutch are a kindred people, and have been in full sympathy with them in religious belief. They have also been progressive in religious and political matters.
Germany was at this time a very loose collection of despotic monarchies. It was repeatedly devastated by civil and re- ligious wars. At the command of the same bigot who drove the Huguenots from France, the Palatine province of Ger- many was desolated by his soldiers as though by a horde of savages. William Penn invited these homeless people to Pennsylvania, and thus began the German immigration to America. The earlier influx from the Fatherland was almost wholly from the valley of the Rhine, including Switzerland.
There are two very special reasons which account for colonial immigration to America. One of these is the feudal structure of society in practically all the countries that sent immigrants across the Atlantic. Right here, a word of explanation is in order. The Romans had a genius for government, and so long as their immense empire endured their armies preserved the peace of the then civilized world. But after that empire went to pieces the lawlessness of Europe became intolerable. The masses of the people had no other alternative than to put themselves under the protection of strong military lead- ers. These leaders were the feudal nobility of the Middle Ages. They were proud and haughty men, living up to the doctrine that might makes right. They dwelt in private fortresses and were supported by the toil of the men who looked to them for protection. They held labor in contempt, and regarded the toiler-the peasants-as having scarcely
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any rights that it was necessary for them to respect. To- ward this lower class there was no thought of social equality or intermarriage. Until the seventeenth century a promi- nent phase of European history has been the very slow but persistent rise of the commercial and laboring people. Even yet the results have been meager. In the Western Conti- nent, whither the artificial institution of nobility had not been transplanted, it was discerned that opportunity was freer and broader. It seemed an attractive home to the peo- ple whose thoughts were thus voiced by Robert Burns :
"If I'm designed yon lordling's slave, By nature's laws designed, Why was an independent thought E'er planted in my mind ?"
The one reason was therefore industrial and economic. The other reason was religious intolerance. It was then held by all Europe that there should be only one form of the Christian Church. Even in the British Isles any sect that happened to be in power persecuted the sects out of power with a bigotry and cruelty almost inconceivable to the thought of the present century. Each sect wanted freedom, but only for itself. The idea of general toleration was thought entirely inconsistent with the welfare of society. The flower of religious freedom had to bud before it could blossom. The march toward the religious emancipation that finally came led irresistibly to political and social emancipa- tion.
It was not pressure of population that led Europeans to America. Europe was not thickly peopled. Yet neither was there a strong desire to settle a distant wilderness full of savages. America was a safety-valve to Europe. It was a land where parties and sects of unbending opinions could get beyond elbow touch with each other. It was a land where the liberalizing of social institutions could go forward more rapidly than in the Eastern World. The people of the Brit- ish Isles led in this movement, because their government was less despotic than those of Continental Europe, and the less able to crush utterly the stubborn and virile sects that stood like a wall for what they believed to be their rights.
Appalachian America and the American Highlander
Like an island between the Atlantic coast plain and the almost interminable levels of the Mississippi basin rises the "Endless Mountain", as the Indians called the Appalachian uplift. In climate, in scenic beauty, and in great and varied resources it is one of the fairest sections of America. Yet
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to the pioneer of the eighteenth century it was a formidable barrier. Beyond the Blue Ridge, its eastward rampart, it was found that range succeeded range until the aggregate of parallel ridges and intervening valleys covered a breadth of 200 miles. In every direction was the dense primeval forest. The gorges were filled with almost impenetrable thickets of rhododendron. The valleys were narrow, and the streams were beset with rocks and rapids. The gaps through the ridges were found not to lie opposite one another, but to occur like the joints in a brick wall, thus adding greatly to the practicable distance across the mountain belt.
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