USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 4
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We first consider the English element, because it was the first to colonize Virginia. Pendleton being a part of Virginia, it was settled in accordance with English-American law and usage, and some of the Virginians fell in with the tide of immigration.
The Virginians east of the Blue Ridge were of three types; the large planters, the small planters, and the poorer whites. The large planter was found chiefly in the tidewater country. He was dictatorial, but generous, courteous, honorable, and high-minded. His high sense of family pride gave him a contempt for baseness, though it also gave him a contempt for manual labor. He was fond of outdoor sports, of fine horses, handsome furniture and elegant table ware. He kept open house and was open-handed. He was public-spir- ited, jealous of his rights, and not slow to assert them. He had no use for towns and villages, and there was nothing to be seen at a county seat except a courthouse and a few other buildings. He held his neighbors at a distance by owning a large estate, and building his large house in the center. He was looked up to by the rest of the community, and in mat- ters of church, politics or society his authority was nearly supreme. His only intimate associates were the other plant- ers of the same class. He owned many slaves and grew to- bacco for the European market. He considered Virginia in his own keeping and he made and administered the laws. He governed well, though always in a conservative manner.
We have described the large planter at some length, for though the rugged hills of Pendleton did not appeal to him as a residence, it was his hand that had shaped the Virginia of 1748.
The small planters were much more numerous, and they gave complexion to the upland district toward the Blue Ridge. Sometimes they owned a few slaves, but very often they had none at all. In their ranks were the doctors, tradesmen, tavern-keepers, and other people of miscellaneous vocations.
The third class was considered as far below the small planter. As to origin it was either criminal or unfortunate. In large part it sprang from the 120,000 convicts who were hustled off to America, and especially to Virginia, between the dates 1650 and 1775. The Revolution causing this very undesirable immigration to cease, the British government
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then began sending its riffraff to Australia. In America these people were sold into servitude to the planters at $50 to $100 apiece during the continuance of sentence. Some be- came fair or even good citizens, but often they remained constitutionally worthless, always lazy, and often trouble- some.
The other section of the poorer whites were the redemp- tioners. These had seldom a criminal record. They were persons bound out to servitude a term of years in return for the cost of passage. Some entered into this condition voluntarily, while others were forced into it, oftentimes by kidnapping. Such persons were often poor debtors and other derelicts, sent here to be out of sight and out of mind. To a far greater extent than in the case of the convict, the re- demptioner on regaining his liberty became a useful citizen. As for the ne'er-do-well, whether convict or redemptioner, he gravitated to the sandhill regions or to the mountain coves of the Blue Ridge, there to lead a shiftless existence only a few removes above that of the savage.
The supremacy of the planter aristocracy was not alto- gether unchallenged, especially in the part of the colony now known as Middle Virginia. Bacon's rebellion of 1676 was an armed protest of the small planters of that section against the policy of the governing class. Near half a century later Governor Spottswood administered this aristocratic rebuke to the democratic leanings of the assertive small planters : "The inclinations of the country are rendered mysterious by a new and unaccountable humor, which hath obtained in several counties, of excluding gentlemen from being bur- gesses, and choosing only persons of mean figure and char- acter."
The English element in Pendleton, which there is no reason to suppose was derived wholly from the older Vir- ginia, seems chiefly representative of the small planter class.
Among the earlier pioneers of Pendleton, the Scotch-Irish element was numerously represented. These people entered by way of Pennsylvania, and except in matters of local ad- ministration or legal usage did not come into much contact with the influence of the large planter class. The same re- mark may be made of the Germans, who also came wholly from Pennsylvania, excepting a few that drifted over the Blue Ridge from the German colonies planted in Spottsyl- vania and adjacent counties to the west.
CHAPTER IV
Period of Discovery and Exploration
In 1716 Virginia had been a colony 109 years. There were 24 counties and nearly 100,000 people. The tidewater sec- tion was quite well peopled, the upland section very sparsely. But the country west of the Blue Ridge, less than 200 miles from the capital by trail, remained almost entirely unknown. It was believed to be a dismal region that people would do well to keep out of. It is true that John Lederer and a very few other persons had ventured into this region and brought back a few items of information. But these ex- plorers were obscure men. In those days of no telegraphs and few newspapers, it took a person of prestige to make a discovery bear fruit.
In the year mentioned Alexander Spottswood was gov- ernor of Virginia. Being a man of enterprise he thought it high time to learn the truth regarding the land beyond the mountains. Believing the Greet Lakes nearer than they really are, he officially recommended that settlements be es- tablished on those lakes and that a line of forts be built to preserve a communication between them and the Virginia coast.
Spottswood left the capital with a mounted party of 50 persons, chiefly gay "gentlemen," and after entering a road- less, almost unpeopled district, the cavalcade crossed the Blue Ridge at Swift Run gap near Elkton. They pushed forward to the west bank of the North Fork of the Shenan- doah, which was named the Euphrates. Here they ban- quetted on the luxuries they had brought along, and then began their return. They were absent eight weeks, during which time they traveled 440 miles.
Before the disbanding, Spottswood proclaimed a new order of chivalry, "the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," having as its motto, "sic jurat transcendere montes." A free trans- lation of this Latin phrase is "So let it be a joy to pass over the mountains." *
Spottswood and his companions were highly pleased with what they saw. Instead of an uninviting region peopled
. Other authorities put it, "sic jurat transcendere montes," mean- ing, "thus he swears to cross the mountains".
with frightful beasts, they beheld a broad, grassy plain with a more fertile soil than that of the settled region. There were no woods to be cleared away, except on the mountains, and there were no Indians. The valley needed only people to make it the garden of Virginia.
As Columbus was not the first European to cross the At- lantic, but nevertheless the first to make the American con- tinent definitely known to the Eastern, so was Spottswood the first white man to make the Valley of Virginia a known country. The county of Spottsylvania-"Spotts-Wood"- was set off in 1720 and named in his honor. Its western boundary was the Shenandoah river. In the state capitol at Richmond may be seen his portrait in oil, representing a red-coated gentleman with smooth face, powdered wig, and ample neckcloth.
The published reports drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic to the new land of promise. Hunters, traders, and prospectors were very soon exploring the region. In only eleven years the Calfpasture was known by name, and Robert and William Lewis were heading a movement to se- cure 50,000 acres near the head of that stream and people the tract with fifty families. This is somewhat singular in view of the circumstance that the more inviting lowlands of Rockingham and Augusta were not yet colonized.
In 1726 Morgan ap Morgan became the first actual settler in the Shenandoah. Other men were soon coming, and by 1734 there were forty families in the vicinity of Winchester. The lower section of the Valley excepting the counties of Clarke and Warren, was occupied by Germans, and the upper section around Staunton filled with Scotch-Irish. Both classes of immigrants came from Pennsylvania. That colony was receiving the heaviest inflow from Europe. The district toward the coast being occupied, these people had to press inland. It was not far to the South Mountain, and just be- yond lay the broad Cumberland valley, affording a natural highway into Virginia. The Germans were particularly at- tracted to this direction because of race prejudice in Pennsyl- vania and government neglect. Land was also cheaper in Virginia.
Until 1720 there was no county organization west of the Blue Ridge. Orange was taken from Spottsylvania in 1704 and made to include all the territory beyond the mountains. Forty years later the latter region was divided into the dis- tricts of Augusta and Frederick, named for two members of the English royal family. These districts were to become coun- ties as soon as there were enough people in them to justify the step. In 1742 there were already 2,500 people in the district
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of Augusta. Wolves were so troublesome that the settlers petitioned the court of Orange to levy a tax so that a bounty might be paid for wolf scalps. Orange accordingly levied a tax of 33 cents per capita on the settlers in Augusta and ap- pointed a trustee to collect the same. The continued immi- gration probably held back but little in consequence of a small war with the Delaware Indians in 1743-4, made urgent the need of a county organization, the courthouse of Orange being about 70 miles from Staunton. So the first court of Augusta began its opening session December 9, 1745.
Events were meanwhile taking place in the north that had a direct bearing on the settlement of Pendleton. Pursuant to his practice of being liberal with land that did not especi- ally belong to him, King Charles II in 1681 gave a large grant in the Northern Neck to Lord Hopton, Earl St. Albans, Lord Culpeper, Lord Berkeley, Sir William Norton, Sir Dud- ley Wyatt, and Thomas Culpeper. This grant extended west of the Blue Ridge, but as there had been no exploration in that quarter, the boundaries were vague. The other grantees sold their interests to Lord Culpeper, whose daugh- ter married Thomas, fifth Lord Fairfax. The succeeding Lord Fairfax thus became sole owner of the grant.
Two Englishmen, John Howard and his son, visited the South Branch, crossed the Alleghanies, and went down the Ohio and Mississippi. They were captured by the French and taken to Europe where they were released. Lord Fair- fax met the two explorers, heard their glowing account of the South Branch, and saw a prospect of lining his pockets with coin. He proceeded to see about the surveying and settling of his domain of 2,540 square miles, or 1,625,600 acres. To determine his south boundary, three commission- ers were appointed by himself and three by the crown. They decided on a line connecting the source of the North Branch of the Potomac with the source of Conway river in Fauquier. The survey of the boundary was begun at the eastern end in 1736 and it reached the Fairfax stone ten years later. The new line became the boundary between the counties of Frederick and Augusta. It crossed the pres- ent counties of Hardy and Grant near their center.
Being of thrifty inclination, Fairfax began issuing 99 year leases to tenants at the rate of $3.33 for each hundred acres. When he sold a parcel outright, he exacted for each hundred acres $3.33 in "composition money" and an annual quit rent of 33 cents. But the frontiersman did not relish this English practice in a new country. He wanted land in his own name, and so he pushed higher up the Shenandoah and South Branch valleys.
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So far as definitely known the first white man to visit Pendleton was John Vanmeter, a Dutch trader from New York. He accompanied a band of Delawares on a raid against the Catawbas. Near Franklin, perhaps near the mouth of the Thorn, they met the enemy, got whipped, and concluded not to go farther. On his return Vanmeter told his sons that the lands on the South Branch were the best he had ever seen. He particularly described the bottoms just above the Trough, in what is now Hampshire. His advice was taken, and and a tract of 40,000 acres located by war- rant.
Four men, Coburn, Howard, Walker, and Rutledge, came into the South Branch about 1735, but took no titles and ran against the Fairfax claim. Isaac Vanmeter and Peter Casey arrived shortly afterward, as did also two men by the names of Pancake and Foreman. The tide of immigration became more rapid. When Washington was in the valley in 1748, surveying for Fairfax, he found 200 people located along his course. Many of these were newly arrived Germans, and their antics, probably misunderstood by the young surveyor, did not give him a favorable opinion of their intelligence. Always a good judge of land, Washington prospected on his own account, and mentions going up the valley as far as the home of a certain horse jockey. He puts the distance from the mouth of the river at 70 miles, but Hu Maxwell thinks there is an over-estimate of 10 miles. The airline dis- tance to the Pendleton border being not quite 60 miles and the river nearly straight in its general course, it thus appears that practically the whole distance was settled. The earliest patents in this region seem to have been issued in 1747. A large number bear the date 1749.
By the year 1747 two streams of immigration had touched the border of Pendleton. The stronger one was moving up the valley of the South Branch and was composed largely of Germans. The minor one, the Scotch-Irish, was pushing out- ward from Staunton, and was occupying the headwaters of the James.
But already the triple valleys of Pendleton had been visited by hunters and prospectors, and the features of the region had become known. It is probable that names had been given to some of the minor streams. One of the hunters, whose name is said to have been Burner, built himself a cabin about 1745. The site is a half mile below Brandywine, on the left bank of the river, and near the beginning of a long, eastward bend. From almost at his very door his huntsman's eye was at times gladdened by seeing perhaps
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fifty deer either drinking from the stream or plunging in their heads up to their ears in search of moss. After living here a few years he went up the valley to the vicinity of Doe Hill. He seems to have lived alone, and it is obvious that such occupation is by its very nature self-limited. But so far as we know, Abraham Burner was the first white man to build a hut and establish a home in Pendleton county. *
# In this book Pendleton and its adjacent counties and the State of West Virginia are ordinarily spoken of as though always having the same boundaries as at present. This is done for the sake of brevity, and to avoid the repeated use of the explanatory words that would other- wise be necessary. No injustice is thus done to the spirit of historic fact. When the qualifying words are deemed necessary, they are ac- cordingly given.
SUMMIT OF SPRUCE KNOB .- Phot'd by Ray Dolly. The highest ground in West Virginia; 4860 feet above sea level.
CHAPTER V
The Beginning of Settlement
The monopolizing of public land in our time, with its fraud- ulent entries, its bribery of officers of trust, and its disre- gard of both public and private right, is at once a disgusting spectacle of greed and a scandal to civilization. The earlier methods may not always have been so high-handed as in this age of gilded opportunity, but the underlying motive is al- ways the same. It is that of locking out the public from the bounty of nature, and then charging an admittance fee. When the law permits the individual to levy on the public a tax that benefits only himself, the state becomes a direct partner in the injustice.
The spirit of the eighteenth century was aristocratic. The colonial government of Virginia had not risen above the idea that the public domain should be a perquisite to the few. The governor and his council-the state senate of that day- would issue an order in favor of "John Smith, gentleman," permitting that gentleman to select from the public lands 20,000 acres, or perhaps 100,000. Sometimes the grantee acted alone, and sometimes with associates. The tract was probably not selected in a single body, but in a considerable number of choice parcels, the surrounding culls being left on the hands of the state.
If saturated with old English ideas to the exclusion of the freer spirit of America, the grantee acted the part of Lord Fairfax and sought to make himself a feudal baron sur- rounded with a population of tenants, so that he and his might be supported by a tax on their industry. If he some- what Americanized he sold his holdings to actual settlers and not always at an excessive price. A word in fact may be said in behalf of the colonial land-grabber. By advertising his lands he could facilitate the sale of the public domain. Yet even this excuse is not very substantial. The intelli- gent homeseeker was capable of acting for himself, and a price no more than nominal might still be a burden to him.
In 1746 and 1747, Robert Green of Culpeper, entered a number of tracts in Pendleton by virtue of an order of council. With him were associated in a considerable degree James Wood and William Russell, the former of Frederick county. No other surveys are on record prior to 1753. The selections of these men were almost wholly in the middle and
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lower parts of the South Branch and South Fork valleys, where the bottoms are broadest. They located nineteen parcels of land aggregating 15.748 acres. A few of these surveys extended into the present county of Grant, or were wholly beyond the present boundary line. The survey of 2643 acres at Fort Seybert was more than six miles in length, the lines being run so as to include the whole bottom within that distance ard as little as possible of the hilly upland. The survey of 1650 acres on Mill Creek was nearly as long and consequently narrower. This monoply of nearly thirty square miles of the very best of the soil, left the three part- ners in control of the situation. Later comers had perforce either to buy of them, take the odds and ends of bottom land they had not gathered in, or else retire into the moun- tains.
Robert Green did not confine his operations to Pendleton. On the Shenandoah river he entered the still larger amount of 23.026 acres. Another non-resident speculator was John Trimble, a deputy surveyor of Augusta, who located several tracts toward the Highland line. In 1766 Thomas Lewis of Augusta patented a tract of 1700 acres which had been sur- veyed the year previous for Gabriel Jones and five other persons. This survey was a long narrow strip lying on the crest of South Fork Mountain and described as "barren mountain land." Whether chosen for pasturage or because of its iron ore is a matter of doubt. Other early selections by non-resident persons appear to be few and small.
The first bona-fide settlers of Pendleton appear to be the six families who on the fourth and fifth days of November, 1747 were given deeds of purchase by Robert Green. The heads of these families were Robert Dyer, his son Willaim, and his son-in-law Matthew Patton; also John Patton, Jr., John Smith and William Stephenson. These men purchased 1860 acres. paying therefor 61 pounds and 6 shillings, or $203.33. The price looks very nominal, but it is to be re- membered that the purchasing power of a dollar was greater then than now. It is also to be borne in mind that the set- tlers, -perhaps 5,000- who had come into the valley of Vir- ginia within just 20 years, were scattered over an area 150 miles long and 50 miles broad. This was an average of only one family to each 5,000 acres. The county organization of Augusta was barely three years old. Staunton had not yet received its name. The locality was known as "Beverly's Mill Place." There was in fact no designated town in the whole valley. The nearest approach to one was Winchester, then only ten years old and not to become a town until 1752. As for highways, there were none worthy of the name.
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There was no established road or even bridle path for miles down the South Fork. It would easily have taken a week to ride to Philadelphia, then the metropolis of America. The man of San Francisco or Seattle can today reach Philadel- phia fully as soon.
Roger Dyer was at least on the border of middle age and for that period was a person of quite good circumst. nces. He evidently went into the wilderness of his own free choice, and seems to have possessed the qualities of leadership and venturesomeness. On coming to Virginia from Pennsylvania he first located near Moorefield, but finding the damp bottom land malarious, he moved higher up the valley in search of a healthful spot. Two of the other members of the group were of his own family, and the other three were presum- ably former neighbors if not relatives also.
Whether the little colony occupied its lands the same fall or waited until spring we do not know. But because of the short distance to Moorefield the settlers may have moved to the new home at once.
A pathway to the outer world was of pressing importance, and by county order of May 18, 1749, John Smith and Mat- thew Patton were appointed to survey and mark a road from the house of John Patton to the forks of Dry River. Other persons east of Shenandoah Mountain were to extend the road to the Augusta courthouse. Almost precisely two years later-May 29, 1751. - in consequence to a petition to the Augusta court, John Patton, Roger Dyer, Daniel Richardson, and Dube Collins, together with the "adjacent tithables" were ordered to clear a way from Patton's mill to Coburn's mill by the nearest and best way. They were also to set up posts of direction and keep the road in repairs according to law.
Changes in ownership soon crept into the colony. The first was in 1750, when Roger Dyer sold to Matthew Patton his place of 190 acres for the same price he paid for it-$27.50, The elder man at once bought of Robert Green a new tract of 620 acres. In the same year Peter Hawes, another son-in- law to Dyer, bought an entire Green survey paying only $75.83 for the entire 750 acres. Whether still other families joined the Dyer settlement prior to 1753 we do not clearly know. There is no record of surveys or purchases by such men, yet there may have been a few non-landholders pres- ent, and in the vicinity, possibly a few squatters.
We must now turn a moment to the South Branch valley. The largest of the Green surveys in this section was from the very beginning designated as the "upper tract," to dis- tinguish it from a "lower tract" a little farther down in
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the Mill Creek valley. The name persisted, and finally be- came that also of the little village that has grown up on the brow of Tract Hill. The upper survey is the largest single expanse of bottom land in the county, and would have been a shining mark to the land prospector. As to exact information relating to the earliest settlers in this locality, we are singularly in the dark. The tract is known to have been conveyed in part or in whole to one William Shelton, and by him to others, but there are no details in regard to these transactions.
In what year the tract received its first inhabitants is therefore a matter of some doubt. It is not probable that they came earlier than the people in the Dyer settlement, neither could they have been much behind them. The actual time was anywhere from 1748 to 1751, probably nearer the first date than the second. Somewhere within this short period one Peter Reed built a mill here and gave his name to the small stream that winds lazily through the bottom. By petition of the settlers around him, an order of court was is- sued November 15, 1752 for the building of a road to Reed's mill. Whether this road was to the Dyer settlement or di- rectly down the South Branch is not stated. The viewers and markers were James Simpson and Michael Stump. The tithables ordered to turn out and build the road were Henry Al- kire, H -- Garlock, Henry Harris, Philip Moore, Henry Ship- ler, Jeremiah and George Osborn, and John, Jacob, and Wil- liam Westfall. From this it would appear that the settle- ments in the two valleys were of similar size.
For some cause, the exact nature of which is not clearly apparent, there was a sudden wave of immigration in 1753. In this year 27 tracts were surveyed for 21 different persons, 16 of whom were newcomers. John Davis located on the South Fork near the northern end of Sweedland Hill, and Henry Hawes surveyed a plot in Sweedland Valley. West of the Dver settlement were Ulrich Conrad, Jacob Seyhert, John Dunkle, and Jacob Goodman, located on the plateau of the South Fork Mountain. Michael Mallow made a large star-shaped survey at Kline P. O., on Mallow's Run. Peter Moser and Michael Freeze settled close to Upper Tract. John Michael Propst settled two miles above Brandywine. and John Michael Simmons went higher up the valley. On Walnut Bottom on the North Fork surveys were made by Benjamin Scott, Frederick Sherler, and John, James, and William Cunningham.
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