USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 7
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We have gone into this discussion to explain why Pendle- ton though an inland region was divided in its sympathies. All the Scotch-Irish and a great share of the English element stiffly upheld the American cause. A few of the English, some of the Highland Scotch, and many of the Germans took the tory side.
Pendleton was at this time a part of Augusta, and Augusta had been established by the Scotch-Irish and was dominated by them. The temper of its people will appear in the instruc- tions drawn up at Staunton, February 22, 1775, and given to the delegates to the House of Burgesses. They read as follows :
"The people of Augusta are impressed with just sentiments of loyalty to his majesty, King George, whose title to the crown of Great Britain rests on no other foundation than the liberty of all his subjects. We have respect for the parent state, which respect is founded on religion, on law, and on the genuine principles of the British constitution. On these principles do we earnestly desire to see harmony and good under- standing restored between Great Britain and America. Many of us and our forefathers left our native land and explored this once savage wilder- ness to enjoy the free exercise of the rights of conscience and of human nature. These rights we are fully resolved with our lives and fortunes inviolably to preserve; nor will we surrender such inestimable blessings, the purchase of toil and danger, to any ministry, to any parliament, or any body of men by whom we are not represented, and in whom we are not represented, and in whose decisions, therefore, we have no voice. We are determined to maintain unimpaired that liberty which is the gift of Heaven to the subjects of Britain's empire, and will most cordially join our countrymen in such measures as may be necessary to secure and per- petuate the ancient, just, and legal rights of this colony and all British subjects."
The above paper, drawn up in a remote frontier county, shows that the framers knew how to use thier mother tongue
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with clearness and force. It reveals a profound sense of the justice of their claims, and it breathes a resolution to uphold them to the bitter end. Incidentally it recognizes that the Americans and British are not one in nationality.
A memorial from the county committee, presented to the state convention, May 16, 1776, is thus mentioned by the latter :
"A representation from the committee of the county of Augusta was presented to the Convention and read, setting forth the present unhappy condition of the country, and from the ministerial measures of revenge now pursuing, representing the necessity of making a confederacy of the United States, the most perfect, independent, and lasting, and of framing an equal, free and liberal government, that may bear the trial of all future ages."
This memorial is said by Hugh J. Grigsby to be the first expression of the policy of establishing an independent state government and permanent confederation of states which the parliamentary journals of America contain. It is worthy of a most careful reading by every class in American history.
It is a natural consequence that the men who could draw up such papers as these should forward a shipment of 137 barrels of flour from Augusta in 1774 for the use of the people of Boston. The savage iniquity of the Boston Port Bill, a measure of Parliament, had put an end to the commerce of the city and reduced its people to straits.
It is hardly necessary to add that the Augustans backed up their words with bullets. They served very numerously in the American army, but owing to the scantiness of the pre- served records we have only a very partial knowledge as to the names of the Augusta men who fought on the American side. As to the men who went out from Pendleton our in- formation is therefore fragmentary. But Augusta men helped to win the brilliant victories of Stony Point, and the Cowpens. Augusta volunteers under Captain Tate marched to the support of General Greene in 1781 and took part in the battle of Guilford. There the Virginia militia fought so nobly that Greene said he wished he had known beforehand how well they were going to acquit themselves. He was ex- cusable for his previous distrust, since the American militia had often behaved very badly in battle. But at Guilford the Virginia riflemen did their part in inflicting upon Cornwallis what was in reality a crushing defeat. He lost a third of his men, and had to get out of North Carolina in hot haste. This result paved the way for his final capture at Yorktown. Sev- eral of Tate's company were killed in the battle of Guilford.
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The companies raised in Augusta were expected to consist of expert riflemen. Each man was to "furnish himself with a good rifle, if to be had, otherwise with a tomahawk, com- mon firelock, bayonet, pouch or cartouch box, and three charges of powder and ball." On affidavit that the rifleman could not supply himself as above, he was to be supplied at public expense. For furnishing his equipment he was al- lowed a rental of one pound ($3.33) a year. His daily pay was to be 21 cents. Out of this was an allowance for "hunting shirt, pair of leggings, and binding for his hat."
Of the six regiments called for by Virginia in 1775, one was to be of Germans from the Valley of Virginia and from the colony in Culpeper.
CHAPTER VIII Pendleton Under Rockingham
Because of its vast extent in the first place, Augusta has truly been a mother of counties. The spread of population and the increasing inconvenience of attending court caused one county after another to be lopped off. In 1777 Rocking- ham was created, and its first court met April 17, 1778, at the house of Daniel Smith, two miles north from where Har- risonburg now stands. The town itself did not begin its ex- istence until two years later. It was named after the Har- risons, a prominent family of the early days.
John Smith, father of Daniel, came from England as an officer in the French and Indian war. He was compelled to surrender a fort at Pattonsburg in Botetourt county. His French and Indian captors being angered that he had held them off with a very weak force, they took him to Point Pleasant, treated him with harshness, and made him run the gauntlet. He was passed on to New Orleans and taken to Paris. Here he showed a copy of the terms of surrender. He was now released, treated with respect, and at London was given quite an ovation. He married a lady of Holland, returned to America, and settled in Rockingham. He wished to serve in the American army and was indignant when he was adjudged too old. However, he had eight sons in the service of his adopted country, Abraham being another of these. Daniel Smith, a son of Daniel, became an eminent jurist.
The new county was defined as being all of Augusta east of a line "to begin at the South Mountain, and running thence by Benjamin Yardley's plantation so as to strike the North River below James Bird's house; thence up the said river to the mouth of Naked Creek, thence leaving the river a direct course so as to cross the said river at the mouth of Cunning- ham's Branch in the upper end of Silas W -- 's land to the foot of the North Mountain: thence 55 degrees west to the Alleghany Mountain and with the same to the line of Hamp- shire."
It will be remembered that the Fairfax line, passing near Petersburg and Moorefield, was at first the boundary between Frederick and Augusta. In 1753 the western part of Fred- eriek became the county of Hampshire. When Rockingham was created, the boundary line between Hampshire and the new county was moved southward nearly to the present po-
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sition of the north line of Pendleton. Its definition in the legislative act reads thus : "beginning at the north side of the North Mountain, opposite to the upper end of Sweedland Hill and running a direct course so as to strike the mouth of Seneca Creek, and the same course to be continued to the Alleghany Mountain; thence along the said mountain to the line of Hampshire."
It was not quite all of Pendleton that formed a part of Rockingham. A strip along the southern border was still a part of Augusta, and a fringe on the opposite side was a part of Hampshire.
Of the men designated to comprise the first court of Rock- ingham at least four were Pendletonians; John Skidmore, Robert Davis, James Dyer, and Isaac Hinkle. Skidmore and Davis were not present, being probably with the army. Thomas Lewis, previously surveyor of Augusta, became the first surveyor of Rockingham. The population appears to have been rather less than 5000, about a fourth being in the Pendleton section. There was neither a tavern nor a wagon in the new county. The act creating Rockingham provided that its voters should elect May 1, 1778, twelve "able and discreet persons" to form a vestry.
America was now in the midst of the Revolution, and the infant county had at once to deal with the grave problems in- terwoven with the questions of enlistment and finance.
In October, 1778, some counties had not raised the quota of soldiers required by an act of the preceding year. The state now called for 2216 men for the Continental service. Each soldier was to have a bounty of $300 if enlisting for eighteen months, and $400 if enlisting for three years. He was also to receive clothing and a Continental land bounty. In May, 1779, 10 battalions of 500 men each were ordered, a bounty of $50 being offered. Two of these battalions were for service on the frontier. In October, 1780, the quota for Rockingham was 49 men out of a levy of 3000. The same Act of Assembly offered a bounty of $8000 for an enlistment of three years, and $12.000 for an enlistment during the continuance of the war. The man serving to the close was to have his choice of these two additional rewards : either a "healthy, sound negro between the ages of ten and thirty years," or $200 in coin and 300 acres of land. Whether any Pendletonian became priv- ileged to choose between a reward of living darkness or solid ground and jingling cash, we are not informed. In May, 1781, a bounty of $10,000 was promised, to be paid when the soldier was sworn in.
Six months later the army of Cornwallis was added to the 1600 prisoners the state was feeding at Winchester, and the
long war was practically at an end. It had never been popu- lar with the English people, and even before the surrender at Yorktown William Pitt, speaking in the British Parlia- ment, had pronounced the struggle the "most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical of wars."
The reader has noticed the seemingly enormous bounties offered toward the close of hostilities. Other transactions were on a like footing. In 1781 the poll tax was $40, and in 1781 a man taking his dinner at an ordinary could be charged the stunning price of $30, when perhaps he had eaten noth- ing more luxurious than corn pone, bacon, potatoes, and sauerkraut, washed down with a cup of herb tea and a mug of "cyder."
But such prices shrivel like a bursted balloon when we re- flect that they were based on the paper currency issued in liberal amount by a Congress having an almost childlike ig- norance of financial science. The ratio between com and paper became one to forty in 1780, and did not stop even there, although the penalty for counterfeiting certifi- cates had been made death without benefit of clergy. A month after the surrender of Cornwallis, the legislature ordered paper money to be turned into the treasury by the first of October of the following year. "Worthless as a Continental bill" became a byword for many a year.
The county was hard put to raise enough revenue for the public needs. In 1779 something had to be done for the families of indigent soldiers. The tax on a conveyance of land was $3.33. In 1781 and 1782 the sheriff was ordered to collect a tax of one shilling on every glass window. A tax of two per cent in specie was levied on all property. Yet it was permitted to make payment in tobacco, hemp, bacon, flour or deerskin.
As to the royalism in the Pendleton section of Rockingham, the recorded information gives only a partial glimpse, and for the rest of the story we have to depend on the recollections that have come down to us through the space of a hundred and thirty years. The trouble was evidently most acute in the later years of the war. The American cause was then hanging in the balance, taxation. as we have seen was very high, and very hard to meet, and the depreciated paper cur- rency was causing great hardship. The disaffection in Pendleton took the form of an armed resistance that fell within the verge of domestic war. There were petty raids by the tories, but there would seem to have been little blood- shed. The only loss of life that we locate was the killing of Sebastian Hoover by a settler from Brushy Fork. The Vir-
ginia law of 1781 declared the man civilly dead who opposed by force the statute calling out the men to the public de- fense. The disaffected person might be exiled, and if he re- turned he could be executed without benefit of clergy. Free male inhabitants had to swear allegiance to the state through commissioners appointed by the county court.
In Hampshire was John Claypole, a Scotchman. who had a band of 60 to 70 men. They resisted the payment of taxes, and at their meetings they drank toasts to the health of the king and damnation to Congress. General Daniel Morgan, the hero of the Cowpens, was sent against them in the summer of 1781, and smothered the insurrection in a few days: The tories were pardoned, Claypole appealing for clemency and pleading ignorance of the real situation. There was no fight- ing. although one tory was accidentally shot.
Claypole had followers on the South Fork in Pendleton. One of these at Fort Seybert, who claimed his oath of al- legiance was not binding, was taken to Patton's still-tub. He was doused three times in it before his German obstinacy was sufficiently soaked out to permit him to hurrah for Washington. This style of baptism does not seem to have been administered by Morgan's men. who scarcely came this far up the river. It was perhaps at the same time that a party of tories, pursued through Sweedland valley, were no- ticed to throw the corn pone out of their haversacks, so as to make better time with their feet.
The other center of disturbance was in the south and south- west of the county, where its memory lingers in the name of Tory Camp Run, Randolph county. Here Uriah Grady headed a band of tory refugees. The leader in this quarter was one William Ward. There were two men of this name, an older and a younger, the latter being perhaps no more than a boy at the time of the Revolution. The elder William Ward was a South Carolinian and is first mentioned in 1753. In 1763 he was a road surveyor, and in 1774 he was a soldier in the Dunmore war. In 1765 he was under sheriff of Augusta. In 1781 he was living on the Blackthorn. For "tumult and se- dition words" he was bound over by the court of Rocking- ham in the sum of 1000 pounds, Andrew Erwin being his surety. The next year (1780) he was delivered up by Erwin and Ralph Loftus, another surety, was given a jury trial, fined 100 pounds, and given twenty-four hours in jail. The records at Staunton say that he was found guilty of treason in Augusta and sent to the capital for trial. Erwin was him- self indicted for "propagating some news tending to raise tumult and sedition in the state."
John Davis, apparently a resident of the North Fork, was
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adjudged guilty of treason by the Rockingham court and sent up to the General Court. His bondsmen were Seraiah Stratton, William Gragg, and James Rogers. In 1779 Henry Peninger was indicted for "speaking disrespectful and dis- graceful words of the Congress and words leading to the de- preciation of the Continental currency." A true bill was re- turned against him. His bond was fixed at 5000 pounds, and those of his sureties, Sebastian Hoover and Henry Stone, were each of half that amount. Peninger informed on one Gerard, but he himself did not appear for trial.
One Hull was a lieutenant of Ward's, and Robert Davis seems to have been particularly obnoxious to the tories. Vis- its with hostile intent were sometimes made to his vicinity, but an Eckard woman from Brushy Fork usually gave the settlement a forewarning. On one occasion, believing Davis home on furlough, the band came down to seize him, and in their disappointed vexation Hull called Mrs. Davis a damned liar. Her son John, a boy of about fourteen years, took aim at Hull, unobserved by the latter, but the mother in- terfered to prevent a tragedy and a burned home. The fac- tional strife was ended by a conference between Davis and Ward held near the site of the schoolhouse. The principals were unarmed, but a neighbor of Davis posted himself near to guard against treachery.
The capture of Cornwallis in the fall of 1781 made it highly advisable for the tories to accept the situation. It would seem that the episode was passed over lightly. At all events we find the former tories remaining on the ground, acting as good citizens, and holding positions of trust.
In 1782 a list of claims for the furnishing of military sup- plies came before the Rockingham court for settlement. The claims were very numerous, though of small individual value. Many of them were from Pendleton. For registering these claims Henry Erwin was allowed 100 pounds ($333.33), a good salary for that day.
In 1781 took place what seems the last Indian raid into this county. A party of redskins, led by Tim Dahmer, a white renegade, came by the Seneca trail to the house of William Gragg, who lived on the highland a mile east of Onego. Dah- mer had lived with the Graggs, and held a grudge against a daughter of the family. Gragg was away from the house getting a supply of firewood, and seeing Indians at the house he kept out of danger. His mother, a feeble old lady, and with whom Dahmer had been on good terms, was taken out into the yard in her chair. The wife was also unharmed, but the daughter was scalped and the house set on fire, after which the renegade and his helpers made a prudent retreat.
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The girl was taken up the river, probably to the house of Philip Harper, but died of her injuries.
There was now a long period of domestic peace. broken only by the incident of the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794. At least one company of Pendleton militia-under Captain James Patterson-formed a part of the army of Governor Henry Lee that marched to the Redstone district of Pennsylvania, the scene of trouble. At a Pendleton court martial sitting the same year, it was ordered that the names of the officers and privates who marched from this county to Redstone be recorded. If this was done the list does not seem to be in existence. A fine of $36 was imposed upon each of the 11 men who avoided going. In one instance the fine was re- mitted.
In 1782 there were three militia districts. Robert Davis commanded the company on the South Fork. Garvin Ham- ilton, the company on the South Branch, and Andrew John- son was captain of the North Fork company. John Skidmore was recommended as major the same year the county was or- ganized, but he was not commissioned. Other militia officers of the period were the following: Captains, Roger Dyer and Michael Cowger; Lieutenants, Frederick Keister and John Morral: ensigns, John Skidmore, James Skidmore, and Jacob Hevener.
Among the civil officers we find Isaac Hinkle, a deputy sheriff in 1780, and Robert Davis, commissioned sheriff, October 30, 1786. As constables we find James Davis, George Kile, George Mallow. Jacob Eberman, Samuel Skidmore, and Lewis Waggoner. Thirty road overseers were appointed in 1778. Of those serving in Pendleton during the ten year period-1778-88-we have the names of George Mallow, Jacob Eberman, Samuel Skidmore, Lewis Waggoner, and James Davis. In 1779 Joseph Skidmore had charge of the roads of the middle valley to the line of Hampshire. The next year George Kile had the territory from the Coplinger ford to the Hampshire line, and George Coplinger had the roads from the same ford to the Augusta line. In 1786, Pendleton, as the portion of Rockingham "west of North Mountain," was made the fourth overseer of the poor district, and Robert Davis was appointed to superintend the election of the neces- sary official.
The bounty of wolves at this time was $6.25, and there is mention of scalps being presented by Roger Dyer, Burton Blizzard, and Daniel and Frederick Propst.
Our narrative now brings us to the establishment of Pen- dleton county.
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CHAPTER IX Early Laws, Customs, and Usages
Before taking up the organization of our county it will be a good use of our time to look over the general features of the period we are now in the midst of. This survey will cover the lifetime of a person born when the settlement act- ually began, and reaching in 1818 the full natural term of seventy years. Yet very much will remain true until the close of our Middle Period in 1865. While our survey will have very particular reference to this county, it will very largely be true of Virginia in general. It will open when the state was yet a British colony, and it will follow many of the changes which have since taken place. All this is a great deal of ground to cover, and our general look must necessarily be brief.
The first capital of Virginia was as a matter of convenience located in the earlier settled section. It remained at Williams- burg until April 30, 1780. when it was moved to Richmond to keep it nearer the center of population. Before the Revolu- tion there was a legislative assembly as there is now, and with much the same powers. At the head of the state was a governor appointed by the sovereign of E gland. He was the proxy of the British king; his representative and spokes- man. He lived in great style, so as to befit the aristocratic ideas of that time, but his salary was paid by the colony. He was looked up to, yet so far as being the king's proxy he was an ornamental figure- head and expected to know his own place. Virginia kept her purse-strings in her own hands, and if he sought to govern after the royal ideas of Europe he was liable to find himself in hot water.
From our distance of time the American is inclined to sup- pose that in cutting loose from England his country threw off one suit of clothes and stepped at once into a brand new suit cut to an entirely different style. There was nothing of that sort. The same suit was dusted, some of the wrinkles pressed out, and then it was put on again. The General Assembly was nothing more than the House of Burgesses under a new name. The Virginia Constitution of 1776 was only a restate- ment of the source of Virginia law, so that it might conform to the fact of separation from England. The king's name was of course left out where it had been used in proclama- tions and official forms. Otherwise Virginia went on living
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under very much the same laws and institutions. The new governors lived in style and were looked up to. They were elected by the Assembly and not by the people There was a Governor's Council of eight members, according to the former custom. The native governor appointed justices and signed land patents, just as the king had been doing through his proxy, the royal governor. The coming in of the new or- der of things is a good illustration of the fact that men are willing to progress by steps but are very slow to progress by jumps.
From 1776 to 1829 each county chose by popular vote two delegates to the lower house of the state legislature. A sen- ator was likewise chosen at the same time, Augusta, Rocking- ham, and Shenandoah forming in 1778 one senatorial district. Beginning with 1788, the voters also elected a representative to the Federal Congress. But the exercise of the right to vote went very little farther. The government of Virginia was very centralized. The citizens of a county had no direct say in the choice of their local officials. When a new county was organized, the governor commissioned a number of men to act as "worshipful justices." These men were not only justices of the peace, but they were also a board of county commission- ers. They held office for life, except that the governor might remove a justice for cause. Vacancies were filled or the court enlarged by new men recommended to the governor by the court. The county court was therefore self-perpetuating. It was a close corporation, and this feature remained in vogue until 1852. From its own body the court recommended a senior justice to act as sheriff. and he was commissioned by the governor, becoming a justice once more when his term was out. The clerk of the court, the jailer, and the con- stables were appointed by the court.
The Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 laid down the doctrine that "magistrates are the trustees and servants of the people." But in practice the structure of society remained as aristocratic as it was before. The justices were supposed to be chosen from that small number of well-to-do and influ- ential citizens who alone were styled "gentlemen." The office often descended from father to son. It will thus be seen that the favored families might greatly influence the county to their own ends whenever they chose to be am- bitious or domineering.
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