USA > West Virginia > History and government of West Virginia > Part 8
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130 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
country. On the 2d of August, 1795, the army was at Fallen Timbers, on the Maumee, now in Lucas county, Ohio. Here was concentrated the fighting force of the Indians, and here was waged the last battle for race supremacy in the Northwest. Wayne's victory was complete, and the "Treaty of Greenville," which followed, forever put an end to savage warfare on the south side of the Ohio, and West Virginia pioneers were for the first time safe in their cabin homes.
CHAPTER XI.
WEST VIRGINIA AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
From 1795 to 1800.
1. A Permanent Peace .- The close of the Indian wars secured a lasting peace to the founders of West Virginia, who had so long braved the perils of pioneer life. Now they went forth to another conquest-not with rifles but with the axe to conquer the wilderness, thus insuring to themselves and their posterity a rich inheritance. They were hundreds of miles from the marts of trade and almost entirely isolated from society, yet these men carved out a society of their own and established a code of morals as rigid as any known in older lands. The records of their first courts contain many entries showing indictments for Sabbath break- ing and profanity.
2. Anne Bailey, the Pioneer Heroine of the Great Kanawha Valley .- One of the most remarkable per- sonages of pioneer times was Anne Bailey, who has been called the Pioneer Heroine of the Great Kanawha Valley. Her maiden name was Hennis. She was born in Liverpool, England, in 1742, and came to America in 1761, stopping with relatives in Augusta County, Virginia. She wedded Richard Trotter, a soldier who was killed at the battle of Point Pleasant.
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132 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
When she heard of her husband's death a strange wild dream seemed to possess her. She donned male attire and ranged the wilderness as scout and messen- ger so long as the Indian wars lasted. November 3d, 1785, she was married a second time to John Bailey at Lewisburg. When the wars were ended she went to live with William Trotter, an only son, in what is now Gallia county, Ohio, where she died November 22d, 1825.
3. The West Virginia-Kentucky Boundary .- The boundary line between Virginia and Kentucky as agreed upon by the two States in 1795, is the same as that now existing between West Virginia and Kentucky. Friday, December 25th, 1795, Governor Brooke appointed Archibald Stuart, Joseph Martin and Creed Taylor, commissioners on the part of Vir- ginia, to assist in fixing the boundary between the two States. To co-operate with these, the Governor of Kentucky named John Coburn, Robert Johnson and Buckner Thurston. These commissioners met, in 1799, at Cumberland Gap, now on the northern boundary of Tennessee, and began their work. From there the line was marked along the highest part of the Cumberland Mountains to the head waters of the west fork of Big Sandy and thence to the Tug Fork; thence down that stream to its junction with the west branch and thence down main Sandy to its confluence with the Ohio. The surveyors marked trees along the line with the letters "V. K." -- Virginia and Kentucky.
4. The Founding of Harper's Ferry .- Harper's Ferry is the most eastern town in West Virginia and
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CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
derives its name from Robert Harper, an Englishman who was a carpenter and mill-wright, residing near Philadelphia. In 1747, he was employed to build a church for the Quakers on Opequon river. Arriving at Frederick, Maryland, he expected to go to his des- tination by way of Antietam, but was induced by one Hoffman to go by " The Hole," as the present site of Harper's Ferry was then called. On reaching the place he found the spot occupied by the cabin of
Harper Peter Stevens, who had erected it in 1734. was so much pleased with the surroundings that he bought the claim from Stevens for fifty British guineas, and afterward purchased the title from the agent of Lord Fairfax. Harper brought his family to this place, which he made his permanent residence. He died in 1782. A ferry was established across the Potomac, by the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1761, and the place has ever since been known as " Harper's Ferry."
5. United States Arsenal Established at Harper's Ferry .- In the year 1794, Congress passed an act establishing an arsenal and gun manufactory at Harper's Ferry. The same year the Virginia Assembly granted to the National Government the right to purchase a tract of land not to exceed six hundred and forty acres, upon which to erect the necessary buildings, and for other purposes. In 1798, the work was begun. In 1799, it seemed that war would break out between the United States and France, and the former in anticipation of such. an event, organized a military force which it held ready for service. The
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134 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
Ioth Regiment of United States Infantry, commanded by General Alexander Hamilton, was sent to Harper's Ferry and there spent the winter. The high land on which it encamped has ever since been known as "Camp Hill."
6. The "Memorandum" of Colonel John Stuart .- Colonel John Stuart was one of the most distinguished frontiersmen of West Virginia. Born in Virginia in 1750, he came with others to the Greenbrier wilder- ness in 1769, and halted near the present site of the town of Frankfort, in Greenbrier county, where he reared his cabin as a bethel over his first camping spot in the wilds of West Virginia. He commanded a com- pany in the army of General Andrew Lewis, at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, and witnessed the murder of the Indian chieftain, Cornstalk, at that place November 10th, 1777. Upon the forma- tion of Greenbrier county, he became Clerk of the Court, a position which he held for many years. July 15, 1798, he wrote in Deed Book No. I, in the office of the Greenbrier County Court, an extended "Memorandum," to which we are indebted for much of our knowledge of the early settlements of the Greenbrier Valley.
7. Education in West Virginia Prior to the Year 1800 .- We have but few records of educational work in West Virginia before the year 1800, but the old- time schoolmaster was then abroad in the land. The first effort to establish a school on the Ohio River, ap- pears to have been made at Charlestown-now Wells- burg-in Brooke county in 1778, and the nucleus
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CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
thus formed seems to have expanded into Brooke Academy, which was incorporated in 1799. The first effort to establish a school of high grade in central West Virginia was that of Randolph Academy at Clarksburg, incorporated in 1785. Among the trus- tees of this institution were Governor Edmund Ran- dolph, Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry and Ebenezer Zane. When a school was first established at Shepherdstown-the oldest town in the State-is not known. But Reverend Robert Stubbs who, December 3d, 1787, made affidavit that he had wit- nessed the trial of Rumsey's steamboat on the Poto- mac, subscribed himself, "Teacher of the Academy of Shepherdstown." Charlestown Academy in Jeffer- son County was incorporated in 1797.
8. Early West Virginia Pensioners .- Very soon after Virginia became an independent State, the As- sembly began to make provision for the men who had been disabled in the military service of the Common- wealth. This was before the creation of the Pension Bureau of the Federal Government. In 1790, Thomas Price, of Randolph county, was placed on the pension rolls of the State because of wounds received at the · battle of Point Pleasant. James Price and Abraham Nettles, of Greenbrier county, were granted pensions for services during the Revolution. In 1792, the names of Alexander Stewart and Benjamin Black- bourne were added because of wounds received at the battle of Point Pleasant, and two years later, that of James Robinson was enrolled for the same cause.
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136 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
9. The Homes of the Pioneers .- One of the frontiersmen has this to say of their homes: "In the whole display of furniture, the delft, china and silver were unknown. It did not then, as now, require contribution from the four quarters of the globe to furnish the breakfast table, viz .: the silver from Mexico; the coffee from the West In- dies; the tea from China; and the delft and porcelain from Europe or Asia. Yet our homely fare and unsightly cab- PIONEER LIFE IN WEST VIRGINIA. ins and furniture produced the hardy race, who planted the first footsteps of civilization in the immense region of the West. Inured to hardship, bravery and valor from their early youth, they sus- tained with manly fortitude the fatigue of the chase, the campaign and scout, and with strong arms turned the wilderness into fruitful fields, and have left to their descendants the rich inheritance of an immense commonwealth blessed with peace, wealth and pros- perity."
10. Character of the Pioneers .- The first inhab- itants of West Virginia were as hardy a race as ever braved the perils of the wilderness, but the men who
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CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
conquered it, have all fallen by the hand of death and many of them whose deeds deserved a monument, scarce found a tomb. Time has waged a merciless warfare upon the memorials of the Pioneer Age, which was to Virginia what the Heroic Age was to Greece. The men who settled in West Virginia prior to the close of the last century, knew when they came that it was to do or to die. A fierce, implacable and deadly foe met them at every hand. To succeed required caution, energy, courage, hope. All of these they possessed in an eminent degree, and they therefore won the rich inheritance which they have transmitted to their descendants.
11. Early House Building in West Virginia .- A family would leave the settled portions east of the mountains, cross the same, and journey through the forest or along the river, until a suitable location was found. Then a halt was made and house building began. Small trees were felled and logs cut to the proper length and then collected at the spot selected. Then the structure was raised. Clap-boards were split with a tool called a frow, and placed on the rib- poles of the house, and then weight-poles were laid on to hold the boards in place. Slabs, called puncheons, were then split and after being partially smoothed with the axe were laid down for a floor. Then spaces between the logs were filled with chinks and daubed with mortar made of clay. A huge fireplace occu- pied one end of the structure, and over it was erected a chimney made of sticks and clay, and called a "cat- and-clay" chimney. The house was usually of one
138 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
story. In such houses as these were born many of the men who have made the Commonwealth of West Virginia what it is to-day.
12. West Virginia at the Close of the Eighteenth Century .- At the close of the year 1800 there was a busy population in West Virginia numbering 78,592, there having been but 55,873 in 1790. Homes of thrift and industry gave evidence of long years of set- tlement in the Eastern Pan-Handle, while from the Alleghany mountains to the Ohio, cabin homes dotted the landscape. No sounding bell called these frontiers- men to the place of worship, but they were worshipers in all that the term implies. Ministers of all the leading denominations had gone among them, and after organizing a congregation had made the home of the pioneer a preaching place; and there the inen who were felling the forest on the hills and in the valleys, gathered for services as often as the itinerant minister came. Thirteen of the present counties had an existence and Wheeling, Wellsburg, Clarksburg, Martinsburg, Shepherdstown, Parkersburg, Point Pleasant and Charleston were frontier villages.
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CHAPTER XII.
From 1800 to 1811.
1. The Beginning of the Century .- At the begin- ning of the 19th century there was, as stated, a popu- lation of 78,592 in what is now West Virginia as deter- mined by the census of 1800, and thirteen of the present counties had an existence. The Assembly, in 1801, passed various acts relating to matters west of the mountains. Ferries were established over the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers at Parkersburg, and over the Great Kanawha at the mouth of Cole river. The town of Union, in Monroe county, began its legal existence. The Monongahela and Little Kanawha rivers were declared to be public highways, as was Elk creek as far up as "Jackson's Mill." A road from Romney through Berkeley county to the "Fed- eral City" was directed to be constructed. The "Cross Roads," now Pruntytown, in Taylor county, was made a town by legislative enactment.
2. Events in 1802 .- Commissioners were appointed to view and mark a road from Keys' Ferry on the Shenandoah river through Berkeley and Hampshire counties to intersect the Maryland road near Gywnn's Tavern; these commissioners were required to meet at the mouth of New creek to begin their work. Forest fires were common, often from accident, but some- times resulted from malicious intent and a penalty of
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140 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
$30 was fixed for each such offense. A wagon road was constructed over the mountains from the head- waters of the James river to the plantation of Carroll Morris on the Great Kanawha river, the work being superintended by David Ruffner.
3. A French Traveler in West Virginia .- In the year 1802 F. A. Michaux, M. D., a celebrated French physician and botanist, left Philadelphia, and, passing over the mountains, traversed the northern portion of West Virginia. On the morning of July 16th of the above named year he reached West Liberty, in Ohio county, which had been made a town by legislative enactment, November 20th, 1787, on lands owned by Reuben Foreman and Providence Mounce. This traveler, speaking of it, says: "We passed through West Liberty Town, a small town of about a hundred houses built on the side of a hill. The plantations in its neighborhood are numerous, and the soil, though unequal, is fertile. The price of land depends on its quality. The best in the proportion of twenty-five acres of cleared land in a lot of two or three hundred is not more than three or four piasters an acre."
4. Occurrences in the Year 1803 .- A ferry was established over Fishing creek and another over Guy- andotte river near its junction with the Ohio. It was represented to the Assembly, that because of the incur- sions of the Indians, William Clendenin, sheriff of Kanawha, had been unable to collect the taxes in that county for the years 1792-3-4, and an act was passed giving him two additional years in which to make the said collections. The Court of Wood county was
141
FROM 1800 TO ISII.
instructed by the General Assembly to appoint five commissioners to ascertain whether the erection of mills on the Little Kanawha river would be any ob- struction to navigation and to report thereon to the Court.
5. The Last Survivor of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition .- In the year 1803 the United States purchased from France all that vast region west of the Mississippi, known as Louisiana territory. Of this addition to the domain of the United States, but little was known, and Congress, the same year, made an appropriation and empowered President Jefferson to have it explored. To prose- cute this work, he chose Meri- wether Lewis and William Clarke, both of Virginia. They made the necessary preparation, and with a band of forty-three adventurers, rendezvoused on the Mississippi at the mouth of Du Bois River, MERIWETHER LEWIS IN INDIAN COSTUME .* where the winter of 1803 was spent. Monday, the 14th day of May, 1804, the expedition began the journey up the
*Captain Meriwether Lewis, associate of Captain Clarke, was a nephew of President Jefferson, and was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, August 19th, 1774. Entering the army, he served during the Whisky Insurrection in 1794. He rose to the rank of Captain in 1800, and the next year became the private secretary of the Pres- ident. After the return of the expedition he was appointed- 1807-Governor of Louisiana Territory. In 1809 he started on an Overland journey to Washington, and on the morning of October
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142 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
long and silent river toward the Rocky Mountains. On the 25th, they passed the mnost western out- post of civilization and began the march into an un- known country. Onward they pressed through the homes of wild beasts and savage men ; up the Missouri; over the vast mountain barriers and down the Columbia, until at length, on the 16th of November, 1805, they stood at its mouth and the Pacific Ocean lay before them. The return journey PATRICK GASS .* began, and on the 23d of Sep- tember, 1806, the expedition reached St. Louis,
11th of that year was found dead in his room at a wayside inn in Tennessee. Whether he died by his own hand or that of an assas- sin will never be known.
* Patrick Gass, the last survivor of the Lewis and Clark Ex- pedition, was born June 12th, 1771, in Cumberland county, Penn- sylvania. Soon after the family removed to Maryland, but shortly returned to Pennsylvania. When but a boy he entered the army, and when not on the march or scouting he was engaged in garrison duty in the forts on the Upper Ohio. The United States, in 1799, in anticipation of a war with France, enlisted troops for the army. Patrick Gass enrolled himself as a member of the 10th regiment, which spent the winter of 1799 in camp at Harper's Ferry. In 1802 he served under Captain Bissell on the Tennessee river, and the next year went to Kaskaskia, Illinois. Here he enlisted as a member of the expedition, then fitting out to explore the Pacific Coast. In 1812 he entered the army again, and participated in the battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie. In 1831 he married a lady in Brooke county -- now in West Virginia-where he continued to reside until his death in 1870, then in his ninety- ninth year.
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FROM 1800 TO 1811.
having spent two years, four months and nineteen days beyond the confines of civilization. Patrick Gass, of Brooke county, West Virginia, was the journalist of the expedition. He kept a diary of events, which was published at Pittsburg in 1807, and reprinted at Philadelphia in 1812. Aside from the official reports, we are indebted to Patrick Gass, the last survivor of the expedition, for nearly all the knowledge we have concerning it.
6. Blennerhassett's Island .- Situated in the Ohio river, two miles below the mouth of the Little Kan- awha river, is the beautiful isle, known the world over as Blennerhassett's Island, for the world knows the story connected with it. Harman Blennerhassett was born of Irish parentage in Hampshire, England, in 1767, and was educated for the law. He inherited a valuable estate in Ireland of which he disposed by sale, and having resolved to come to America, he went to England to prepare for the voyage. While in that country he became acquainted with Miss Agnew, a daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man, and a granddaughter of the celebrated general of that name, who fell in the battle of Germantown. She was young, intelligent and beautiful. She listened with delight to the stories of that far-off land in the Western World. There was a marriage, and Harman Blenner- hassett and his bride crossed the ocean and landed in New York City in 1797. In the autumn of the same year they crossed the mountains and reached Pittsburg.
7. Seeking a Home .- At Pittsburg they obtained passage on a keel-boat, which was at that day the
144 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
most comfortable mode of traveling on the western waters, and in the course of time arrived at Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum river. Here the winter was spent in social intercourse, and in 1798 Blennerhassett purchased the island which has ever since borne his name, and the same year moved into a block-house on the upper end of it. Here he
THE BLENNERHASSETT MANSION.
reared a palace, which was an ideal, an image of which had haunted his youthful fancy as a picture of sylvan beauty, of peaceful solitude, of calm repose. It was a mansion of which a king inight have been proud. The halls were light, airy, and elegant, with gay-colored carpets, splendid mirrors, classic pictures, rich tapestry, with ornaments correspondingly elabo- rate, arranged with harmonious effect in accordance with the artistic taste of the mistress of the mansion.
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FROM 1800 TO 1811.
There, too, was stored a most valuable library, con- taining the rarest and costliest books to be found in Europe or America.
8. Aaron Burr Visits the Island Home .- Aaron Burr, the slayer of Alexander Hamilton and late Vice-President of the United States, set out on a journey through the Western States, the object being ostensibly to purchase lands in the Louisiana Terri- tory, but really to make arrangements for a private expedition against Mexico and the Spanish provinces, in the event of a war between the United States and Spain, which at that time seemed inevitable. De- scending the Ohio, he called at the mansion which adorned the willow-fringed island, and from the mo- ment that he set foot upon it that home was doomed. Blennerhassett was a shining treasure, just such as Burr was seeking. He listened to the recital of the wild and visionary scheme, and then embarked in it.
9. The Country in Which Burr Expected to Es- tablish a Southwest Empire .- Beyond the Missis- sippi lay the vast region known as Louisiana, which ( the United States had but recently purchased from France. It was a region extending from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Mississippi to the Rocky mountains. Away to the southwest of Louisiana lay Mexico, of which Texas was then a part, a country whose national existence and traditions ante-date the discovery of America more than a thou- sand years. Its shores were first seen by white men in 1517, when Francisco Fernandez de Cordova, while cruising in the Spanish Main, landed on the
146 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
coast of Yucatan. It was Louisiana and Mexico in which Burr hoped to appear as liberator, then as ruler or sovereign of an empire reared within the limits of these countries.
10. The Expedition and Its Results .- In the au- tumn of 1806, active preparations began for the con- templated expedition. Blennerhassett had embarked his fame and fortune in the enterprise of Burr. Boats were constructed and freighted with supplies and munitions of war, and December 10th, 1806, under cover of darkness, the flotilla left the island and be- gan the descent of the Ohio. The next morning a body of Virginia troops, under the command of Cap- tain Hugh Phelps, occupied the island, taking mili- tary possession, and Mrs. Blennerhassett and her children left the island never to return. The mansion was greatly damaged, and was destroyed by fire in 1812. Burr and Blennerhassett were both arrested and taken to Richmond, where they were confined in the State prison. Burr was tried on a charge of treason and acquitted. Blennerhassett was released without trial. The family was ruined. Blennerhas- sett died on the Island of Guernsey in 1831, and the wife some years later in New York City.
11. The Journal of Judge Lewis Summers .-- Lewis Summers, afterwards a distinguished jurist of Virginia, made an extended journey through what is now West Virginia in 1808. On June 30th of that year he left the home of his father near Alexandria, Virginia, and on horseback crossed the mountains to the westward. Passing through the Greenbrier
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FROM 1800 TO 18II.
region he journeyed down the Great Kanawha Valley and thence up the Ohio river to Wheeling, from which place he returned to his home on the Potomac. He kept a journal of all that he saw and heard, which has been pub- lished. It is one of the best de- scriptions of what our State was at that time that has come down to us. It was published with LEWIS SUMMERS. * copious notes in the Southern Historical Magazine, in 1892. 12. Parkersburg Made a Town .- In the year 1773, Robert Thornton, of Pennsylvania, obtained a settle- ment title to 400 acres of land, including that on which the town of Parkersburg now stands, and in 1783 it was confirmed to him by the Virginia Com- missioner of Lands. In December, 1783, James Neale, assisted by Samuel Hannaway, surveyor of Monongalia county, surveyed two tracts of land for Alexander Parker, of Pennsylvania, assignee of
*Judge Lewis Summers was born in Fairfax county, Virginia, November 7th, 1778. He was one of the most eminent men that the State produced, when the two Virginias were one. In 1808 he removed to Gallipolis, Ohio, where two years later he was elected to the State Senate. In 1814 he made Kanawha county, now in West Virginia, his home. There later, he was elected a mem- ber of the General Assembly of Virginia, and re-elected the ensu- ing year. In 1819, he was chosen Judge of the General Court of Virginia, and of the Kanawha Judicial Circuit. He was a member of the Board of Public Works for many years, and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1829-30. He died at White Sulphur Springs, August 27th, 1843, having served for more than a quarter of a century as a Judge of the General Court of Virginia.
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