USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
John D. Baxter, Peter McAnany and perhaps other persons, late in the 50's killed a bear on Laurel Fork of Granny's creek.
WILLIAM BARNETT.
William Barnett, the old bear hunter, was a noted character who lived on the waters of Bireh river. He was a gun-smith, had a small grist mill and did the neighborhood grinding. Barnett was a woodsman of great skill. He was probably the most fearless hunter who lived in this part of West Virginia. On one occasion, he had a fight with a bear. The bear mangled his right arm, and while Barnett was trying to kill the bear with a butcher knife, he eus an artery and eame near bleeding to death, but he succeeded in killing the bear. He then tied a piece of bloody cloth to his dog's neck and drove him home, and in this way he was discovered and brought home, but he was ever afterwards a cripple.
On one occasion, he ran a wild eat into a cave of rocks. He laid his gun down, and erawled in at a small opening, taking a torch and butcher knife, and in his tussel with the wild eat, his torch went out, leaving him in the cavern to struggle in utter darkness. From this place, he had great difficulty in finding his way out.
His daughter, Mrs. B. F. Clifton, said that on one occasion, just after dark, they heard a peculiar rattle of the sheep bell and her father going out with his gun, discovered a bear going up the hill carrying the bell ewe in his arms. He shot the bear, but the sheep had been killed. She also relates that on one oc- casion when a girl, she, with one of her sisters, was out gathering ginseng, and they heard a sound on the opposite hillside, as they thought, calling. This frightened the children so much that they made no reply, but the noise kept up for some time. When they went home and related it to their father, the old hunter told them it was a panther, and that they had been in great danger.
After she married and settled near Erbacon, she said that she went out to hunt the eow late one evening, and was in her bare feet. She stepped on a log and heard a rattlesnake. Presenty they began to whiz all around her, and she was afraid to move, fearing she might jump on one. She began ealling for her husband, and eoming with his gun, he shot and killed six rattlesnakes and three copperheads. The log on which she was standing had fallen down, and the roots had thrown up considerable dirt. Nearby was a flag rock, under which the snakes had their den, and they had worn the ground smooth to the fallen tree. She said the following season, they went back to the same log and killed three rattlesnakes and six copperheads, and for several seasons afterwards they killed two or three at the same place before they exterminatd them.
She relates that her father, one of her brothers and some other party, found a nest of young panthers, the old ones being away hunting food for their young, as they supposed. They killed the kittens, and not willing to risk a battle with sueh ferocious animals as they would have encountered on such an occasion, left the place.
252
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
Mrs. Clifton says her father preferred bear meat above all other kinds. Venison was his next choice. It is the general concensus of opinion among old hunters, that there is nothing equal to bear meat, and next to bear meat and venison is raccoon which is very similar to the bear meat, and was held in great favor by the early inhabitants. Many ineidents and adventures might be re- lated of this old pioneer hunter.
It is said that within the war of 1812, Solomon Carpenter, Joseph Friend and another man, went hunting and on Sugar creek they killed thirty-threc bears in ten days. The meat was all destroyed except what they ate in camp. It is not related what they did with the hides nor how they got them to market.
A bear at its birth is the smallest animal according to the size of the animal when grown. Solomon Carpenter said that a young bear when born is about the size of a grown mouse, and that the mother has two teats and holds her young to her breast with her paws. Two are about the usual number of cubs at a birth. A panther is said to give birth to three or four kittens.
Jeremiah Gillespie relates that he at one time killed an opossum that had thirteen young hanging to the breast, each being no larger than a grain of corn. They were protected by a false receptacle that folded over them, forming a kind of pocket. This was lined with the finest fur, but at what time or size these anomalous creatures are disconnected from the breast is not stated.
THE WILD PIGEON.
The wild pigeon, a bird that was once as numerous as the stars, went in flocks. Their visitations to this country occurred in the autumn while the forests were yet standing, therefore they found an abundance of mast of some kind every season. The white oak and beechnuts were the favorite masts of all animals and fowls as late as forty years ago. We have seen flocks of pigeons that covered the horizon and darkened the sun. Often when flocks were passing over, the front of the flock would pass out of sight before the last of the vast number would come in view. They were harmless, and never interrupted crops, their search being for mast. Nature seemed to have endowed them with a knowledge of the abundance of the forests. Often the timber would bend be- neath its load. After the domestic and wild animals and birds would feast and fatten during the autumn and winter months, the ground would yet be cov- ered. In contemplating the vast number of animals and fowls that inhabited the country, as well as the untold numbers which annually visited it, and then to consider the wonderful provisions which Nature made to feed them with a store- house bursting and to waste, we are transported in amazement to the thought that kind Providence not only makes abundant provision for its ereatures, but creates them with wisdom which will enable them to search it out. The same knowledge that apprises the wild goose that winter has come, or that spring has opened up, is proof that every thing is destined to labor in some form or in some degree to obtain its food.
The habit of the wild pigeon was to colleet in great numbers to roost. The
253
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
roosting plaees were in the forest, and often covered several hundred aeres of ground. Persons who have visited the pigeon roosts say they are never quiet ; that limbs of trees are constantly beraking, and often whole trees are erushed to the ground with the weight of the birds. It was dangerous to go under the roosts on account of the falling timber. When a limb would break or a tree fall, thousands of pigeons would beeome dislodged and flutter around, thus disturb- ing others, and the roost would be in movement all night. Parties have been known to visit the roosts and gather sackloads of pigeons. The meat of the wild pigeon is of a poor quality. They were often cooked and made into "pot pie," and greatly relished by the natives.
There was a pigeon roost on the mountain between the Little and Big Birch rivers. How many seasons they oeeupied that loeality, we have no definite knowl- edge, but the land became very fertile. There was another roost on a branch of Fall run, in Braxton, now ealled Pigeon Roost. There was onee a very famous roost near Harpers Ferry in Maryland.
Since writing the above the author saw two wild pigeons in the hollow be- tween Laurel fork and the Camden hill, in the fall of 1917.
THE GREAT CROW ROOST.
Doubtless it will be remembered by every old soldier who tramped through the Valley of Virginia in the 60's, the numerous floeks of crows that could be seen in almost every field and around every eamp. We supposed at the time, that the large body of troops in the Valley and the great number of horses had a tendency to concentrate the crows along the highways and about the eamps, but since living here, and after frequent visits through the country, we find that the erow is here also in endless numbers, and that they have a habit of going to a partieular place to roost.
The Valley of Virginia and the Cumberland Valley which is only a eon- tinuation of the valley on the Cumberland side of the Potomae, lies between the Blue Ridge and the North mountain, and averages about twenty or twenty-five miles in width and extends from beyond Lexington, Virginia, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There is a peculiar formation here. The valley is a limestone country, but about five miles from the North mountain and running parallel with that and the Blue Ridge, is what is known as the Pine Hills, a strip of Slate Strata, generally broken by steep gullies and abrupt bluffs, and densely covered with small cedar and pine-this strip being from two to three miles wide. The land is very poor, but much more easily cultivated than the lime- stone land. These woods furnish an admirable place of shelter for small game and birds, and it is to these woods and similar woodland on the Blue Ridge that the crows gather in numbers that eannot be estimated with any degree of aeeu- racy. I have often observed the crows going in the direction of the Blue Ridge from here and the North mountain, especially in the winter time. About five o'clock in the evening, it is not unusual to see droves or floeks extending from beyond the North mountain to Martinsburg, a distance of five miles or more.
254
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
At one time, the writer was coming from Kearneysville, a small town in Jeff- erson eounty,-deriving its name from General Kearney of Revolutionary fame, who settled near there after the elose of the war with Great Britain. After we had erossed the Opequan, we saw nearly a mile ahead, a column of erows flying across the road. We drove leisurely along, and coming nearer, we could see the column which resembled a black eloud as far as the eye eould extend up the valley, sweeping down in the direction of the Potomae. As we came direetly under the column,-it was on a little ridge, they were flying very low,-their numbers were so great that the heavens seemed darkened. Observing them for a time from this point, we drove on perhaps three-quarters of a mile, and dis- eovered that they were alighting, and as we supposed, going to roost. The left of the column was resting in a field by the roadside. They were standing as elose together as they could be paeked, and every bush, tree, shrub and fence was literally eovered. The timber beyond the fields was covered so that not a limb or braneh could be seen. We could hear their caws and the rumbling noise for miles beyond. It was then beeoming dark, and the unbroken eolumn could be seen eoming in. Just then a lady and gentleman drove up, and the writer asked them whether they knew who fed all those erows, and they said the farmers did. The gentleman said that they were not going into eamp then, but would continue to come in until nine or ten o'clock then move on in see- tions to their regular roost which was beyond the river near Harpers Ferry. We subsequently learned that their roost was on the west side of the Blue Ridge, beginning near Maryland Heights and extending up the ridge, a distanee of more than eight miles.
From information obtained through two old citizens living near here, Mr. Derry and Mr. Grub, we learned that the same roost, now occupied by the crows was, in an early day, and up until the Civil war, a great pigeon roost. The older citizens ean remember the vast and nnnumbered legions of North American pig- eons which onee swept over this eountry periodically, but within the war a por- tion of this land was cleaned of the large timber, and the operations of the army that oeeupied Maryland Heights drove the pigeons away, and after the growth of the underbrush the erows took possession. It was a great resort for sportsmen who eame from Washington, Baltimore and other cities to bag the pigeons in the roost. These noble birds of the wing, however, have almost disap- peared and while they were not first elass or a delicious fowl, we remember enjoying some elegant pigeon "pot-pies."
We learn that the crows caine from the Loudin Valley to the roost in great numbers, crossing the Blue Ridge over Loudin Heights. Other columns swept in from the direction of Gettysburg and Frederick. One can imagine the num- bers only in millions as they came in from four states to this nightly rendezvous.
The habits of the erows are like domestic fowls. They have their time to start to roost; hence if those that are near the roost early in the evening and others continue to come for three hours or more. it indicates the fact that they have been on the wing that length of time, and represent a distance traveled of
255
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
over two hundred miles. Why they lose from five to six hours daily in travel is a mystery, but that they have some kind of government in arranging to enter the roost is known by everyone at all familiar with the crow. It is also a well known fact that they place a watch on picket to give an alarm of danger while they are feeding. It is said by those who have visited the roost at night that each crow seems to be chatting to his nearest neighbor incessantly from the time they enter camp until nature sounds the reveille in the morning. It is also said that the hum and roar of the blending, perhaps of ten or twenty million voices, is deafening and heart rending.
The same wisdom that guides the wild horse when he appoints his leader, or the wild goose that leaves the northern lakes on the approach of winter or the rice fields of the South when the last storm breaks in springtime and flies with such perfect directness by the North Star, guides the crow in his great gathering to the roost.
THE WILD GOOSE.
The wild goose, which was once so plentiful, was the surest barometer we had. They warned the early settlers of the certain approach of winter, and bore the glad news of the coming springtime. Of late years, the wild goose is not so plentiful. A flock of them could be heard a long distance, and usually flew above the tops of the highest hills. Their alignment while in flight was in the shape of the letter V, the leader going in front with the two wings ex- tending back, and their "honk, honk" that rang out in the stillness of the clear night was an inspiring song.
The wild geese hatch their young on the northern lakes, and just before winter sets in they migrate south to enjoy their winter home 'mid the rice fields and swamps of that sunny region. Why this pilgrim of aerial flight for many thousand generations, has crossed the continent and cheated the frozen north and the burning south of the severity of their climates is beyond the knowledge of man. Occasionally they would become stranded by winds and thunder storms, and often when the night was dark they could be attracted to the earth by the use of lights. In this way they were sometimes caught, but seldom were domesticated. It would be necessary to have their wings cropped in the spring and autumn to prevent them from soaring for their native clime. About fifty years ago there was a wheat grown in the country known as the "wild goose wheat." It had been obtained from the craw of a goose, gathered from some distant field.
The wild goose is a beautiful bird, and is said to exist in countless millions in its favorite resorts. William Cullen Bryant wrote the following beautiful lines on "The Wild Goose :"
256
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
Thou art gone; the abyss of heaven Hast swallowed up they form, but on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.
He, who from zone to zone Guides through the boundless sky thy eertain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.
An inspiring sentiment, this.
ELK RIVER FISH.
The Elk river was as famous for the great abundance and fine quality of its fish as for its pure waters. We have heard it said by the old settlers that it was not difficult to kill the very finest redhorse in the shoals with a slunge pole. They went in great schools, making the water flutter by their move- ments as they passed through the shallow ehan- nels. In the fall season, the redhorse, bass, pike, sueker, catfish, buffalo, carp and all fish native to these waters would stay motionless while sunning WM. WOLFORD AND HIS ASSISTANTS Taking fish out of the Elk River themselves, and could be seen in great numbers. All the branches of the Elk of any considerable size, were famous for the number and quality of the fish which inhabited these streams. The Little Kanawha river and its tributaries were noted for pike and eatfish. One of the principal ways of eatehing fish in an early day was by means of traps, some being made with wooden slats, funnel-shaped. Others were often made of hickory bark, and later netting was stretehed over a frame, having an entrance the shape of a funnel. One of the most sueeessful ways of catehing fish is with the gill net; but the most common way, outside the angling rod, is with a troutline. It is great sport to run a troutline and take off a few large redhorse or catfish. As late as 1870, Griffin Gillespie found a large school of fish near his mill on the Elk river, and killed and salted down two barrels of fine fish. Others have killed great numbers by driving them from the eddies into shoals, aeross which temporary rock dams had been built. Perhaps the greatest sport is fishing with the gig, but this is now
257
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
prohibited by law, as is also the use of the gill net. A skillful gigger can strike a fish darting through the water one or two rods away. The late Sena- tor Johnson N. Camden spent much of his time when a young man, fishing on the Elk. Henry A. Baxter related that he and Johnson N. Camden were fishing one day, and they caught a large fish that had mulberries in its stomach.
To speak of the skill and prowess of all the fishermen on the Elk, Birch and Little Kanawha rivers and their tributaries, would fill a volume. Some of the most noted fishermen of Braxton county-men who knew more about the life and habits of fish and wild animals are, in our opinion the aged and venerable William Carpenter, Thomas Cogar and James HI. Facemire. There is a fascination about fishing which is not confined to the boy with the fishing rod and a red worm, but to the aged as well. We have seen old men tottering along the sterams with hook and line, manifesting as much eagerness and ani- mation as a boy with a minnow hook starting out on his Saturday evening vaeation.
Turkey buzzards, which used to be plentiful in central West Virginia, are : 15 becoming almost extinct. We have observed them in great flocks surrounding some dead animal, The buzzard is a native of a warm elimate and is seldont seen as far north as West Virginia in the winter season. When the wild geese fly in the spring and the turkey buzzard is seen, it is a sure sign that spring has come. Of recent years the buzzards have rarely made their appearanec in this locality. A few years ago and for several years prior, it is related that every spring, one or more buzzards had a hatching place in a eliff of rocks on the headwaters of Cedar creek on the lands of Jacob Shaver, and that they lay but one egg and hatch one chick. Young buzzards, until they become almost grown, are said to be as white as goslings. For many years a few buz- bards have nested and hatched their young in the cliffs at the Basin Rocks. They are very numerous in the South and are conservators of health.
On the Jacob Shaver farm there was at one time a den of poison snakes in a ledge of rocks. The snakes are very hard to dislodge from these dens, but as the lands are cleared out and the country becomes more thickly settled the poisonous snakes to a great extent disappear. Snake dens were at one time very common in the mountainous regions of this country. It is related that on a mountain farm in Pendleton county which seems to be their habitat, there is a den of rattlesnakes which in dry seasons come off the mountain to get water. Within one season one of the family-a little boy-who lived near there killed nineteen snakes near the spring. How remarkable that so few people are bitten by these poisonous reptiles. It is related by woodsmen that poisonous snakes are never found in laurel thickets.
It is said that prior to the settlement west of the Blue Ridge there were no crows or humming-birds in that. region.
Many years ago, Jake Dean discovered a large black snake in a clearing near High Knob, where some men were at work, and he told them that tobacco was a deadly poison to snakes, whereupon he took a chew of tobacco out of his
258
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
mouth, and put it in the snake'smouth. The snake was turned loose, and it died in about an hour. What would the edor of a cigarette do to a den of snakes ?
PETRIFIED SNAKE.
A petrified snake, supposed to be a rattler, was taken from his solitary abode, by some lumberman, who in order to remove a heavy stone blew it apart by dynamite and found the petrified snake embedded in the sandstone rock, on the banks of the Gauley river. This once dreaded monster of the forest with his poisonous fangs and dreadful bite inhabited the gorgeous mountains of West Virginia, whether it was one thousand or ten thousand years ago, we know not. He may have drunken from the famous salt sulphur on the beautiful Elk and then followed the Buffalo trail across the Miller mountain, to the banks of the rigid Gauley. where he seems to have shuffled off his mortal coil. How this reptile met his death, ive could not even conjecture. Whether by reason of age or in deadly combat with an enemy will never be known. He may have been disputing the possession of the forest by the red men before that gallant band of patriots led by General Lewis camped at the mouth of the river on whose banks his snakeship perished and turned to stone.
The rattlesnake is lubberly in his movements. The female has a beautiful yellowish skin, the males are darker in color, sometimes entirely black. Their flesh is white and tender, and is said to be delicious when cooked. The rattler coils himself up when he prepares for battle. His head which is in the center of the coil is raised a few inches, his tail upon which the rattles are attached - is slightly elevated to give it force and unobstructed motion. This musical out- fit and danger signal called rattles, is peculiarly formed; the first year a button forms on the tip of the tail, then each year a little cupshaped scale slightly oblong, is attached to it, one cup fitting into the other, fastened together in the center by a little ligament, like beads strung together. These cups are about the consistency of fish scales. By the number of rattles, the age of the snake can be determined, to a certain number of years at least.
His teeth or fangs are two in number situated on the upper jaw. being cir- cular in shape not unlike in size and appearance to a cat's claw. At the root of each fang is a little sack of poison that is transmitted through a small cavity of the tooth. When the snake is feeding or not in action, these fangs fold down like the blade of a knife. When the rattler is captured and kept on exhibition, as a matter of precaution, his fangs are extracted, but one would think that most any dentist of ordinary skill could treat and fill the teeth and render the snake entirely harmless, if it had patience and endurance to withstand the oper- ation. The rattlesnake has many enemies ,and among his own species the black- snake perhaps is the most persistent and deadly. Being much quicker and more active, he seizes the rattler by the back of the neck with a motion too quick to be observed by the natural eye, and in his effort to free himself the rattler straightens himself out, while his antagonist with one quick motion coils around and instantly crushes out the life of his enemy.
259
SUTTON'S HISTORY.
The wild deer loses no opportunity to attack the rattler. He stands off a few paces, and with all his agility, gives a wild leap in the air, then placing all four of his feet together he strikes. The snake whirls, and the deer repeats the attack until with his long sharp hoofs, the snake is cut in pieces. Woods fire is the greatest destroyer of the rattlesnake. In the Spring and Fall when the for- est burns, a blacksnake will flee from a burning woods with the rapidity of an arrow, while the rattler will give warning of danger, square himself for battle and fight the flames until he perishes in their embrace. This terror of the for- est is disinclined to bite unless he is first assailed, hence the motto, "Don't tread on me." The warning which he gives when he is approached often leads to his discovery and death.
This petrified lump of sand was once a living, creeping reptile; it may have lived and propagated its species on the beautiful grassy plateau known as Stroud's Glades, before the bold adventurer, Stroud, the first white settler of the Glades was slain by the Indians. Or it may have been in the dim vista of the past, even before the days of the Pharoah; or even before the sand period, perhaps, that he reveled amid the ferns that grew in the valleys that are now incased in the coal seams that underlay our mountains. Some of his family may have pushed their way from the mountains of the Gauly to the western plains as the waters receded, and an unknown sea became dry, where the species be- came dwarfed, but almost as numerous as the great Buffalo herds that onee shook the earth with their mighty tread. But notwithstanding the cycle of years that may have elapsed or however distant and remote the blood relation- ship, the same characteristics are retained, the same golden yellow skin and deadly fangs, the sacks of poison at their roots more deadly than the Lyadite thunder of the Japanese, the same alarm of danger is given by a quiver of the tail that sets the rattles in motion, a noise that has a terror for every living crea- ture that inhabits the forests. No other sound is so alarming, no other challenge to mortal combat so terrorizing, no jargon combination or harmony of sounds, no burr or whiz of any instrument, though it be of a thousand parts or ten thous .. and vibrations, can in the least, imitate the rattler of the forest, when aroused to danger on his native heath.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.