USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 28
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Ask not of this crumbling sand Its age or native land. Mystie ages time unknown, Changed this creeping flesh to stone.
THE POWER OF ANIMALS TO REASON.
That the horse and dog are endowed with more knowledge than we some- times think, has very often been demonstrated through unmistaken instances. Occurences coming under our personal observation, lead us often to wonder what opinoin is formed in the mind of the horse or the dog toward a master who is cruel or a task that is unjust.
At the Hannis Distillery Company at Martinsburg, there was much hauling
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to be done on a cart. They had a very fine brown mare, well bred and very spirited, and it was with much difficulty that they broke her to the cart, but she became tractable, and did service there for nearly or quite twenty years. They called her "Nelly," and Nelly knew just where to back her cart up at the stone quarry or cinder pile; she knew as well and better than many of the drivers where every saloon was in the city, and where to turn around and back her cargo of whiskey at the cellar door of the saloon. We knew Nelly on one occasion when she had a shoe off, and the barnlot gate happened to be left open, she walked up the alley and turned the corner, going out the street to the black- smith shop where she walked in and turned around. The blacksmith who did the work for the distillery and had often shod Nelly, saw what the trouble was, and drove on a shoe after which this faithful old animal walked back to the barn- lot, and the blacksmith charged the bill to the company.
We knew a dog in the same town that was noted for his understanding of things. He was a well bred cur, rather large, yellow in color with some white on him. Before he was fully grown, he had one of his front legs cut off by a train. We cannot, after this lapse of time, recall his name, but he was known by everybody in the town. He was peaccable, and visited every public place .- the saloons and meat shops being his principal loafing places. He hecamne, it seemed, by common consent a ventable privileged sojourner wherever he chose to go. The railroad men learned to know him, and he was known on several occasions to hop upon the Cumberland Valley train and go up to Win- chester, stay a few days, and on coming back to his old home again, seemed to enjoy seeing his friends and visiting his loafing places.
He was a veritable tramp, and we have no doubt he gathered a great many facts in reference to many things and could he have had the power of express- ing himself, many very interesting tales might have been told. Many facts were related concerning this dog which seemed to show him to be possessed with almost human wisdom. What reasoning power could have possessed that dog's mind when he decided to take a trip to Winchester or when he became ready and concluded to return ? Another case showing the power of a dog to reason, came under our observation quite recently while getting some work done at Mr. Rollin's blacksmith shop at Erbacon. It was a cold stormy day, and while we were at work, a small dog with long shaggy hair come into the shop, dripping wet and shivering with cold. He had swam Laurel creek. He got npon the hearth by the forge, and lay down. We said something about the dog, and the blacksmith said it was his dog, and that he always lay upon the forge by the fire. Presently the smith quit blowing the bellows and went out in the front to shoe a horse, and very shortly the heat died down, when the dog got up and began to put coal on the fire. He did it by shoving the coal and cinders up with his nose. He worked up a nice little pile of coal on the fire, then lay down again. His master said he would often rake up coal on the fire when it would burn down low. If it should be contended that the dog did not put fuel on the fire, by any process of reasoning of the mind, he showed more industry than many
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people. I have known some persons who would sit by a stove and freeze before they would offer to build a fire.
Many instances have been pointed out proving conclusively that many ani- mals have reasoning faculties approaching almost that of man. Animals are capable of showing their affection to those who treat them with kindness, and their hatred to all who may have treated them harshly.
LARGE AND WONDERFUL TREES.
On Old Lick run of Holly, Webster county, it is related there was a mam- moth poplar tree that measured thirty-three feet in circumference. The Curtin and Pardee Company cut two logs twelve feet long, and they had a special saw made to cut them. They then split the logs and sawed them at their mill on Old Lick run.
J. R. Huffman cut on the same land a walnut that measured seven feet in diameter. On this land grew, beyond any doubt, the largest timber that the mountains of West Virginia ever produced.
Above Webster Court House, Ben Conrad cut for the Woodruff Lumber Company some poplar logs that measured in diameter eight feet. These logs he cut eight feet long, and thought the high water would take them out, but they lodged along the river and decayed on its shores.
The remarkable preservation of timber under water was witnessed by a hickory tree that Adam Gillespie put in the mill dam at the old Gillespie mill. This log was put in the dam several years before the. Civil war, and was taken out by James P. Gillespie forty years after it had been placed there. While the under side of the log had turned dark, the wood was remarkably solid. They sawed it up, and used part of it for making cogs for the machinery. When it became dry, it was almost as hard as iron.
On Laurel creek, just above Custis' siding, it is said that some one about sixty years ago grafted a cedar in the top of a pine. The tree now appears to be about fifty or sixty feet tall, and the bushy cedar top is perhaps twelve or fifteen feet high. It makes a very striking appearance, and is often pointed out to travellers on the train. The tree stands in a little bottom near the creek bank, and about a hundred feet to the right of the railroad. Whether this ce- dar was grafted in the pine or whether there might have been a break in the pine tree and an accumulation of dirt from which the seeds of the cedar took root, and in some way united with the tree, is unknown. It may be that the pine was broken off and sprouts came out thick around the broken trunk giving the appearance of a cedar. A similar tree stands on a creek in Monroe county.
Some very large poplar and walnut timber grew on the Elk river and its tributaries, much of it being too large to be handled in the ordinary way.
There is a poplar tree of mammoth proportions, described by Captain G. F. Taylor, standing on a branch of the Birch river. This tree shows great age.
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It was a place where the bears hibernated in winter and much of its bark was worn and carved by their claws.
An elm standing on the banks of the West Fork river, in Marion county, near the Harrison county line, shows great age. This giant of the forest, was standing perhaps centuries before the trees surrounding it had shot forth their branches in the sunlight. Deep and wide must this mammoth tree have pene- trated the rich, moist soil of the valley with its tap roots, for a careful and ex- act measurement discloses its girth three feet above the surface to be twenty- seven feet in diameter, resembling in the distance a huge smokestack. It was awarded a prize at Philadelphia as being the largest tree of its kind in the United States. When the traction company surveyed its route from Clarks- burg to Fairmont this huge monster stood directly in its pathway, but the citi- zens interferred and asked to have it spared, that it might continue to stand as a monument of its own greatness. It had not only sheltered many generations of the white settlers of the valley but doubtless many tribes of the red men, and possibly the Mound Builders may have sheltered under its branches. A story of rare beauty has been written by Granville Davisson Hall, entitled "Daughter of the Elm.". This book has gone through three cditions. In the immediate neighborhood of the elm, lived a disorderly gang of bandits who, prior to the Civil war terrorized the surrounding country. They maintained a relay of horse thieves extending from their haunts in the Monongahela valley, to distant markets. Several murders were traced to their dens of vice. Under this tree was a place of meeting where many schemes were concocted. The lowly and elite of the neighborhood often strolled and talked of love-undying love beneath the branches of the great elm.
The largest apple tree perhaps in the state, is standing on the farm of John Fisher, on the head waters of the Westfall fork of Cedar creek. This tree was planted by Jacob Westfall, early in the nineteenth century. The tree stands on a hillside facing the northeast, and is situated on a plateau that appears to have been a slip many centuries ago. The land is very fertile and moist. being mixed with stone and gravel.
The body of the trec, six feet from the ground, measures twelve feet in circumference, and eight feet above the surface the tree divides into three branches. One of the branches is twenty-six inches in diameter and extends five feet from main body. One of the other branches is twenty inches in diame- ter, and divides into three parts, seven feet above the main body, while the third branch is twenty-four inches in diameter and divides five feet above the main body, into three parts. One of these branches occupies the center of the tree, and the apples from the topmost limbs hang from forty to forty-five feet above ground. The space covered by the tree is thirty-eight feet in diameter.
It bears a yellow apple, medium size, and very acid. The tree is in a healthy condition, and under favorable conditions, may live the greater part of another century.
The finest field of corn that ever came under our observation was grown on
V
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Steer creek during the summer of 1916, at Mr. Fetty's, on a bottom near his house. The corn was of the silage variety, very thick on the land, and some of the stalks were eighteen feet in height by measurement. Benj. Huffman related that his father-in-law, Jacob Stump, raised a field of corn at the mouth of Crooked fork of Steer creek, when he first cleared the land, that excelled anything he had ever known. He said that they measured one stalk which was twenty-two feet in length.
Kerchival speaks of a very large sugar tree on the waters of the South Branch that measures about four feet in diameter, and from the sap of this tree, its owner made in one season, over fifty pounds of sugar.
On the Abel Lough farm, near the mouth of Little Otter, stood a white oak tree from which five hundred rails were made. On Bealls run of Granny's creek William Wyatt cut a white oak tree that made over five hundred rails. Out of the main body of the tree, he made four hundred and fifty rails. The tree forked in almost equal parts about fifty feet from the ground. These forks were two feet in diameter and made sixty rails. The tree was brash and the rails were made unusually large. Ordinarily the tree would have made over six hundred fence rails.
E. L. Boggs cut a poplar tree which stood on Upper Rock Camp into lum- ber, that made fifteen thousand eight hundred feet, board measure. The first log measured in diameter eight feet. Mr. Boggs was offered by Mr. Gowing, who had a veneer mill at Burnsville, sixty dollars per thousand for the choice logs. A poplar tree similar in size to this one grew on O'Briens creek in Clay county, but the parties who cut the tree failed to get the logs to the river and they laid on the creek bank until they were damaged. Near where this tree stood there was a sassafras two fect in diameter and twenty-four feet to the first limbs.
METEOROLOGY.
It might be of interest to some to recall from tradition the fact that the snow in 1831 between the Alleghanies and the Ohio river, an elevation of 1,000 feet, accummulated to the depth of 36 inches, and in 1856 and 1880, the snow was still deeper.
The summer of 1838 and 1854 were almost rainless west of the mountains. In the same region in 1854, snow fell 4 inches deep on the 15th of May, and on June 5, 1859, a frost killed almost every thing grown in the northern and central part of the state.
The night of November 13th, 1833, the stars fell. In 1816 it frosted every month in the year.
In the summer of 1838, there occurred one of the greatest drouths that was ever known in the central part of the state. There was scarcely anything raised, corn in many places grew only knee-high. It was said that fish died in the Elk river, and one remarkable thing afterward discovered was, that the timber
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made no growth that season, only a slight trace of growth being shown. There was no rainfall from late Spring until Fall. Snow in November marked the close of the dry season.
On April 29, 1850, there was an earthquake in this section and on May 2, 1853, there was an earthquake in this country that shook the earth and caused considerable alarm. It scared the animals, and the teams that were plowing in the fields, became frightened. There were some women washing wool on the flat rock above the falls at the Adam ITyer farm at Boling Green who said that the rock seemed to raise up a foot or more. Aaron Facemire who lived in a small house at the mouth of Bee run, had the chimney of his house shaken down. We have no account of any other earthquake in this part of the country so severe as this one.
Early in the 50's, there was a comet passed over the country. It was travel- ling, as we now remember, about northwest. We arrive at this course by cer- tain boundary lines of the farm. About the middle of the forenoon, we were with our father about half way up the bottom near the pike, and the meteor passed directly over us. It seemed to be about twenty or thirty feet long, a bright blazing ball with the appearance of a tail. It made a rushing noise as it flew through the air. It seemed to be near the tree-tops as it passed over the Cedar creek mountain near where the Sunrise church now stands. Jantes Mollo- han saw it as it passed near the Mollohan mill on the Holly. It passed directly over the farm of J. W. Morrison, and was seen by him and his family, and seemed to be near the tree-tops. It was thought by some that it hurst or came to the ground somewhere on Cedar creek. but nothing authentic was ever learned concerning it.
While John G. and James Morrison, Jr., were plowing for oats on the Wyatt place, about the year 1850, there came up a wonderful hail storm. John Wyatt lived on the place at that time. It is related that hail stones as large as goose eggs fell. They whipped the limbs from the fruit trees and much of the bark from the limbs, killed all the chickens which could not find shelter, and a num- ber of sheep. It is said that never in the history of the country has there been such a hail storm. Mrs. Wyatt thought the world was coming to an end, and shouted and praised God that her deliverance from the world and its cares was at hand.
In 1859, there was a cold wave on the night of the 4th of June. The tem- perature fell and on the morning of the 5th there was quite a freeze. The corn was bitten down to the ground. Many people furrowed their corn land out and replanted. Others took shears and cut the stalks close to the ground, and others left the corn standing, but it all came on in good time, nature having repaired the damage. Where the corn had not formed joints it was but slightly injured. The wheat crop suffered worst. It had jointed and the freeze was destructive to it. Garden vegetables were partly destroyed. Possibly the coldest weather during the summer months since that time was on the 23rd day of August, 1915. In Flatwoods, the temperature fell to about 38 degrees, and for a day and a night it was too cold to be comfortable. It is said that in some parts of
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the Northwest, quite a snow storm prevailed. At Elkins, W. Va., there was considerable frost, and in several other sections of the country frost was re- ported. On the nights of the 5th aud 6th of July the temperature fell as low as 40 degrees. Persons returning to the country from the Chautauqua at Sut- ton had to use wraps and overcoats to be comfortable. On the 19th and 20th of August the temperature fell to 48 degrees, having been 90 degrees 10 days previous. August 29th the mercury stood at 52 degrees. On the 28th snow fell at Terra Alta.
About 1870 the mercury fell as low as 30 degrees at Sutton, 28 degrees at the writer's home, and as low as 26 degrees in many other places in the cen- tral part of the state.
The next very cold time was about twelve years later. We were in Clay county, buying sheep, and at George Hickman's place on Willson ridge, the cold and wind were so intense that the wind blew a portion of the chimney down, the smoke and fire nearly driving the family out of the house. That evening, we went down on Strange creek, and stayed at a Mr. Duffield's home. There were two or three comfortable beds in the large room of the house where we all slept, but the cold was so intense the next morning that we eould scarcely en -. dure it. That afternoon, we drove our sheep down to the river at the mouth of Strange creek, and the river had frozen over so solidly the previous night that we crossed them over on the ice.
In the year 1886, there came a great flood that washed out the timber booms of the Elk, the Gauly, the Greenbrier and the Coal rivers, and many thousand logs were washed away and lost. Timber thieves on the large streams had a great harvest. Their method was to conceal and change the marks and brands, then saw the logs before their owners came to claim their property.
In 1883, at the boom near the month of the Holly river, the ice was fifteen inches thick in the middle of March.
The winter of 1913-1914 was one that will long be remembered. The snow began falling and winter set in about the latter part of December, snow storms repeating themselves at short intervals until the latter part of March. There were only a few nights that the mercury fell as low as zero, but the snows were deep and the storms unusually severe, attended by high winds. In many places. snow was drifted over the fences, blocking the roads. The rural mail carriers at times were forced to turn back. In some places on the head of Granny's creek the snow drifted eight or ten feet deep. It is related that in 1842 about 8 o'clock one morning in December, it began snowing and the snow fell to the depth of three fect or more. It covered the rail fences and sheep were covered up in the fields. Farther up the streams toward the Alleghenies the snow was yet deeper. Wild animals perished. This snow, it is said, lay on the ground all winter. It was related by some hunters that in the spurs of the Alleghenies, the snow in places drifted to the tops of some of the timber, and on the crust of the snow deer would walk and browse from the twigs of the branches of the trees, and that many perished. The present winter, though very long and se- vere, has made no ice suitable for putting up, while several years ago iee froze
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on the Elk river twenty-two inches thick in places. Before the Civil war, John S. Sprigg, while hauling coal from the Bee Hill mines, went over the road on a steep bank a short distance above the mouth of Old Womans run with a four- horse team. The river was frozen over. His wagon and team went into the river, but the ice bore them up, and he drove down to the mouth of the run on the ice and there went on shore.
The season of 1915 was one of remarkable productiveness. The constant summer showers kept the earth moist and the sunshine brought forth a crop of vegetables such as the country had not witnessed or enjoyed for many years. Wheat, oats, rye, grass and hay were harvested in abundance. The potato crop excelled anything in quantity, central West Virginia has ever known. Corn went a little too much to fodder and shuck, but the crop was about an average one.
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The pleasant Fall months and mild weather up to Christmas marked the season of 1915 as one of ideal splendor, but the last part of the winter was marked by warm spells, followed by zero weather, then excessive rains, and in the months of February and March, much sickness prevailed, notably La Grippe and Pneumonia, followed by many deaths. April was very inclement, wet and cold. The farmers did not start their spring work until about May 10th.
On Wednesday, May 17, 1916, there was quite a wind and rain storm, the mercury fell rapidly, the day following was cool and clear, and the morning of the 19th there was a white frost. The damage to vegetation was slight however.
The cold May rains are caused, it is said, by the breaking up of the ice on the northern lakes, and this occurred later this season than any previous year within our memory. The cold rains and chilly weather continued until about June 20th, and many fields at that date had not been planted in corn.
While this climate is very changeable and subject to extremes in tempera- ture, yet we recall nothing in many years as severe as the cold spell of February 2, 4, and 5, 1917. On Friday, the 2nd, it became very cold with high wind, snow and frost flying in the air all day, making it so cold that only the sturdiest per- sons could venture out in safety. On the evening of the 4th, the temperature rose very rapidly, the sun shone out, and it became very pleasant for a few hours up to four o'clock P. M., and about an hour later it became cloudy, the snow began to fall from the northeast, the temperature fell rapidly, and in a few moments, we saw a storm coming from the west that darkened the earth. The houses began to creak and the metal roofs to clatter as the storm increased in fury. Every loose object. like leaves and sticks, was whirling with the snow in the air. It began to look dangerous like a tempest at sea. On the 5th and 6th, the mercury fell below zero, and with high wind, the cold was almost unbear- able. On the 6th, the rural mail failed to go out. This storm in our opinion was the most severe since New Year's, 1863.
The spring of 1917 continued cold and disagreeable, with high winds through April and May. May entered with a frost that damaged the gardens.
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Grass started late, in faet everything was backward due to the extremely cold weather which lasted until the 17th of June.
The winter of 1917 and '18 was the most severe ever known by our people. It began in November, after thirteen successive frosts, and the mercury fell at one time to 23 degrees below zero, at Sutton, Dec. 30th, at Erbacon 29, at Cowen, 30. The cold wave enveloped all sections. At Alderson, the thermome- ter registered from 22 to 26 below, and on the outlying hills, 36 below; at Pick- away 38; at Gap Mills several thermometers registered 38 below zero, and one 40 below. Wheeling reports 9 degrees, Huntington 14, and Charleston 13. Winter held on with great severity, one blizard after another, for several weeks. When the winter broke, we had some very heavy wind and rain storms, followed by high waters. It is said that the rise in the Little Kanawha River in March was greater than the unprecedented flood of 1861 ; in Elk, near Bealls Mills, it reached about the same mark. Its greatest heighth was about 10 o'clock P. M. At Sutton, the water stood ten inches deep in the court house and nearly all the buildings on Main Street and Skidmore Addition were flooded. The floods were followed by five or six heavy frosts in succession. Then the weather be- eame mild, and Easter Sunday, March 29th, was a most lovely day, bright sun- shine and balmy air, and full moon the 27th conspired to add to the loveliness of the season. The nights were brilliant, with a clear sky and fragrant breezes. On April 1st to 11th, we had a very disagrecable spell of weather. The snow fell to a depth of 6 inches, and 12 to 14 in Webster County.
On Monday and Tuesday, the 5th and 6th of August, 1918, the thermome- ter registered one hundred. At Sutton, Gassaway, Flatwoods and other points in the county the nights were almost unbearably hot. At 5 o'clock the evening of the 6th it was 95, in the shade of the buildings. -
NINE NATIONAL CAPITOLS.
The Capitol of the United States has been located at nine different places, namely :
Washington, D. C .; Baltimore and Annapolis, in Maryland; Trenton and Princeton, in New Jersey ; Philadelphia, Lancaster and York, in Pennsylvania, and New York City.
The first session of the Continental Congress was held in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, September 5, 1774. Thereafter the American Congress was for a long time something like the Philippine Congress while the latter was dodging the American troops-and for much the same reason. Fearing to remain in Philadelphia after the defeat on Long Island, Congress went to Baltimore and voted George Washington dictatorial power for six months. Congress returned to Philadelphia two months later, February 27, 1777. Laneaster and York got their sessions after the defeat of Brandywine, Congress again retreating.
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